7/12/24: Biden's "big boy" press conference, Mike Pillow wants White House job

David Pakman
President Joe Biden held a very high stakes press conference yesterday as part of the NATO summit. This was billed even by people on his team as a, quote, big boy press conference. Understand that the point of this press conference was to allay fears about his fitness for office, to appear not to be confused in the ways that he was in the June 27 debate. And we are going to review this press conference, and I am going to give you, as I always do, my completely frank and honest assessment. Increasingly, elements of my audience are furious with me because I won't denounce Biden and demand he step down or because I won't completely ignore the fact that there are concerns about Joe Biden's fitness. If I did either of those, I would be doing you a disservice. So I am going to tell you what I saw and tell you the good and the bad and the ugly. I'll tell you the ugly.

Within a 90 minutes period at the press conference, Biden referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris as vice President Trump, and he referred to president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. These were really bad moments in different ways. Here is Biden in the press conference referring to Kamala Harris as Trump. As you can see, I'm not hiding this from you, mister president.

Speaker B
Your political future has hung over the NATO summit a little bit this week. Speaker Pelosi made a point of suggesting that your decision on whether to stay in the race was still open. George Clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside. Reuters is reporting tonight that UAW leadership is concerned about your ability to win.

Joe Biden
UAW and just endorse me. But go ahead.

Speaker B
Thank you.

My question for you is, how are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay?

And separately, what concerns do you have about Vice President Harris ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?

Joe Biden
Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president.

Did I think she was not qualified to be president?

David Pakman
Okay, that's not good. It was a slip up. It's not good at all. We also saw secretaries Blinken, Austin, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan react to that. Blinken and Austin look concerned. Jake Sullivan sort of goes to grimace and then kind of catches himself.

Joe Biden
I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, but I think she was not qualified to be president. So let's start there.

David Pakman
Ok. Not a good moment at the end in the chaos where the people who didn't get called on try to yell questions up. Peter Alexander, explain to Biden you referred to Harris as Trump. Trump is now mocking you. How do you combat that?

This concludes, respectfully, earlier, you misspoke. In your opening answer, you referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. Right now, Donald Trump is using that to mock your age and your memory. How do you combat that criticism from tonight?

Joe Biden
Listen to him.

David Pakman
All right, so Biden's saying, if you're concerned about my age and fitness, simply listen to Trump. Ok, so that was probably the worst moment. About 90 minutes before the press conference, in a press conference with the ukrainian president, Zelensky, Biden referred to Zelensky as Putin, and he did immediately correct himself.

Joe Biden
And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.

President Putin.

He's gonna beat President Putin. President Zelensky.

I'm so focused on beating Putin. We gotta worry about it. Anyway, mister president, I'm better. You are. Hell.

David Pakman
Okay, so these were the worst moments from the two events.

We will get to the foreign policy in a moment. Joe Biden was asked about taking a cognitive test. Here was his answer about the question of health exams. And you said, you take a cognitive test every day in this job.

Are you open to taking another physical or test before the election, Governor Whitmer of Michigan, for instance, said it wouldn't hurt to take a test.

Joe Biden
Well, look, two things.

One, I've taken three significant and intense neurological exams by a neurologist.

In each case, it's recently, this February, and they say I'm in good shape. Okay. Although I do have a little problem with my left foot because it's not as sensitive because I broke my foot and didn't wear the boot.

But I'm good.

I'm tested every single day about my neurological capacity, the decisions I make every day.

You talk to my staff. All of you talk to my staff. Sometimes my staff talks a lot.

But the fact of the matter is, I don't think you have them telling you that all the major ideas we've undertaken haven't been, in part initiated by me. I remember when the staff and I said, I'm going to go to South Korea. We're going to get the chip.

What are you doing? I'm going to get Japan and Korea back together again after essentially having hostilities toward one another since the end of world War two.

I'm going to move and see that we can expand it. You know, the only thing age does is help you with it, creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention.

And so the point I'm making is I think it's important that I, if my, if the neurologist tells me he thinks I need another exam, and by the way, I've laid every bit of the record out, hidden a thing, you ought to ask Trump for his. Okay.

David Pakman
All right. So if a neurologist says he needs another test, he will take it. Sort of rambling a bit, but being clear that it's a question of what doctors recommend. Now, maybe the most important part substantively, as far as the campaign goes of the press conference, was when a reporter asked if you were shown data by your team that Kamala Harris polls better than you do against Trump, would you consider getting out? And he said, only if they came to me and said, you can't win. It's not just about Harris polling better, it's Biden being told he can't win.

Speaker D
Earlier explained, confidence in your vice president.

Joe Biden
Yes.

Speaker D
If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?

Joe Biden
No. Unless they came back and said, there's no way you can win me.

No one's saying that. No poll says that.

