7/3/24: Trump builds lead post-debate, sentencing delayed for months

David Pakman
Well, as is the case with so much of what has taken place since last week's presidential debate, I have an update for you about polling, which I said was going to be what I wanted to look at post debate, to figure out the impact of that debate. And depending on which story you want to tell yourself, depending on which pundit or commentator or influencer you want to listen to, you can find a case that the polling has fallen off of a cliff for Joe Biden and he couldn't possibly win. Or you can find and make the case that it's hurt him a little bit, but it does not at all appear as though this ends President Biden's chances at reelection. Let me give you the numbers, and then you figure it out. Now, first and foremost, it is accurate to say that Trump's lead nationally has surged 60% since the debate. Where do I get those numbers? Well, the real clear politics polling average going into the debate was a 1.5 percentage point lead for Trump, and it is now a 2.4 percentage point lead for Trump, an increase of nine tenths of a point going from 1.5 to 2.4. That is indeed, our arithmetic savants will be able to confirm an increase in the size of the lead of 60%. But what's the counterpoint to that? The counterpoint is quite simple. It's less than a point. The margin of error in the vast majority of the underlying polls is somewhere between two and four or three and five percentage points. The fact that this was arguably the worst debate performance in what, decades? And it has only cost Joe Biden nine tenths of a point, some of which he may recover between now and November.

Maybe it's not that bad. And again, a lot of this right now truly is about the story that people want to tell themselves. I think the reality is, is not particularly cut and dry. Another data point, just so we have it going into the debate we looked at, and I reported to you that the 538 election forecast had it at 50 50. With 100 election simulations done. Biden came out ahead in 50 of them becoming president. Trump came out ahead in 50 of them becoming president. Those numbers have shifted, but they've shifted to 52 Trump, Biden 48. So we went from 50 50, the worst debate performance in decades. It is now 52 48 Trump. So there, it really does depend on the story you want to tell yourself. Now, let me mention one other thing, and this, you know, maybe is less positive, which is that there has also been an uptick to Trump's lead in at least some of the critical swing states. So we look at the average in Arizona, you see a little bit of an uptick for Trump from 48 low 48 to high 48. You look at the state of Nevada.

Actually, in Nevada, things look perfectly fine for Joe Biden. You look at Wisconsin and you see it's basically flat.

Michigan, you see Trump getting a little bit of a pop, but not much. So if you want to make the most negative possible case for Trump's chances, it's, oh, boy, 60% lead extension here for Trump getting an important boost, modest but important boost in some swing states. If you want to make the opposite case, it's Joe Biden has suffered as much as he's going to suffer from this. He lost nine tenths of a point. And it is all potentially uphill from here. What do I think? I really don't know.

I really don't know. And, and to be perfectly frank, I think we need another week or two of polling to really be able to say more definitively the direction that this is going. So that's where we are as far as the polling goes. What about Trump sentencing, which we were expecting, uh, in about a week. Let's now discuss what summer saying is the best possible news for Trump about criminal sentencing. And others are saying, well, hold on a second, this may not be so good. The judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial, Juan Marshan, has delayed Donald Trump sentencing. Trump sentencing was scheduled for next Thursday, July 11. It has now been rescheduled at least until September 18.

Why has this taken place? Because the court needs time to assess whether the Supreme Court's recent decision alters the context or parameters of sentencing a president, a former president in this particular case, for actions taken while and after he was president of the United States. Now, there's a couple of really interesting aspects of this to consider.

First is, who does this benefit? There are those who say, this is great for Trump. It's going to be delayed at least until the 18 September, maybe even longer. He may not even be sentenced before the election. Okay. The counterpoint to this is that if September 18 as a sentencing date does hold, you could see Trump sentenced criminally, the first former president ever to have this happen when people are really paying attention, Rachel Bittock offer, election forecaster, said after Labor Day, meaning early September, that's when everyone who's going to pay attention is paying attention and you're going to dump in, in the true heart of this campaign, the sentencing. It could potentially damage Trump, reminding voters, wait, do you really want to vote for the convicted felon who's just been sentenced. However, if the goal for Trump is to get the sentencing delayed indefinitely, well, then we could be talking about a different scenario. Now, there is another legal aspect that I think is important to at least briefly mention.

The argument made by the majority decision at the Supreme Court earlier this week with regard to immunity relates to Donald Trump and his time in office exclusively, that immunity only applies there.

And the hush money case really relates to the things Trump did while he was candidate Trump before ever being president, and what he did while being President elect Trump to some degree. In other words, if the Supreme Court's argument about presidential immunity is about what is done while Trump was president, it wouldn't apply to things that Donald Trump did before he was president. Therefore, there's no reason to delay the sentencing. The counterpoint is that a bunch of the evidence that was presented in the case was indeed from Donald Trump's presidency. The Supreme Court included in the majority decision.

