8/12/24: Kamala crowds and polls explode while Trump hides and Vance fails

David Pakman
Well, I hope everybody had a great weekend. I'm increasingly convinced that we are currently in a political time now, the next few months until this election, and then depending on what happens, the immediate period thereafter, I believe this is a time that we are going to remember the texture and the feel and the details of in a way that is not typical. I remember the 20, 2012 presidential election when Barack Obama was seeking re election and Mitt Romney challenged him from the republican side. And President Obama won, and he won easily. I remember where I was when the announcement was made that Barack Obama had been reelected. But that three or four month period was not an inflection point in the way that what we are seeing right now is. It was not unprecedented and unique in the way that what we are experiencing right now is. And every single day we are getting a week or multiple weeks worth of political news. And just this weekend, Harris waltz with a series of rallies.

It felt like the roof was going to be blown off of the arenas where they were speaking from, the energy and the excitement. And we're going to look at a couple of them. We start with Las Vegas, where, I don't know how else to say it, the energy is palpable, the audience fired up in a near frenzy. And the comparison to what's happening with Trump Vance, never mind that Trump's off the campaign trail with the exception of one event a week and JD Vance is events, low energy would be an upgrade. Forget about the contrast.

We have not seen this level of enthusiasm on the democratic side for a long time. Here is Tim waltz pointing out, these people are weird and we don't want their weird crap. And this is landing, and it is landing really well.

Tim Walz
And I said it. I want to be clear. I didn't call anybody names. I spent enough years in that lunchroom to know bullies when I see them. I just made a very clear observation that they seem to be really concerned about. I pointed out that taking away reproductive freedoms, banning books, raising the price of insulin, trying to hurt labor unions, nobody's asking for that weird crap. No one's asking for it.

David Pakman
This is, I mean, Tim Walz is very, very good at this. Walls also pointing out, listen, we've got 87 days left to go as of this speech a couple of days ago. And he says, we can do anything, 87 days. And let's just think about what will hopefully be coming at the tail end of this and the crowd reacting very well to it.

Tim Walz
And I keep saying this, we can do anything for 87 days. And my mantra is we'll sleep when we're dead. Will sleep in your dad.

Because when you wake up on that 88th day, you're gonna get to say, welcome, Madam President Harris.

David Pakman
I had people writing to me over the weekend saying, hey, I like Kamala Harris just fine, but I actually wish it were Tim walls at the top of the ticket. The energy that this guy is bringing now, at the same rally, Vice President Harris being very clear, as she likes to be, there are individual actions and statements that have been made by Donald Trump, which you can throw everything else aside and just based on this one fact, this one belief, this one statement, just that one thing alone would disqualify him to be president of the United States. And she points out one of those.

Kamala Harris
Things here, let us be very clear.

Someone who suggests we should terminate the constitution of the United States, should never again stand behind the seal of president of the United States.

Never again.

David Pakman
There is no doubt that there is a fair bit of theater here. There is a fair bit of theatrics and performance, but that's the way it is in politics. And she's very much hitting the right notes. One of the other aspects that I like, which is playing well in front of the, the crowds, is turning around the referendum on freedom. These right wingers, they always used to claim, and they still try to claim, freedom is what they represent, but that's not the case anymore. If you want to make this a referendum on freedom, we'll do it and we win.

Kamala Harris
I know the people of Nevada, you are battle born.

You are battle born. And if Donald Trump wants to pick a fight over our most fundamental freedoms, we say, bring it on, bring it on.

Bring it on.

Bring it off.

David Pakman
Bring it on.

So a positive vision here are the things we are going to do that are going to be good, rather than the dystopian and apocalyptic vision. Just a couple more of these that I thought were interesting. Kamala Harris continuing with this we are not going back idea. It works because we'd be going back to Trump. Who wants to go back to the fifties? Whether it's the 1950s or the 1850s doesn't remain completely clear. And these lines are working to keep the crowd engaged.

Kamala Harris
America has tried these failed policies before, and we are nothing. Going back.

We are not going back.

We are not going back.

We're not going back. We're not going back.

David Pakman
You know, there's no doubt that there's a cheesiness here, right? There's, there's a little bit of cheesiness with all of this stuff. But what is being done correctly. And Brian, Brian, Tyler Cohen and I spoke about this last week a little bit. We spoke about it with Tim Miller the week before.

The repetition.