David Pakman
All right. So that was the official end, although some questions were shouted up after in terms of Biden demonstrating deep knowledge of issues and particularly the contrast with Trump. You know, we, I'll give you my, my full analysis in a moment. If we put aside the confusion and the speech difficulties when he was asked about the israeli palestinian conflict. It's a great example of how, particularly on foreign policy, but in general, Biden's deep knowledge of the issues trounces Trump, even if Biden doesn't express himself as confidently. Here's an example.

Speaker D
Asma Khalid with NPR.

I have two questions. Earlier, you spoke about the ceasefire plan between Israel and Hamas. We're now looking at ten months of war. And I'm curious if there's anything that you feel personally you wish you would have done differently over the course of the war. And then secondly, if I may, I wanted to ask you about your presidential campaign. I remember covering your campaign in 2020, and there was a moment where you refer to yourself as a, quote, bridge candidacy, a transition to a younger generation of leaders.

I want to understand what changed two things.

Joe Biden
Let's go back to when you talked about, would I have changed anything that's happening with Israel and the Palestinians and the palestinian movement.

The answer is, you recall from the very beginning, I immediately, I went to Israel, but I also got immediate contact with Assisi in Egypt. I met with the king of Jordan.

I met with most of the arab leaders to try to get a consensus going as to what had to be done to deal with getting more aid and food and medicine into the Gaza Strip.

And we pushed it really hard.

And Israel occasionally was less than cooperative. Number one, the israeli war cabinet. I've been dealing with Israel since Golda Meir. I saw some of the reporters around here come here all the time, have heard me say this. The last, first time I met with Golda Meir, I sat across from her on her desk, and her assistant was rabin sitting next to me. That's how far back I go. I know Israel well. I support Israel. But this war cabinet is one of the most conservative war cabinets in the history of Israel.

David Pakman
So listen, he went on and remembered the second part of our question and dealt with it in detail. So what's the bottom line here? The bottom line here is Joe Biden answers questions, whereas Trump doesn't. Joe Biden displays deep knowledge of the issues, particularly foreign policy, whereas Trump doesn't. He clearly knows so much and also has so much experience, but he struggles with the speaking. He struggles with the taking it from the brain and putting it into the mouth, and sometimes he gets confused. He rambled at times. None of these are good reasons to stay home or vote for Trump. So, as many of you know, the polling, to me, is a mixed bag as far as what makes sense. The polling doesn't account for the chaos of taking a candidate at this stage of the game game and replacing him.

But these are very different candidates insofar as no discussions of Hannibal Lecter, no discussions of shark battery electrocutions, no discussions of retribution and revenge against political opponents. You get the picture.

Did Biden do what he needed to do? The whole point of this press conference, did he prove what he needed to prove? If I'm honest, I think the answer is probably not.

If voters cared just about knowledge and experience, that press conference would have been a major win. The whole point of it was for Biden not to get confused, and he got confused.

The upside is, I don't think a whole bunch of people watch that thing. I mean, as far as a press conference goes, sure, there was an audience compared to the debate. You know, most Americans are not watching a presidential press conference of this sort. So is it going to be dispositive in any way in determining the path forward? I don't think so. Did Biden perform in the way we would have hoped. I also don't think so. I'd be lying to you if I said the answer was yes when I say to myself I'm going to have some choice on November 5 if that choice is Biden, Trump.

Biden demonstrates regularly the knowledge and also has the results from the first term that I'm obviously going to vote for the guy. He clearly is not at his peak. As far as the replacement, I don't know what's going to happen. He seems definitive that he's staying in, and we will see how that plays out in the next several weeks.

Speaking of cognitive decline, one of the biggest malpractices of corporate media has been that since June 27, it has been an obsession with Joe Biden's cognitive fitness.

But for four years, they have essentially ignored warning sign after warning sign about Donald Trump's cognitive fitness. And only in the few weeks leading up to June 27 did some corporate media outlets start to talk about Trump's cognitive state. I am sort of pleased in a way that a democratic congresswoman, Congresswoman Jayapal, was able to inject like bleach onto Fox News the topic of Trump's cognitive decline. It was brief.

It's a drop in the bucket, but I was still glad to see it.

Speaker D
Speaker one, do you think it's okay to have a president, though, where there's this open question about whether or not he's in cognitive decline?

David Pakman
Do you think it was okay to have President Trump in cognitive decline for.

Speaker D
His entire four years?

David Pakman
She's absolutely correct.

She's absolutely correct. It's too little, too late. It's been a corporate media malpractice. I've been doing everything I could to make that a corporate media story with very limited success.

There's another question for the reporter when she asks about Biden, which is, does she think, does Fox think, does Fox News audience think it's okay to vote for a convicted felon, civilly liable rapist as president for another four years? Do you think it's okay to have a civilly liable rapist, convicted felon, conman, liar for president?

This is one way you can answer the question. Another way is the way that Congresswoman Jayapal did it. I know it's very little. I know it's just a tiny little sliver against the fire hood, the fire hose of falsehoods, but it's at least something. And I was glad to see it on Fox News. Get the project 2025 white paper at david pakman.com. project 2025.