That evidence of that nature cannot be used in court cases. So it is not an open and shut case that, hey, listen, the hush money stuff was before Trump was president, so there's no impact based on the immunity decision, there may be an impact. Judge Mershon now will have to consider that as he evaluates, does the Supreme Court immunity decision in any way impact his forthcoming sentencing of Donald Trump? On balance, is this probably better for Trump than it is? Worse, I'm assuming so as of right now. And the worst case scenario would be Marshawn says, hey, you know what? I looked at this. No impact at all. September 18, we're going to sentence could be the worst case scenario for Trump. On the other hand, it is absolutely conceivable that there are further delays, maybe even pushing this. But beyond the election day in November, and maybe just as, or more importantly, if the judge says, hey, you know what? This does relate to the Supreme Court's immunity decision. And I cannot render sentence or fill in the blanks with whatever that potentially is very good for Donald Trump.

Speaker B
These people don't know what the hell they're doing.

David Pakman
I accidentally hit a button on my sound board. That was not on purpose. Unfortunately, it's not my own feedback that that was Trump's feedback. I think that if I was a betting man, which I am not, if I were a betting man, I bet that this probably does help Trump to some degree. You know, it keeps happening to a really nice guy. Rudy Giuliani, former Trump attorney, has been disbarred in New York. It is really Rudy Giuliani. Hitting rock bottom here. The Associated Press reports Giuliani is disbarred in New York as court finds he repeatedly lied about Trump's 2020 election loss. The former mayor of New York, prosecutor, legal adviser to Trump, was disbarred in New York on Tuesday for false statements he repeatedly made about Trump's 2020 election loss. The Manhattan appeals court ruled that Giuliani, who already had his New York law license suspended a few years ago, is no longer allowed to practice law in the state, effective immediately. They said, quote, the seriousness of respondents misconduct cannot be overstated. Giuliani fray flagrantly misused and fragrantly as well. If you remember the flatulence situation, Giuliani flagrantly misused his position and baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country's electoral process. In doing so, he not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that followed the 2020 election, for which he is entirely unrepentant. Rudy said on Tuesday he's not surprised.

He claimed in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the case was, quote, based on an activist complaint replete with false arguments. You know, I've said this before, and it has never been more true than it is now.

Attaching your buggy to Trump's horse or to the horse that is Trump maybe really doesn't seem to be good. It really doesn't seem to be good for people's careers. It really doesn't seem to be good for people's health, emotional, psychological, physical, and all of it. And the sad part at the end of the entire situation, at the end, at the end of the day, is that Trump doesn't care about Rudy, really. I think throughout this entire legal problem that Rudy has been having, Trump held a single fundraiser for him, and it was sort of a very low energy one.

Trump cares about people for as long as, and to the extent that they are useful to him, that applies to the random single voter in Pennsylvania. And it goes all the way up, certainly to Rudy Giuliani. The question we have left is, does it also apply to his own wife and kids and family? I don't know that we know the answer to that yet, but it is truly a sort of, is it tragic comic, or is it just tragic kind of denouement to Rudy Giuliani's legal and political career? I don't know. But if you look through his Amazon order list, which was recently published in connection with the bankruptcy that he has filed, there's a lot of really sad things going on in general.

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super easy to do. And you can use the coupon code saved democracy 24 if you would like to get a discount. Let's do something we don't really do anymore. I told you we would be getting away from live calls on the show as a general principle. And we have to great success. YouTube viewership up significantly. Positive emails up significantly. But I said that on special occasions we would take calls again.

And because of the shortened week with the 4 July holiday and the whole thing, we're going to let some people have their say today.

Please make me proud. Let's see if we can, I don't know, not suffer through these. We will start today. And by the way, we do these on discord. You can find our discord at david pakman.com discord. Ben from New York, welcome to the show. Please save us on the eve of this 4 July. All right, now you're on the air, my friend. Welcome. Oh, very good. Okay, you can hear me. My question is just, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the impact, if any of the yesterday's decisions on what you think might electorate on voters.

I think it definitely changed things a little bit and I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Which decisions are you referring to, Ben? Well, specific, specifically the immunity decision. Sorry, I want to say from the Supreme Court you're talking about. Yes, I apologize. Supreme Court decisions, particularly regarding immunity and how there's not concern, it doesn't seem with Biden now governing as president under these decisions. And I think there's a lot of concern about what Julian, Julian, what Trump would do. And I wanted to hear if you thought this could actually impact voters or swing voters in any way based on what you said, speaker one? Well, if voters support democracy and value the institutions of democracy that we have here, this decision should get them to say, holy hell, there is no way I'm voting for Trump or staying home now, because we now have opened the door and Trump's lawyers are already doing it. Then for them to argue Trump trying to steal the election was all an official act and therefore protected by immunity, it is extraordinarily dangerous. I hope that everyone who sees these decisions will say two things. Number 01:00 a.m. i going to help Trump get reelected, whether it's by staying home or voting third party or whatever, I hope the answer is no. But importantly, if indeed Trump can justify that the fake slates of electors were an official act, that inciting an insurrection was an official act, that all of it was official, and he can't be prosecuted for it, what is to stop Biden from ordering the imprisonment or assassination of Trump and saying it is an official act for the purposes of national security?