As long as you have the right message, the repetition is a common political tool. And Trump does it with his, we will make America strong again and we will make America orange again. Or what? You know, the whole thing that he did and the crowd gets into it. This, these are tools. They're tactics. The question is, how do you apply them? And Kamala Harris is applying them pretty well right now. Now, one other really interesting note, and I love this because the right loves to claim to be about law and order, yet they are, they are not there for support the police, except when it's their rioters beating the police, then it's like, oh, no, now we're for the rioters. It's law and order. Except when it's their guy being prosecuted, when the crowd chance lock him up. Kamala Harris rightly says, hold on a second, hold on a second.

Let's vote in November. The courts will deal with prison.

That's law and order, my friends.

Kamala Harris
So, Nevada, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's tight.

Whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The court's gonna take care of that. We just don't beat him in November. We'll beat him in November.

David Pakman
That is line order. We don't need to be chanting about locking him up or anything like that. So an explosive weekend of campaigning, this was in Las Vegas. We're going to look at Arizona in a moment. And meanwhile, Trump effectively in hiding, other than golfing all week, this week, the only thing on Trump's schedule, the only thing on Trump's schedule indefinitely right now is a very soft and flaccid rally, I guess you would call it, in Asheville, North Carolina on Wednesday. Other than that, JD Vance has an event and Trump has nothing else scheduled. Why isn't Trump campaigning? Some of you said it's because he just doesn't have the energy to do it. Others said it's because he has a plan to steal the election. So he doesn't really need to campaign. We will get to the scheduling in a moment. But first, let's go from Las Vegas to Mes Mesa, Arizona, where something remarkable took place.

At the Harris Walls rally in Mesa, Arizona, a republican mayor, a republican mayor endorsed Kamala Harris for president and said, I'm a Republican, but I don't recognize my party anymore, and delivered an incredible short speech. This is Republican Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona.

And he sums up what's wrong with the republican party almost as well as any of us could. Take a listen to this. This is extraordinary stuff.

John Giles
Thank you.

Thank you.

I am the very proud mayor of Mesa, Arizona, but I.

Thank you.

David Pakman
Thank you. This is really good.

John Giles
I have to say, I feel maybe a little out of place today, partly because we're in beautiful Glendale. Okay, there's that.

But as you may know, I am a lifelong Republican.

All right.

I. I have.

Thank you for your warm response. I have to tell you that I do not recognize my party.

David Pakman
Right.

John Giles
The republican party has been taken over by extremists that are committed to forcing people in the center of the political spectrum out of the party.

So I have something to say to those of us who are in the political middle.

You don't owe a damn thing to that political party in particular, you do not owe anything to a party that is out of touch and is hell bent on taking our country backward.

David Pakman
Right.

John Giles
And by all means, you owe no displaced loyalty to a candidate that is morally and ethically bankrupt.

David Pakman
Wow.

John Giles
So, again, to all of us, I would say in the spirit of the great Senator John McCain, please, please join me in putting country over party and stopping, and stopping Donald Trump and protecting the rule of law, protecting our constitution, and protecting the democracy of this great country.

David Pakman
An incredible moment. And we can no longer just write off the fact that there are a growing number of Republicans saying, hey, it's not just about I don't love Trump, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. This is something that exists now. Trump is still going to get tens of millions of votes. This isn't going to mean that Kamala Harris has a chance to run the table with all 50 states. But when these elections depend on the margins, they depend on half a million votes or 250,000 votes or sometimes even 77,000 votes in just 2345 states.

All of these things can make a difference. Arizona can make a difference. And a really incredible moment. And if you're wondering Mayor Giles or Giles, he did not even talk about electrocution or sharks, which was jarring in some way. I was expecting that because we're used to republican speeches at this point, talking about these things or, you know, wind cancer and that sort of stuff. None of it. Absolutely none of it. And it was an extraordinary moment. So some positive things happening over the weekend. It wasn't all good, though. JD Vance gave some interviews. Trump had a rally.

New polling came out. Willie Brown said, I was never in a helicopter with Donald Trump. I don't know what he's talking about. We are going to get to all of this and more.

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Donald Trump
We've endorsed JP, right?

David Pakman
JD Mandela, and how far we've fallen since the infamous endorsement of JP Mandel. A sign up at join pacman.com. get the full David Pakman show experience.