This is crazy, but you can now preorder my book. Also, it's not even supposed to be up and available yet, but my publisher has put it up on Amazon and the Apple bookstore and everywhere. I if you go to Amazon or any bookseller and search for David Pakman Echo machine, you can see that my forthcoming real big boy adult book is available for preorder, so you can start doing that. We'll do a bigger sort of drive for pre orders in the future, but it is available, some of you noticing it. You can check that out. Let's take a very quick break and we'll be back right after this.

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His name is Michael Bennett. He is not necessarily like a celebrity senator. He's not like a Bernie Sanders. But he has been a solid supporter of the president's policies for sure. And said to CNN's Caitlin Collins, Trump is on track for a landslide victory, as well as Republicans taking the Senate, keeping the House. This is a dark scenario. Is there substance to it, though? Well, let's listen to what Michael Bennett had to say.

Speaker D
Dana Bash reported that you, Senator John.

David Pakman
Tester and Senator Sherrod Brown all said during that lunche that you don't think President Biden can win in 2024. Is that true?

Michael Bennett
Well, it's true that I said that, and I did say that behind closed doors and you guys and others asked whether I had said it, and that is what I said. So I figured I should come here and say it publicly.

David Pakman
Why do you think he can't win in November?

Michael Bennett
I just think this race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country. Joe Biden was nine points up at this time. The last time he was running. Hillary Clinton was five points up. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a republican president has been up in this part of the campaign. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics.

It's a moral question about the future of our country. And I think it's critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again.

David Pakman
So, listen, there are a couple different things to talk about with regard to the facts, as Michael Bennett is presenting them. If the goal is to defeat Trump, I don't know. That coming out four months before the election after one bad debate performance, which Professor Alan Lichtman told us on Wednesday, has never made a difference in an election when the polling actually says, hey, it's Democrats who could take the House back from Republicans while keeping the Senate. I don't know that you help your party by doing this. Now, I'm not a Democrat. My goal here is I think Biden's better than Trump. I think Kamala Harris is better than Trump. I think Evan Newsom is better than Trump. If it's any of the three of them against Trump, I'm voting for them. And I think Trump's a danger and a disaster. I want to prevent Trump. I don't care about the Democratic Party. Michael Bennett, I guess maybe does because he's a Democrat. You're certainly not helping your party when the overwhelming majority of those in the party have come out and said, listen, until Biden says otherwise, he's the nominee. And predicting a landslide, that doesn't really seem to be based in fact. Now, let me address the possibility of landslides.

Could there be a republican landslide in November? There could be. No one serious is predicting it. I mean, I think it's important to consider the last red wave that was predicted failed. The last red wave saw Democrats grow control of the Senate rather than lose it. And yes, Democrats lost the House, but by quite a small margin. With George Santos's departure and some other failings, it's the slimmest of slim margins. Certainly wasn't a red wave. So right now, no one's predicting a red wave. When there was a red wave last predicted, it failed to materialize. Could there be a landslide victory for Trump? Yeah, there could be. There could be. Alan Lichtman's qualitative model suggests there isn't going to be one. If President Biden is the nominee. I don't know. It's, these are all predictive claims we have to do the election to see. But then there's the other side of this.

Could there be a landslide in which republicans lose everything. And the answer is absolutely. There could be. When it comes to the presidential election, President Biden won in 2020.

Since then, has had one of the most successful presidential terms in decades. Demented or not, Parkinson's or not, he's figured out a way to put the right people around him. And on the other hand, Trump, who lost bye 7 million votes in 2020 and obviously closer electorally, has only had bad things happen since then. What has Trump achieved positively since losing in 2020? Civilly liable sexual assault, rape definition. Met four indictments, 34 criminal convictions, inciting a riot. So we can talk about the possibility of landslides. I think it's a fine conversation to have. There could be a landslide for Trump. There could be a landslide for whoever is the democratic nominee. And as far as the House and Senate, I'm not seeing a single serious prediction of a red wave. So Michael Bennett can obviously say whatever he wants. I'm struggling to find the empirical basis for what he's saying. Let's go now from a Democrat to a Republican. Republican Congressman Greg Murphy appeared on sick, brown nosing Trump sycophant Maria Bartiromo's Fox News show, and he had the gall, the testicular fortitude, the audacity, to say that Biden's state right now, his state of being, is like when Hitler was in his bunker, which, of course, culminated in Hitler taking his own life and that of Eva Braun. That's the analogy that Murphy makes.

Listen to this.

And what would you say about the path of some of these disorders? I mean, is this something that can be stable for a long time and, you know, even, even though. Or does it progress worse?