And what they say when you confront them with that, with that ban, is they go, oh, you. You slippery slope people. That's crazy. That's crazy. But they don't substantively address it. So I think it's terrifying. And I hope people get out and vote.

Agreed. Thank you. All right, Ben, thank you so much. Great to hear from you. We are. Let's see here. Why don't we go to.

Is it Adrian from San Francisco? Adrian, welcome to the show.

What's on your mind today?

Speaker B
Hi, David. Can you hear me all right?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Speaker B
Excellent. Well, thanks for having me, David.

David Pakman
I have.

Speaker B
If you don't mind, I'd like to be a little bit mean today.

David Pakman
Okay.

Speaker B
So I wanted to ask you a question based on my impression of your coverage about Trump's cognitive decline. So I noticed that you had a lot of coverage on Trump's cognitive issues. He says a lot of bizarre things. And you also had some experts on who had some pretty interesting and compelling evidence that Trump was experiencing a potential mild cognitive impairment.

But from my perspective, and feel free to correct me here, it seemed like you did not have as much coverage on Biden's cognitive decline. And I think his cognitive decline was quite apparent, at least from my perspective, in that debacle of a debate this week. Yeah, I wanted to just directly ask you, before the debate happened, before the whole event happened, what was your assessment of the cognitive ability of both candidates?

David Pakman
This is a good question, Adrian. Let's take the questions one by one. Let's start with that. So as a non professional in this field myself, I was relying on experts when I would give the experts the opportunity to weigh in on both Trump and Biden. Their consensus pre debate was Biden seems to be experiencing appropriate and expected age related slowing down, whereas Trump is having a more serious issue. That was their view. And as a non expert myself, that's what I went with. We have since seen not only Biden's performance at the debate, but we now have sourced reporting that says there are people around Biden managing his schedule for to make him be out in public during his better hours. So now that I have additional information, my perspective has changed. Again, as a non expert who's just following, what are the experts saying? What are the sources saying?

Speaker B
Yeah, that's very fair. No, thanks so much for helping me understand your perspective, David.

David Pakman
All right, Adrian from San Francisco. And by the way, I should mention, I think it's important to include in this discussion there's a poll that finds 72% of Americans believe Biden's unfit to serve, 50% believe Trump's unfit to serve. So the gap, while not zero, is not as insignificant as one might believe.

And in a sense, the fitness is close to even. It's not. I understand it's 50 and 72. It's not even. I'm not pretending it is, but it's not that 98% of the country thinks Trump is fit to serve, and only 28% thinks Biden is fit to serve. An interesting detail which may play a role over the forthcoming months. Let's go next to Bub from Texas, who I see is also a website member. Bub, thank you and welcome to the show. What's going on with you? What's on your mind today?

Speaker B
Hello, mister Pagman, can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Speaker B
Yes. I just want to applaud you for your willingness to go into hostile interviews.

I think one of the main benefits of it is it exposes, it exposes you to people who might not otherwise hear you. I discovered you on TikTok and it was a clip from the Patrick Bette David show that was clipped in a way to make you look ridiculous. But I'm like, hey, this cat's making a lot of sense.

So I just want to say I really think you're on to something.

Yeah. And you do it with a lot of right wing spaces. And I was wondering if it was possible to get into those hardcore leftist spaces and kind of do the same thing.

David Pakman
I don't know that there is as much to be gained from doing that, as counterintuitive as that might sound, and also, the type of toxicity that exists in the hardcore left spaces you're talking about is so vile to me that for my own mental health, I choose to limit my involvement in it.

Speaker B
Yeah, totally understand. Understand that. But, yeah, that's all I had. I just want to say, keep up the good work.

David Pakman
All right, bub from Texas, great to hear from you very much. Appreciate it. Why don't we go next to. How about Evan from New Hampshire? Evan, welcome to the David Pakman show on the eve of the 4 July. What's going on?

Speaker C
Hello, David. Can you hear me all right?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Speaker C
Thank you very much. I've been on before, so thank you for letting me on again.

Speaker B
Pleasure.

Speaker C
I just wanted to ask you, in more of a reflection on the past couple years or really since Donald Trump has been elected, think the show has changed and you've changed as a person doing this work?

David Pakman
Well, the how I've changed as a person is tough because if I go back to 2016, before Trump was president, that was eight years ago.

I didn't have a kid back then.

I had done a lot less traveling. It was pre pandemic. I mean, it's very difficult to say how have I changed as a result of Trump being president. But as far as the show, here's the thing.

The show goes through phases, and the phases are generically the side we support is in power, and then the side we support is out of power. It happened with Barack Obama, it happened with George W. Bush. It happened with Barack Obama, it happened with Trump. It's happening with Biden, it may happen again with Trump.