JD Vance or JP Mandel or whatever other one of the various names he's gone by, that guy, he has started doing some television interviews, and these have gone really poorly, as uncharismatic as he has been when answering reporter questions in a less formal setting. And these sort of like, shout your questions up, uh, kind of environments or mini press conference environments, before or after events, the sit down interviews with JD Vance are genuinely bad. And it is yet another reason, which I can only assume. I can only assume has the Trump campaign in panic mode about how do we either hide this guy or do we need to actually replace him? Dana Bash on CNN sat down with JD Vance and said, Donald Trump alleged that Kamala Harris became black.

Do you believe Kamala Harris is black?

And JD doesn't answer by saying, yeah, she's black. He answers simply by saying, yeah, she's whatever she claims to be. A number of years ago, she happened to turn black. Her father is jamaican. Do you believe Kamala Harris is black?

JD Vance
I believe that Kamala Harris is whatever she says she is. But I believe, importantly, that President Trump is right, that she is a chameleon. She pretends to be one thing in front of one audience. She pretends to be something different in front of another audience. Look, Dana, she's not running a political campaign. She's running a movie. She only speaks to voters behind a teleprompter. Everything is scripted. She doesn't have her policy positions out there. She has an Amber speaker one.

David Pakman
All right, so we're going to be dealing with a bunch of those claims. But it's very ironic in a tragic way to hear JD Vance talking about Kamala Harris as the million, given that he's had three or four different names, given that the JD Vance that he claims he, he is in his book Hillbilly Elegy, which I actually read, by the way. You can tell when Trump talks about the book, he's never read it. He has no idea what's in it. The JD Vance that JD claims he is in his book Hillbilly Elegy has absolutely zero to do with the sort of Peter Thiel associated Silicon Valley libertarian tech guy Persona that he appears to actually have. Chameleon is a funny thing for him to say. And finally, it's funny for him to say, given the completely non believable 180 that he has done on Trump and that his wife has supposedly done on Trump, he's really the chameleon. But these interviews actually get even worse. You may recall that Donald Trump had dinner once with white supremacist Nick Fuentes. JD Vance previously has criticized Nick Fuentes. The topic came up. It's not a good moment for JD Vance. This is during an ABC News interview with Jonathan Karl.

Jonathan Karl
So there's been a lot of talk about racism and whatnot. You faced some really nasty stuff.

I saw this thing that Nick Fuentes, of course, he's an avowed white supremacist. He said, what kind of a man marries someone? Somebody named Usha. Clearly, he doesn't value his racial identity, his heritage. I mean, this is racist garbage.

JD Vance
Yes, it is.

Jonathan Karl
But this is also a guy that dined with Donald Trump at Mar a Lago during this campaign.

JD Vance
Well, Donald Trump doesn't know anything about and frankly, doesn't care for.

David Pakman
But yeah, look, yeah, they sat some kid down at Trump's table. Trump knew nothing about.

JD Vance
My attitude to these people attacking my wife is she's beautiful, she's smart. What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and very lucky man, importantly. And my view is, look, if these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, my personality, come after me, but don't attack my wife. She's out of your league.

Jonathan Karl
But I mean, that dinner that Trump had, and of course, it was Kanye west, the guy that's praised Hitler, who arranged it all that was back a year and a half ago, and Trump still hasn't given a full throat to denounce of this guy who is said that terrible stuff. But he said, I mean, he's a white supremacist.

JD Vance
Look, I think President Trump has issued plenty of condemnations on this. The one thing that I like, yeah.

David Pakman
He has not, the one thing I.

JD Vance
Like about Donald Trump, John, is that he actually will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody doesn't mean you endorse their views. And look, I mean, Donald Trump spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees Erie, gives her a hug, tells her she's beautiful and jokes around with her a little bit. I'm not at all worried about Donald Trump.

David Pakman
I'm, forget about the fact that he hasn't denounced the white supremacist he had dinner with. He's polite to my indian wife whenever he, whenever he sees her. JD Vance is very much not good at this. Let's look at one more from CNN and then one more from ABC News. Here is Dana Bash on CNN.

With regard to who is valid as a parenthood, which is a big topic for JD Vance, did you try to have kids or not? Determines whether you're a childless cat lady worthy of praise or condemnation. Dana Bash brings up, listen, Kamala Harris only has stepchildren. Pete Buttigieg is a gay man who has adopted twins. Are they equally parents in the mold that JD has determined is appropriate? Let's listen to his answer. You called out Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg in particular.