Greg Murphy
Well, it's. Everybody's different with Parkinson's. Again, I'm not a Parkinson's physician, but I take care of older individuals. On his medicine list, there was not anything. Something called level Dopa were some of the other things that we see, but we don't know if the list is really being true of medications that are there to control symptoms. We don't see the cogwheeling that we saw with Hitler in his final days. That's what they have when they have this tremor. And so I just think we're being lied to.

David Pakman
There you go. It's sort of a. So you got to consider Hitler's condition in the bunker, but we're being lied to here. Listen, I've said it before, and I'll say it again if Biden has early stage Parkinson's, for which at this point, we don't have any proof, there was one doctor I think that showed up on NBC and said it sort of looks like very early stage Parkinson's.

Look up early stage and even second stage Parkinson's, and you will see that almost everyone with the earliest or the second earliest stage of Parkinson's can do just about everything that they were doing before.

Am I going to, I don't believe at this time that I have the evidence to say Biden has Parkinson's. And remember, they did Hillary Parkinson's, too. And that turned out to be false. But let's concede maybe Biden has early, early stage Parkinson's.

So what?

Look at what he's accomplished in his first term. Look at the fact that the alternative is a civilly liable rapist, convicted felon, anti democratic, authoritarian, fascist wannabe who said he'd be a dictator on day one.

I'm gonna go and vote for that or stay home or write in Jill Stein because Biden maybe has early stage Parkinson's. Now, again, if he does have it, it should be at some point made public by the White House.

But at this point, we don't have any evidence of that. The reason I'm talking about it in these terms is assume that what they are saying is true. It still doesn't change anything about who I would vote for in November. The question I have for you, and I hope you'll write in info at david Pakman.com and tell me, is if it turned out that your options are Trump, with everything we know to be true about him and Biden with first stage Parkinson's, then what?

Then who do you vote for? How does that change what you believe is best for the country? And by the way, now I'm, did I say Alzheimer's instead of Parkinson's? At some point during the segment? If I did, I've been meaning to talk about Parkinson's the entire time. Let me clarify that. And I'm now having one of those doubts where I'm like, did I misspeak during this? We're talking about first stage Parkinson's versus Trump. Does it make a difference to you in who you vote for? To me, it does not. I have a really wacky video from MyPillow CEO and founder Mike Lindell, known colloquially to our audience simply as pillow or Mike Pillow.

He says he hopes Trump will appoint him deputy secretary of homeland security.

Now, I know that this is whacked out crazy stuff, but there's something very real and very scary that we have to contend with here. Okay, here's pillow on news on Real America's Voice. He might do it this week. Mike Lindell, can you confirm, have you been asked by President Trump, Trump to be his running mate on the ticket for 2024?

Mike Lindell
No, I haven't.

I have not been asked, you guys, and, and I will tell you this, if he asked me to do anything, I'm hoping it's when we get this, when he gets in that he puts me in charge of the elections and where we can get, get our election platforms completely fixed.

Michael Bennett
I like that.

Mike Lindell
I think the election Bureau should be, which I have already set up, should be part of Homeland security, Jack, so that we, because, remember, our government deemed our elections critical infrastructure. And so that's what I hoped that he would do, would have a place for me there, because in the last.

David Pakman
Three years, I lived and breathed it.

Mike Lindell
I know what we need to have secure elections. And I really think I could do a good job of getting this country to a great place like you have over in the UK.

David Pakman
Speaker one all right, so listen, do I think that pillow is likely to be Trump's secretary of homeland security or deputy secretary of homeland security? Probably not. What the hell do I know? Trump's done crazier things. But there's a reason I'm playing this for you, because pillow will be the type of person that is going to be in Trump's ecosystem if he becomes president. Think back to Trump's first term. Who were Trump's more sane cabinet members? And I know that we're talking about, you know, pick your poison. Right? Rex Tilderson, as secretary of state, was a less overtly whacked out person, and he was not a good fit. At the end of the day, Trump was restrained. He didn't really pick the whack jobs that he would like to pick. Trump's also deteriorated himself a lot since he was president. So the sort of thing we're going to have to contend with if Donald Trump gets four years in the oval office is, dare I say, attorney general. Alina Haba.

Wow. Think about that for a moment. Ok. Secretary of education.

Yeah. I don't. Who the hell knows, right? I mean, they want to destroy public education from the inside out. The point here is nothing. Mike Pillow will be appointed as Trump's deputy secretary of homeland security. It's that people like him are going to be all over this administration. Now, on the counterpoint, when I consider the concerns about Joe Biden cognitively, and I think, heck, you know what? The people he put around him are so good that despite whatever he's struggling with, he had one of the most successful presidential terms in decades. And whether it's Biden or Biden and then Harris, if Biden were to step down after winning or whatever scenario you want to acknowledge from these right wingers, it's going to be basically the same sober, competent people who are just going to get things done. So it is about project 2025. And if you haven't checked out the white paper@davidpakman.com. project 2025, do so. It's completely free. It is about the team around Joe Biden versus the team around Donald Trump. And that's part of what we are seeing here. But it's also about an inflection point. And this is something I've been talking about extensively. 2028.