These shows and shows on the right as well, they naturally evolve depending on whether you are seen as more or less in agreement as the term may be with the forces that are in power now. It doesn't mean that I agree with everything Biden does, but obviously, Biden, I voted for Biden. The guy I voted for is currently in power. That naturally affects the show. And in addition to that, I think one of the biggest influences on the show over the last couple of years has been what I see as a legitimately growing threat from the possibility of four more Trump years that simply wasn't there in 2012, for example, when it was Obama versus Romney. I preferred Obama over Romney. Right, Evan? But I didn't go around saying the, the foundations of our democracy depend on this election. I agreed with Obama's tax plan more than Romney, et cetera. But there is a different feel to what's going on right now, and I think that naturally affects the show.

Speaker C
Yeah, I've definitely, I started watching, you know, eight years ago after 2016 was out. I was still in high school.

And so it's been interesting following you this whole time. I've definitely noticed. I really enjoyed how you supported Luke Beasley and seeing his show pop up, because I think you talked about that, where the right wing invests, like, millions of dollars into building up these influencers and whatnot. And I really appreciate that. I mean, between you and Luke, building up Luke's channel as well, I think that's really great. And you should keep doing that, supporting left wing talk shows and other influencers that are really trying to make a difference out there.

David Pakman
We will do it, my friend. Thank you.

All right.

Speaker C
Have a lovely day. Thank you very much.

David Pakman
All right, there goes Evan from New Hampshire. Let's go next to Eric from Denmark, one of my favorite places I visited. Eric from Denmark, welcome to the show.

Speaker B
Hello.

Eric
Hello. Can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Eric
Great. It's great to be back. I think I was back here last, like, almost two years ago when I just started in the army.

I wanted to ask you, in regards to the issue right now that a lot of us are facing is the potential of Trump obviously coming back into the White House again. And I think that threat has become significantly higher after the last debate. And I'm wondering, how do you think the US's relationship to many of his traditional allies will be affected by an utter extra four years of Trump in the White House?

David Pakman
I think it'll be more of what we saw during Trump's first four years, which is that we will be increasingly alienated from and ostracized by our traditional democratic western allies. Under Trump, opinion of the US will decline, as it did the last time under Trump, and that Trump will then, because he's so enamored with them, continue to cozy up, for lack of a better term, to the autocrats and the authoritarians and the dictators, and to be enamored with their strength and fortitude and all of it. And I think it'll big picture Eric. I think it'll be a pretty serious humiliation for the United States if that were to happen.

Eric
I largely agree with that. I also think another big problem is that the United States increasingly is being seen less and less as a reliable partner internationally, because it seems like now when it comes to foreign policy, there is no United States any longer. It's entirely based on the whims of whomever is in power.

David Pakman
Yes, well, but not equally. Let me add one thing to that, Eric. It is true, but it's not that Trump and Biden both are indifferent to the commitments the US has made or whatever. Right? I mean, it's, yes, it's true that Trump said Iran nuclear deal. I don't really like it. I'm out. Even though Iran didn't violate the deal, it's true that it was Trump who started to talk about, well, maybe not NATO, maybe we don't come to the defense of our allies or with the Paris climate agreement that I'm out of that. So it is absolutely true that the US is not a trustworthy negotiating partner with someone like that at the helm, but Biden is not like that at all. Biden does respect our commitments. Speaker one.

Eric
Oh, I totally agree with you. And I mean, generally, I think that Biden, for instance, has been pretty okay on Ukraine. I do think he's been a bit weaker than what I would like. But the problem is that the United States, as a dispute internationally, kind of is viewed as, you know, swinging back and forth between radically different positions depending on who is in power. And that is something that's going to have really reverberating effects in the future. Even if Trumpism is soundly defeated after, even after he wins and in 2028, there's a big democratic sweep, there will still be this lingering history of, well, can we truly trust the United States? And that's a really scary thing for many of us in Europe to kind of be confronted with because of the war in Ukraine, because Ukraine's success in many ways also depends on continued american support. And if Trump goes in and he decides to just cut off all aid to Ukraine, or God forbid, even try to pressure Ukraine into some type of, quote unquote, peace deal with Russia, that will maybe freeze the conflict for another few years and then restart it in the future, a lot of us are going to be in deep crap. And I'm really, really worried about what kind of reverberating effects that will have for the international alliances the US has set up across the entire world. Also of countries like China eyeing Taiwan increasingly.

David Pakman
I agree with you 100%, Eric. Thank you for making the point.

Eric
Thank you.

David Pakman
All right, Eric from Denmark, let's go next to straws from Idaho. Straws, welcome to the program. What's going on? What's going on? Hey, David, I just love your show and everything. I had one question, like, why do you think that the cops in the military are going to, like, protect us from Project 25 and all the deportations and everything.

I've not said anything about.

Oh, no, my own voice is feeding back on a delay straws.

Okay.

I've not said anything about the military or the police protecting us from Project 2025. I don't know what you're referring to.

Oh, I just heard, like, a couple times, like, when people were concerned about the Trump coming and all that, that you were like, well, hopefully the laws will withstand and the police will.