We're always thinking of the next thing, 2020 eight's texture, to use a Rachel Maddow term, the texture of 2028 will be completely shaped by 2024. Is MAGA reinvigorated and now is a real force in 2028, or do we put him in the dustbin of history? Right? That's where woke comes to die.

We put Maga in the dustbin of history, like Ron DeSantis wants to do. And in 2028, we can get back to normal policy disagreements with normal republicans rather than dealing with this absolute insanity. That's part of what's at stake in this election. And that's why it's so important.

Make sure, if nothing else, that you have left us a review on iTunes or Spotify for the podcast costs nothing.

Or, and, or you've subscribed to our YouTube channel@YouTube.com, slash the David Pakman show. Let's take a break. I want to look at swing states. I want to look at a number of other things after we hear from just a sponsor or two.

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You know, one of the things we're kind of looking for right now in assessing the state of partisan politics in the United States, what's going to happen in November in this presidential race after the very meaningful, in many ways, a presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. One of the things we're looking for is signal in the middle of all the noise. And that's really at the core of looking at fundraising, because fundraising can be a proxy to enthusiasm, to figure out which of the narratives about that presidential debate is really the one that is meaningful in thinking about what is next, or national polling between Trump and Biden, or what about a generic congressional ballot looking at states. The point is to find some signal in all of the noise that often will just be Biden's the only one that can win. Biden should drop out, or whatever else the case may be. One of the alternatives to looking at national polling, which we have done, is to look at swing states. And there's some very interesting new data from swing states. Business Insider reports Biden has actually narrowed the gap with Trump in key swing states despite disastrous debate, new polling shows. We're going to look at what the polling is this is saying, hey, you know what, you were right, David. Just looking at national numbers doesn't really tell us what we need to know. The fact that Trump's lead went from 1.5 to three nationally after the debate on average, doesn't really tell us what we need to know.

Because if some of that shift is in California, Biden's still going to win California, although maybe by a little bit less than he otherwise would have, or Texas is still going to be won by Trump, maybe just by two more points than it normally would. So this gets us to swing states. Realistically, this is an election. Even after the debate, it will probably still come down to half a million votes in three to five states. What's happening in those key states? Well, let's take a look.

The article explains Joe Biden's widely panned debate sent his campaign reeling. But while some recent polls show Trump with wider leads than before the debate, a new bloomberg News Morning Consult poll shows Biden making up ground in the most important places of all swing states. Trump, in the latest survey, had a 47 45 lead over Biden in swing states. That's the closest it has been in this poll, dating all the way back to last fall. Biden leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin.

The president trails Trump but remains within the margin of error in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. It's not all good news for Biden. Biden was behind by seven in Pennsylvania, where he was born and spent a lot of campaign time, Trump leading 51 to 44 in Pennsylvania. That is not a good sign amidst some other good signs. The Bloomberg News Morning Consult survey also found that 39% of swing state voters, a number well short of a majority, feels Biden should definitely or probably continue on with his candidacy. Biden registered higher support among liberals for Trump 50% say that Trump should definitely or probably stay in the race. So a few important takeaways here that are, that are really important.

After Biden's debate performance, we still have half of respondents saying Trump should get out of the race. And this is something we spoke about earlier this week. For all of the calls and discussions that Biden must get out, isn't it Trump, really, who should absolutely get out? Whatever you think about Joe Biden's health, make it a different question. Make it a separate question from Trump. Shouldn't the convicted felons civilly liable rapist drop out of the race. Isn't that abundantly clear at this point in time? So one takeaway is, you know, when we look at a poll that says 72% believe Biden is unfit to serve, 50% in the same poll say Trump is unfit to serve. It's not 72 versus zero, it's 72 versus 50. And once you understand that, the, the allegedly obvious nature of the case to be made one way or the other becomes far less obvious. Secondly, you can interpret these swing state polls any way you want. And as we go back to the concept of looking for signal in all of the noise, as I've said before, on the one hand, you can say, wow, Trump's lead nationally has more than doubled, going from 1.5 to 3.3 since the debate. That's terrible for Biden. On the other hand, you can say, absolutely terrible debate by Biden, one of the worst we've seen in a long time, and he's still only losing by 3.3, you can make a counterpoint to that which some of you wrote to me and said, despite Trump being a convicted felon and civilly liable rapist, Biden still can't even tie him. That's a bad sign.

The point is, this is all in the framing. And Eileen, more and more as the days go bye towards the Alan Lichtman perspective, which is the debate performance as bad as it was. And people write to me and they go, David, it wasn't that bad. If you read the debate transcript, it wasn't that bad. Well, a debate is more than a transcript, so I reject that. I think the debate was bad, but the debate being bad doesn't change the underlying structure of this race. And I know I'm now repeating myself from earlier this week and last week, but Biden's debate performance doesn't change the accomplishments that he's had. It doesn't change the state of the economy. It doesn't change what he's done on student loans and cannabis and pharmaceutical cost and all of these other things. And if you consider it in that way, which Alan Lichtman does, and not everybody agrees with Alan Lichtman, but he certainly has a record that that would justify at least listening to him.