Oh, okay, I got you. That has nothing to do with Project 2025. What, what I said was maybe it's naive, maybe it's idealistic, but I'm hopeful that if Trump loses and tries to steal it again, that our systems will be better prepared to repel that. I, I'm not convinced they will, but that's with regard to Trump and the election specifically, not about project 2025.

Okay.

Speaker B
Okay.

David Pakman
Yeah, I just kind of wanted to bring that up. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks so much. There is straws from Idaho. Let's take a very quick break. We'll get back to the phones in a moment and hear from a few more people. If you value what we do at the David Pakman show, remember, to support us on Patreon, go to patreon.com David Pakman show, where you can get access to behind the scenes videos, the daily bonus show, the commercial free daily show. You can support the show for as little as $2 a month. Check it out@patreon.com. david Pakman show all right, let's go back to discord. I know we don't normally do this anymore, but just because some people wanted it, it's right before a holiday. We're hearing from some folks via discord at david pakman.com slash discord. Let's go next to Carla from Boston. Carl from Boston, welcome to the show. What's, what are you up to today? What's on your mind?

Carl from Boston, you've been invited to join the show. Please accept.

Speaker B
Hi. Sorry. Can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes. Hello. You're on the air.

Speaker B
Can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes.

Speaker B
Oh, you can? Okay, perfect. So, hi. First of all, congratulations on your kidney. That's awesome.

David Pakman
Thank you.

Speaker B
I was wondering what your take is. I was watching the debate live, and then right after it ended, there was breaking news, and they were saying a lot of the, quote, unquote, like, leading democrats are probably thinking of, like, last minutes pulling out Joe Biden and maybe putting in someone else. I don't know who it could be. Maybe like Kamala. I'm not sure. I was just wondering what your thoughts on that. Do you think it would be a smart idea to do it this late in the race?

David Pakman
So I've already given kind of my full take on this. I do not know the answer because keeping Biden has risks and replacing Biden has risks. But I take issue, Carl, with this idea of top democrats replacing Biden. Biden has the delegates to be the nominee. The DNC rules are that those delegates are up to Biden to release. So this idea of taking it, listen, you can pressure Biden to step down, his family can. You can show him polling, if that polling comes to be that says you're going to lose. I don't think we have that yet, but it is ultimately up to Biden. It's not up to Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. Biden has the delegates and it is up to him to release them. So I don't know what would be best. My view right now is I want at least a couple of weeks of polling to see what the change is to then have a better sense of whether Joe Biden stepping aside would be a logical thing.

Speaker B
Speaker one. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I was just wondering, like, if everyone calls him sleepy Joe Biden, why doesn't he look so well rested?

David Pakman
Right. Well, listen, Trump's the one who slept through his criminal trial, so I think that that's not an apropos nickname anymore.

Speaker B
Yeah, he did a lot more than sleep through his trials. I heard, but. All right, thank you so much for your time, speaker one.

David Pakman
All right, thanks, Carl. Yeah. The, anything else Trump did during his trial, I certainly didn't, didn't hear about. So I'll have, I'll reserve judgment on that as well. All right, let's go next to Ty from Georgia. Ty from Georgia, welcome to the show.

Speaker B
Hello, David. Can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Speaker B
Okay. So I gotta admit I'm a little scared after hear seeing the debate.

David Pakman
Yeah.

Speaker B
I don't know. I'm kind of like, I really kind of wish they would have had a fact check person there, but I feel like even then they're just gonna believe whatever Trump says. So if you like.

David Pakman
Yeah. And the candidates, I mean, it was part of the agreement that there be no on screen fact checking. If they don't even want on screen fact checking, they're definitely not going to allow fact checking as part of the debate.

Speaker B
Yeah, that's unfortunate. There is one thing I've been kind of thinking of, though, is, you know how one of the biggest things they brought up to criticize Biden is the Afghanistan withdrawal, right?

David Pakman
Yes. Yes.

Speaker B
Which is, was bad. But what I think is really weird is a lot of them want to cut all funding to Ukraine. So it's just, if rush, if Trump wins, he cuts all the funding to Ukraine, Russia takes over Ukraine, Ukraine ceases to exist. Is that something that they'd want?

Does it seem like.

David Pakman
I mean, listen, you'd have to ask them. I think one of the, one of the unfortunate realities about a lot of these issues is that we have an, we have a movement right now, Maga Trumpism, that's willing to say absolutely anything, even if it conflicts with what, with what they said yesterday or their stated principles. And so your question is a good one, which is. Wait a second. What about this? What about that? It doesn't seem to make sense. You're asking the question as if they care about consistency at all, and they don't. So it's sort of like, we think we've got them, but they just don't care. And so it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's.

Speaker B
Just a really unfortunate thing. Cause it's just like, I know what, like, a lot of them will say, like, the Democrats are communists, which is, as you know, is a ridiculous thing to say, but it's just so many people believe that. It's just so many people believe all these things. These people say, which.

David Pakman
Yeah. And then you go to them and you say, what are, what are some examples of communistic policies that Democrats have put in place? And they either have nothing or they name something that's not communistic. But then it doesn't matter for a lot of people having that moment where you go, you know what? I can't think of anything communistic they've done. It could trigger a light bulb moment. Not for these people.

Speaker B
Yeah. I think, ironically, I feel like the Republican Party today has more in common with the Chinese Communist Party than the Democrats do.

David Pakman
In some ways. In some ways, that's true. But, yeah, I don't think we need to pull in communist analogies to argue that MAGA Trumpism is bad of its own accord.

Speaker B
Yeah, that makes sense. I'd say so.

David Pakman
All right, Ty from Georgia, great to hear from you very much. Appreciate it. Let's go to Patrick from Los Angeles. Patrick from Los Angeles, welcome. What's going on?

Speaker B
Hey, David, can you hear me?

David Pakman
Yes, I can.

Speaker B
Um, so I just, you know, I feel like. Okay, that debate was tough to watch. Yes, but I think that America has such a short attention span that it won't even matter, honestly. I mean, it had lower viewership than the last one. Correct.

I just think in general, like, you know, we're so quick to, we want our, you know, we want our quick, short 32nd videos. That is not something that most of the people are going to be watching. And I just think it's getting blown way out of proportion. And that's something that's unfortunate that the mainstream media gloms on to.

David Pakman
So it's possible that you're right. And as I've said, a poor debate performance doesn't change the underlying structure of the election with regard to the economy, incumbency advantage, basically the argument that Alan Lichtman lays out. So as bad as the debate was, I can't yet say for sure that it means Biden can't win, as crazy as it sounds to say speaker one.

Speaker B
Yeah, I mean, it just is. I mean, it makes more sense that like, the majority of the independents that are just like, hey, it's either democracy or no democracy. It's, I like, I don't care if he even, you know, passes away two years in, he'll at least be a democracy still. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't really make sense. It doesn't matter if he's 100% there, he's going to maintain democracy, and that's what they should be running on is literally like democracy or authoritarian dictatorship, and that's it.

David Pakman
I agree with you that that's the choice, without a doubt.

Speaker B
Anyway, thank you and a happy 4 July.

David Pakman
All right, Patrick from LA, great to hear from you. Let's go to Dylan from Phoenix. Dylan from Phoenix, Arizona.

Speaker B
Welcome, David.

David Pakman
Okay, your audio is doubled. Your audio is doubled. So I don't know if something weird is going on or if that's, if it's some kind of sick joke that you're playing on us.

Speaker B
Please hold.

Eric
It.

Speaker B
Disabled my headset.

David Pakman
All right, now we've got one audio track of you. That's good.

All right, go ahead, Dylan.

Okay, and Dylan is gone. Very good. Let's go next to Stephen from New York. Stephen from New York, welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today?

Speaker B
Hello.

David Pakman
Yeah, you're on. You're on.

Speaker B
Hi.

I've been a fan of your show for a while, so thanks for all you do.

This is my first time here.

Are we specifically talking about the debate or can we just ask? No, no.

David Pakman
Anything you want. Wide open. Wide open.

Speaker B
Okay, cool.

What do you say? To republicans who in a debate, when you're talking about, say, Trump's achievements, republicans will typically say, well, there was no war under Trump. How do you respond to claims like that? Because people love to say, oh, with biden, we have Ukraine, we have Israel and Hamas.

What do you say to that, speaker?

David Pakman
One, it's pretty nonsense. So there's a couple different things. First of all, you have to ask them what they even really mean by that because there were all sorts of wars all over the place that the US, in indirect ways is involved in and or sometimes looks the other way on. All of these are political acts. That's number one. Number two, Trump did absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing about russian incursion into other parts of Ukraine that predated Trump, even though he claimed Putin was completely under control and never would have invaded Ukraine. Russia was in Ukraine while Trump was president, just in different parts. Number two, we were in Afghanistan under Trump, and Trump promised to get us out and he didn't do it. And it took Joe Biden coming in and getting us out of Afghanistan. As far as, uh, bombs, rockets and drone warfare, Trump did a ton of it. So, you know, you really have to get them to define what they are talking about. Um, and then at the end of the day, just repeating that doesn't really tell you anything about whether Trump did a good job. Even if it were true, which it's not. It doesn't actually tell you whether Trump did a good job.

Speaker one.

Speaker B
Right, I agree with that. Um, another question I have is, I think a lot of, um.

David Pakman
Well, Steven, you know what? Let's keep it to one question because we have so many people waiting. I really appreciate hearing from you, Stephen from New York, and glad you were able to, to get on with me today. Let's go to Aaron in Kyoto, Japan, also a website member. Aaron in Japan, welcome to the show and thanks for your support. Please unmute yourself so that we can hear you.

Speaker B
There we go. How are you today, David?

David Pakman
Doing well.

Speaker B
I'm calling today with tears in my eyes because your interview with Roy Swipe was purely magical, especially as a minnesotan myself.

David Pakman
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, it got him into a little bit of trouble, I guess.