Nothing has fundamentally changed on the basis of Biden's debate performance. So that's where we are in swing states.

I struggle to believe that Biden is going to win this election without winning Pennsylvania. So there's no doubt that Trump leading by seven in Pennsylvania is a problem.

But that doesn't mean things can't change between now and November. So that's where we are on swing states. You know, I meant to get to this next story earlier in the week. I didn't have time. I still want to talk about it, because it goes to one of the great. I don't know if it's an irony, but one of the great elements of disgust from the modern maga, right? I have never seen Marjorie Taylor Greene self humiliate herself the way she did over the 4 July holiday. The New Republic has a nice article about it. Marjorie Taylor Greene roasted after flunking basic history lesson, Marjorie Taylor Greene put out a tweet on Twitter, or we might call it an excretion, on xDev, where she said, the average age of the signers of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, was 44 years old, but more than a dozen were 35 or younger. And she goes on to list Thomas Jefferson was 33 at the time. John Hancock was 39. James Madison was only 25. Alexander Hamilton was 21. James Monroe was 18. Aaron Burr was 20. Paul Revere was 41. George Washington was only 44. Of course, the problem with this tweet from the monopolizer of patriotism is that James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, Aaron Burr, Paul Revere, George Washington weren't signers of the Declaration of Independence.

They were not signers. You know, while you're at it, the stay puft marshmallow man was a mere boy of twelve when he signed the constitution. Now, listen, there's. There's a really serious story here. It's not just that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a moron, which, of course, is true and is part of the story. If Marjorie Taylor Greene did not have citizenship by birth, she would fail the citizenship test that legal immigrants have to pass to become citizens. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever. And so what is the point of mentioning that? Well, there's a few different points. Points. Number one, the modern Maga right is built on certain false pretenses and failed principles. And one of those principles is that we should be naturally charitable to american born citizens, and we should have a natural skepticism about the patriotism, intelligence, and value of naturalized citizens. Mere permanent residents, certainly undocumented immigrants, et cetera. But Marjorie Taylor Greene herself contradicts and undercuts that notion that the MAGA right pushes. But then there's an even bigger story that I think is worth mentioning as well, which is that for as long as I've been following and covering american politics, uh, to any degree, and this goes back before I did a show when I was a mere boy and was was following and against the war in Iraq carried out by George W. Bush. The Republican Party often claims, lays claim unilaterally to patriotism, to an attachment, connection or reverence for the Founding fathers, the founding documents, the good old way things used to be, or whatever the case may be.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, as if we needed yet another reminder, does remind us that it's all a house of cards. While they claim to be the ones who really respect and understand the foundation on which this country was built better than anybody else, they will tell you better, certainly better than all the groups I mentioned, naturalized citizens, permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, but better than left wingers, better than progressives, better than democrats, better than college professors, better than whoever. And it goes once again to here is what they like to say they are about.

And here is the reality, once it's tested or once their principles become inconvenient, whether it's low regulation and business freedom, which they stand for, until it's inconvenient to the politics they are trying to push. So listen, Marjorie Taylor Greene, reminding us of something we should all know. I don't think she could pass the citizenship test at all. I don't think there's any chance that she could. And she humiliates herself over the 4 July weekend. And as far as I checked this morning, she still hasn't even taken this post down, which fortunately, even on x, has a community note saying, hey, she's listing people as signers of the constitution who did not actually sign the constitution. Pathetic. But not surprising. Marjorie Taylor Greene has no business. No business. I don't want to insult any profession. You know, sometimes people go, I wouldn't even trust her to walk my dog.

But there's nothing wrong with being a skilled dog walker. Like, I don't want to insult dog walkers. You know, people use those types of phrases. Let me put it this way. Not only should Marjorie Taylor Greene not be making decisions for small groups of people in any kind of menial job you could imagine, she certainly shouldn't be involved in any decision making for the country. As an elected member of the House of Representatives, she'll probably get reelected in November. But maybe we can give her the boot in 2026.

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It seems the audience are creatures of habit. We like Friday feedback on Friday, so let's get to it. And this first question relates to something. It'll be a little bit of housekeeping, I think is the way I will say it. We out here in small bunny posted to the subreddit David and future roundtable discussions on the show today, David discussed the possibility of roundtable style discussions in the future. However, in a segment from about two years ago, David was brutally attacked by Alex Jones, who asserted that David was not a knight of the roundtable. David concurred. Will this lack of status jeopardize such roundtable discussions? Yeah, so listen, that's a very funny joke, but we are still, we've had now some of these panels, debates, roundtable discussions, call them what you will, a couple thoughts that we're having internally. Number one, two guests seem to work better than three in most cases, partially because of my inability to really control and guide the conversation as effectively when there are three guests. Maybe I need more practice, right?