Speaker B
Yes. That was fantastic, seeing all that. So. But my question, though, is, like, I live outside the United States and I don't have much exposure to Kamala Harris. So I'm kind of wondering, like, what's all the negativity around her? Like, all that I really know is, like, she's a cop in terms of, like, negative stuff. But I like. Yeah. Do you have any ideas or, like, direct information to help me out?

David Pakman
I think that her public presence is not managed in a way that makes her come off as super likable as some in the audience know. Right before the state of the union, I was invited to go to DC and have a meeting with a few other creators and the vice president. She was extraordinarily smart. She was extraordinarily personable and likable. And it's a completely different Kamala than the one that you normally see on tv. So I think part of it is sort of like a reputation management aspect to it. I don't think that sort of, like, the best things for her to work on are necessarily being delegated to her by the Biden administration. So I think that may be a factor, but you make a good point, which is why is it that her reputation isn't better and her approval and favorability aren't super high? I believe it's that the public facing version of her is not managed to give the best impression.

Speaker B
Speaker two. Okay. Well, thank you so much, and I wish you and the family the best.

David Pakman
All right, Aaron in Kyoto, great to hear from you. Let's go to Brett in Chicago, also a website member. Thanks for your support on the website, Brett. And what's on your mind?

Speaker B
Of course, David, good to be here.

I wanted to ask you if you had any strong opinions on Chicago style pizza, if you've been around here and if you have a, you know, if you've tried the different places.

David Pakman
Are you talking about deep dish?

Speaker B
Of course talking about deep dish.

David Pakman
I don't like it.

Speaker B
Yeah, I figured that.

Eric
Why?

David Pakman
Hold on. Let's explore that. Why would you assume I don't like deep dish pizza?

Speaker B
Well, I've heard you talk about the benefits of turkey bacon before and your general liberal diet, like the heft of Chicago style pizza.

David Pakman
No, listen, I reject that completely. Brett, let me tell you what.

Are you familiar with argentinian style pizza?

Speaker B
I am not.

David Pakman
Okay. Argentinian pizza is very heavy. There's pies that are loaded with, you know, a kilo of mozzarella.

It is not the heft that bothers me. It's really two things. Every deep dish Chicago pizza I had in Chicago. Now, now I know everybody. It'll be all Jordan Peterson. You don't like Chicago pizza because you've never had real Chicago. It's like you. What you're saying what Peterson says is wrong because you don't really understand it. No, listen, I went to Chicago. I had the pizza, here's the thing. The cheese to crust ratio is completely out of whack. The cheese to sauce ratio is completely out of whack. And I really would recommend Chicago explore argentinian style pizza.

Speaker B
And then perhaps Detroit style might be another option that you might want to check out.

David Pakman
You know, I did try Detroit style pizza when I went to netroots nation up there. I don't remember much about it. I think it was like, sort of fine.

Speaker B
Okay, that's, that's fair. Just one quick thing. I heard from, like, a republican leaning or right leaning subreddit somewhere. Yeah, Project 2025.

People are saying that Trump hasn't actually said anything, like directly linking him to it. It's like a heritage foundation thing. And like, how, how strongly do we know of the link between the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and like, the second Trump term?

David Pakman
Trump has indicated that he will do things that are in Project 2025 in terms of replacing career bureaucrats with political activists, retribution, all these different things. So it's fine to say Trump hasn't said, I love Project 2025 by name, but he's made it clear that his agenda will be very much simpatico with Project 2025.

Speaker B
Okay, well, perfect. Thank you very much, David.

David Pakman
All right, Brett from Chicago, great to hear from you. Let's go to a break. We did calls. It went okay. I don't think it's going to come back to be a regular feature on the show, much to the pleasure of, I think, the majority of the audience. But we did it. We heard from some people.

We will do it again sometime, just not every week. All right, so let's take a very quick break and the show will continue.

Follow us on social media, interact with the David Pakman show Community, see exclusive content, see when we're taking calls live, and stay up to date on other big show announcements we post daily. Find us on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, discord, and TikTok.

All right, let's get into Friday feedback, even though it's not Friday because it's a shortened week, and so it's an opportunity to react and respond to what is on some of people's minds. Of course, you can always email info at david pakman.com. and we start with Lee. Lee is very much unhappy with me and wrote in from the UK to tell me so. Lee says in an email titled clowns fake news. Lee says, david Pakman, your opinion is not fit for purpose and you should not be on tv. From UK resident with a brain and a nose for bull s now, in the future, we'll be able to say the full word when we're not on radio and tv. You know, it's a tragic, tragic thing to me that even people in other countries say, you know what I'm going to do with my day?