But it seems that two guests, rather than three maybe is better for our show. Secondly, the full hour for most topics is probably too long for one of these panels or debates, so we are leaning more, more towards like 30, depending on the topic. 25 to 40 ish minutes, 30, 35, something like that. Those are kind of our early thoughts about the panels and debates.

Interestingly, you know, most people hate anything new that we do. How dare I try anything different? But actually got quite a bit of positive feedback in general about the format. Although again, some folks said some of them are too long, some dragged. Some of the guest choices maybe weren't the best, but we're working on it. The point here is to provide interesting and useful content, interesting and useful content to the audience in every way, and the panels maybe will allow us to do that. All right, Jan Arwadrichter on YouTube said David eight months ago there was an episode of your show called Cenk Uygur confronts me Biden can't win, in which you vehemently pointed out it is Biden who's going to win in November. Are you in any way reconsidering your beliefs about his chances again? So as usual, the things I've said are being misstated or misunderstood. I never have said Biden is going to win in November. What I have pointed out and what I said in my discussion with Cenk is that when I look at historical factors and zoom out and think about the sort of election that this is, presidents tend to get reelected. And so at minimum, it's not obvious that Biden can't win. I did not say once during that conversation Biden is going to win.

In addition to that, I am regularly reconsidering my beliefs and Joe Biden's debate performance has influenced my beliefs. The conversations we've been having on the show about the issue have influenced my beliefs and that's what has led to the more balanced, I guess I would say, perspective that I have presented on this issue over the last couple of weeks. So there's really no gotcha there. Just please accurately state what I've said. Fire the torpedo has a different perspective and wrote on the subreddit liberals massively overreacting as usual and writes it comes down to numbers. Trump lost the last election and since then has been convicted of crimes. Remember the panic over the red wave never happened. Everyone said the red wave was coming and absolutely nothing happened. Trump didn't have enough votes to do it last time and he has only lost voters since then. Maybe Biden didn't convince any new voters to come to him, but Trump has definitely lost plenty since the last time he lost the election. If Trump was literally any other candidate, I would be worried, but everyone already knows he's a lousy president. Save this post and remember I told you so in November. Biden is far from the ideal candidate, but he's a billion times more worthy than Trump.

This is one of the perspectives that I'm hearing. I'm hearing from some in my audience, Biden can't win. He's got to go now.

And I'm hearing Biden's the only guy that can win. He's the president. Trump's terrible. That debate won't matter in the end.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. These are predictions. We won't know who's right until we see what happens November 5, and we can influence what happens on November 5. A user, Quincy Q, writes, Trump's VP short list is a snooze fest. Apparently the four top contenders are Bergam, Vance, Rubio, and Scott. What a boring list of mediocre white right wingers. Scott may be an exception to that, but he's still weak and uninspiring. Yeah, Marco Rubio is hispanic also. I guess he's hispanic white. You know, I don't know.

He goes on to say, I know many political strategists say VP picks don't mean much, but will a boring VP pick put Trump at a bigger disadvantage? Is he incapable of picking a woman due to his own ego? The woman thing I don't know about. There was one point where Trump was signaling he was going to definitely pick a woman. It's now not really seeming like that's likely. A Trump wants a doormat. Trump wants a loyalist as defined by him, which is if I tell you on January whatever, that you've got to go and do whatever you need to do it without asking questions. Mike Pence asked questions. Not that it's a very high bar that we're setting, but Mike Pence was like, wait a second, I don't know about this.

Trump wants a boring doormat who won't get any of the attention that he craves. And so it makes sense that he would go with boring people. Why would we outline this in my video about VP choices? Why wouldn't Trump go for someone like a Marjorie Taylor Greene? She's a total sycophant. She's a total brown nose, or she's a total loyalist.

She will get too much attention.

Trump wants the attention on himself.

Silason wrote on the subreddit, I'm torn. On one hand, I don't think David should interview obviously mentally ill people like Royce White. On the other hand, the Republican Party seems to be determined to put these sorts of people on ballots, so it's obviously newsworthy. You know, this is such a crazy thing. And I've spoken to this, about this with friends from other parts of the world where fewer of their political candidates are obviously mentally ill. Okay. We have a reality in the United States where the Republican Party, especially for lower office, is disproportionately putting forward candidates that are very obviously mentally ill, undiagnosed, certainly untreated. It's a reality. Okay. I'm not diagnosing any specific person with any specific condition. But in general, there, a lot of these republican candidates are very obviously mentally ill. What do we do as people who want to examine their beliefs? Do we say, well, they're so mentally ill, I'm not going to interview them? And then what? Their views aren't exposed. People don't hear about them. People don't hear about, hey, maybe I should consider donating to the opponent. So the way we've tended to handle this is if publicists come to us and they say, hey, we have someone here who's doing an interview circuit, will you have them on?