I'm going to write to that guy in the United States who talks about politics. I've said before, I used to sometimes get mad and reactive when people would write me this stuff. And then I would really think about what must be going on in their lives that they choose to do this. And then I get sad and I end up just kind of feeling bad for these folks. That's where I land. Same thing would apply to Cleave. Cleave wrote to me about the topic lefty and says, david Parkman is such a smug, arrogant, condescending dolt, he can't even define what a woman is. Pathetic leftist. You know, they think it's a real gotcha to say, define a woman. Oh, you can't do it. Now, if Cleave knew anything about about me, he'd know. But I've talked about what we mean by woman and how it's affected by context. It is a different thing to say who is a woman in a medical setting versus who is a woman socially versus what about if someone is trying to bring a claim of gender discrimination? These are all different questions. Now, I've said also, we on the left shouldn't shy away from these conversations, but the fact that no matter what we say, they go, you guys won't even define woman.

Have you listened to the many conversations I've had about this, including, for example, on the trigger nometry show? Anyway, I don't know that cleave necessarily is seriously thinking about this issue. All right, one more from the sort of whacked out stuff before we get into more. And that is a guy who has himself holding a fish in his profile picture saying, you're a idiot with multiple mistakes here. It's the wrong you're y o u r. It should say an idiot. And also, idiot is wrongly and randomly capitalized in the middle of a sentence. So listen, I know we have an educational problem here in this country. I know we have a lot of problems here in this country, but can we stop with the morons calling other people idiots? And I'm so sorry to use that term pejoratively, but this guy is the last person. One, two, three. I guess four errors in a three word sentence, and I guess five if you include missing punctuation. Although I guess I won't hold them to it.

Listen, maybe just think about what you can do to improve your own life rather than trying to bother me. All right, now, more substantively, let's get into a post from condescending bench on the subreddit. If Trump loses again, will he be more successful or less successful in his attempts to claim fraud and stir up hostility and or violence? I get that his followers will believe and do whatever he says no matter what, but I'm curious, what will it look like this time around? A lot has happened in the last four years, including some loss of support from people due to January 6 and his fraud claims, as well as Trump being overwhelmed by legal troubles. Since this is his last chance at the presidency, he has nothing left to lose. Plus, he and his sycophants have the benefit of hindsight. Curious to hear what you think.

I am extraordinarily concerned about Trump attempting to move his followers to violence if he loses in November.

I think a lot of his followers are willing to do violence. But here's the one maybe naive caveat.

I think that many of his followers, if Trump loses again, will realize it's time to hang it up. They'll know what happened to many of the January 6 rioters. They'll know that none of it worked to get the election stolen by Trump. They'll know this is it for Trump because of his age, and it just seems like this would be it.

I think that that hopefully would keep some of the Trump supporters from actually going out and doing violence. A lot of people were convinced that Trump wasn't going to show up to the debate last week. Like Gracie, who said Trump will never show up. He will back out saying the debate is rigged or some other lame excuse. Trump showed up, and I know a lot of you in my audience were convinced that he would not, but he did. He lied his way through the entire thing and benefited significantly from Joe Biden having a terrible debate performance.

But he did show up. And to be frank, I think because Trump's perception is now that he did so well against Biden, I assume Trump will be excited for a second debate, the details of which, the details of which are still being worked out. So he was there. He definitely showed up. Carol said, David, I would like to see someone show a Trump speech from 2016 and compare it to one of his speeches from the last few weeks. It really shows he is deteriorating. Margaret responded by saying, look at a major speech from each year starting in 2016 to see the dementia progression. Listen, there is no question that if you look at consecutive Trump speeches over the last 510, 1520 years, he wasn't doing speeches 20 years ago, but tv appearances, he has deteriorated significantly. We have also now seen that Joe Biden, outside of the ten to four working hours that the White House through axios says are his best hours, has also experienced some deterioration. What Trump is experiencing and what Biden is experiencing are certainly different things.

But there is no doubt that if you look at speeches of Trump's over time, it is a different Trump. It is a different Trump. Jimmy Roden and says about stupidity in the current media.

How about a show on how an indie, an idiot inbred is actually a political commentator? I think Jimmy means me and the lowering of standards all across the board of the SOA Torah administration and his sidekick, criminal, liar, pedophile, schmo Biden. How much did you have to blow they producer to get your show?

Let me say this once and only once.

I own the show.

No one gives me the show and there's no one person who can fire me now. Everybody could stop listening, everybody could stop watching and make it so. I'm a guy in a room by myself, which is horrible, obviously, as you can imagine.

But there is no person out there who gives me the show. And it's a very tired and lame narrative. Chris Howard writes, Trump is dominating the swing states that matter. I don't know what the purpose is of reporting national polls with Biden winning, since our electoral college is all that matters and Trump has Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania locked in, Trump will win in November. Chris, you're extraordinarily confident and confident people have been wrong many, many, many times before.

Write in info at david pakman.com. get the free, completely free project 2025 white paper at david pakman.com project 2025. And remember that you can get all of my children's books, including most recently, think like a voter. A perfect book for an election year at david pakman.com book. I will see you on the bonus show. I hope that you have a great 4 July holiday if you are doing anything for it. And we will be back oh so soon.

7/3/24: Trump builds lead post-debate, sentencing delayed for months

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1: Debate Aftermath

2: Swing States Overview

3: Sentencing Delayed

4: Legal Considerations

5: Viewer Interaction

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