There have been mentally ill people that have ended up on the show that way. You know, it's not really up to me to say this entire publicity tour shouldn't be happening. They're, they're making statements. They're putting themselves forward, subjecting themselves to examination of those beliefs. I will speak to them and I will try to use whatever assessment I make of their mental health to decide how to handle the interview. When it comes to nominated candidates that are on ballots, it's very hard to argue that just because they're mentally ill, they shouldn't be interviewed because these people are on ballots. Royce White is the republican nominee. He's backed by the Republican Party in Minnesota. So I'm with you. There is something delicate here. There is so much mental illness in these candidates that the modern republican party puts forward. But to say they all get a pass because they're mentally ill, well, next thing you know, they'll get a pass into office.

And that is a real problem. Eric the red commented on YouTube.

I held my nose and voted Biden in 2020. I will not. In 2024, the Democrats did the same thing with Clinton. Ego and assumption Democrat voters. Assumption Democrats voters will just go along. Well, I would never tell anyone, just go with whoever is the democratic nominee. This has never been a vote blue, no matter who show, period.

The case I would make is that if it's Biden versus Trump, Trump's presidency was a disaster, and what he's promising for the next one would be a disaster. Whereas on the other hand, demented or not, Joe Biden's presidency has included one of the best economies we've had in 50 years, at least. Lowest sustained unemployment, all time high stock market record after record after record after record. A record historic record of student loan debt forgiveness, negotiating price drug prices with big pharma expanding, Obamacare asking for cannabis to be descheduled. I could give you the list. The point is, if he's demented, he's doing a fine job, and he could be demented four more years and do a fine job. So the point is, you evaluate the options if Newsom becomes the nominee.

Okay? You don't like everything he's done in California. The alternative is Trump. I'd vote newsome there.

Give me options, and I will choose the best or least bad option every single time. Nerd hater has a very different view.

This is going to be controversial. I believe Nerd hater writes to everybody who comments under David Pakman's videos.

This was your fault.

You all paraded around Biden and tried to vote blue no matter who. People who have had to deal with that sentiment for eight years now. You thought anyone would be better than Trump and didn't learn from your mistakes in 2016 with Hillary. Now the american people are tired and feel lied to. Biden has now finally lost the election.

You could have picked anyone else to beat Trump. You didn't. This was your fault.

I don't believe that that case can be supported empirically with data. I'm just not seeing that claim in the data.

So I leave it to those in my audience to decide whether they see anything there that resonates with them. And then let's go finally to Angel Mendez, who says, progressives were mocked for calling this, they didn't want to do a proper primary with Marianne Jenkin Phillips. People got what they wanted, even though 70% of the country wanted other candidates to challenge Biden, which there were. Like I said, if they don't change Biden, don't go blue, go green. Jill Stein, 2024. Deranged. Okay? Deranged in every way.

Jill Stein would be a disastrous president. I don't want to hear a word about Jill Stein. Total and complete disaster with regard to a proper primary. I don't know if people get this. I don't know if the Marianne Cenk and Dean Phillips supporters understand this.

If Biden had said, I'm not running, and there were a real primary, okay, which, by the way, every party, when they have an incumbent, they don't have a real primary. There is no way Marianne Cenk or Dean Phillips win that real primary. If any serious candidate runs, I'm sorry. Just look at the polling. If Biden says I'm bowing out, there's a real primary and Kamala Harris runs. Kamala Harris wins the nomination. She might get crushed in November in that scenario, but in a real primary where Harris says, I'd like to be the nominee, she wins. We have the polling.

If Gavin Newsom were to run in a primary against Harris, I think Newsom or Harris win, it wouldn't have been Marianne. It wouldn't have been Cenk, it wouldn't have been Dean Phillips. I'm sorry, guys. Don't kill the messenger. If Harris said in that scenario, I'm not running, but Newsom says I'm running, you think Marianne Cenk or Dean Phillips defeat Gavin Newsom? I don't think so. So the point here is this assumption that in a real primary, nobody else would run and the winner would be Marianne Williamson, Cenk, Uygur or Dean Phillips, and then they go on to defeat Donald Trump. I see zero basis in fact for that.

If you can justify that claim empirically, please get me that data. I want to see it. All right. You can email info at david pakman.com. if you have anything you'd like included in the Friday feedback segment. Remember to get the free project 2025 white paper at David Pakman.com, project 2025. We have a great bonus show coming up for you next week, RNC Live.

I hope you will join me. Otherwise, I'll sit in the room with the microphone and have nobody to talk to but RNC coverage live next week. I hope you'll be with me.

7/12/24: Biden's "big boy" press conference, Mike Pillow wants White House job

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1: Biden's NATO Summit Press Conference

2: Mike Pillow's White House Ambitions

3: Media and Cognitive Health

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