Kamala Harris has two stepchildren. Pete Buttigieg and his husband have adopted twins. Do you recognize them as parents and more broadly as being part of families?

JD Vance
Well, of course I do, Dana. I mean, you know, my life story. I was actually raised. I was raised, but, Dana, I was raised by name.

David Pakman
You called them out by name, but you, of course, recognize them as parents. Tell me more, JD.

JD Vance
The first people that I gave a hug to after my RNC convention speech was my stepmom, who's been an incredibly important person in my life.

David Pakman
She's not childless.

JD Vance
My kids call her mama. Of course she's not childless. But again, you called her that. The criticism. I certainly did not call my own stepmother.

David Pakman
No, no, no. Kamala Harris.

JD Vance
I criticize Kamala Harris for being part of a set of ideas that exist in american leadership that is anti family. I never criticize people for not having kids. I criticize people for being anti child. And I do think that Kamala Harris, she's anti child. That's a bizarre statement. She has said things like, it's reasonable not to have children over climate change. I think it's the exact opposite message we should be sending to our young families. I want to expand the child tax credit. I want to stop those surprise medical bills. I want to make housing more affordable so that if you have a young family, you can actually afford to put them in a home. And I think that it is unfortunate that so much of our public leadership has become anti family.

David Pakman
So not really addressing the question as usual in any way at all. He was then confronted about the same thing over on ABC, and he kind to, kind of tried to write off suggesting that parents should have more voting rights than non parents by saying it was a thought experiment. A thought experiment coming from the party that is very rarely doing any thought experiment.

Jonathan Karl
All right, let's focus on something that's gotten a lot of attention. I mean, you know, this cat ladies comment, you talk about Democrat party dominated by childish cat ladies.

Put that aside. You also made a policy proposal.

JD Vance
Yes.

Jonathan Karl
Which was why Tucker Carlson had you on for that interview. And you said you advocated giving extra votes to people with children, which seems a little.

JD Vance
Well, John, it's not a policy proposal. It's a thought experiment. Right.

David Pakman
Democrat, he just said, yes, I do have a policy proposal, but now I'm calling it a thought experiment 7 seconds.

JD Vance
Later that said we should give children the right to vote. Some Democrats had said we're going to give children the right to vote. Oh, if we're gonna give the rights to the children, then we should actually just allow the parents to cast those votes. Right. I trust a parent more with a decision like that than I do, say, a 14 year old. So it's a thought experiment. There are, though, policy positions behind my view that the country should become more pro family. Right.

One thing I learned as a dad is after our second home, after our second child, we brought home, we have three little kids.

David Pakman
After we bought our second home, we.

JD Vance
Got these ridiculous surprise medical billings from the hospital because we had chosen an out of network provider. Of course, at this most stressful of all imaginable moments, I've actually introduced legislation to stop moms and dads from having to go through those surprise medical billings. We want to expand the child tax credit. There's so much that we want to do.

David Pakman
Jon, you know what's funny? The issue of getting a bill because you went out of network, that's not really about a surprise. That's a proactive choice. That's, that. That's a very privileged example of a surprise bill, because many people have plans where you're just not allowed to go out of network. Right. Depending on whether you have a point of care plan or an HMO. It's a very common thing that no one would even think to go out of network. Why out of network? I have an HMO. That's not even a possibility. What are you talking about? That's not even really the crux of the surprise medical bill that most surprise medical billing proposals are meant to address. Although it would be great if people could go out of network with more plans. And it's, it's. JD Vance is trying to pivot. He does like, four things wrong. He doesn't really address the substance of the question. He tries to pivot, but he pivots to something that is not really an issue for most people because they have, they actually have worse, more basic issues that need to be dealt with with regard to plans. He shows, to some degree, a level of privilege in that. That's something that he chose to do it. It's a mess. This guy is really not good at this. And then finally, who's your favorite vice president?

Doesn't do great with this one.

Jonathan Karl
You've said that Donald Trump is the greatest president of your lifetime.

JD Vance
He is.

David Pakman
Who painfully stupid thing to say, in.

Jonathan Karl
Your mind, is the greatest vice president of your life?

JD Vance
That's a good question. I haven't thought much about that. I think George W. Bush, excuse me, George Hw Bush did a very good job as vice president.

You could pick a number of guys who've done a perfectly fine job, but the president really sets the tone for policy. And I think a lot more about the president than about the vice president. And fundamentally, my role in the administration is to support him. Enact the, in enacting the agenda. That's what I want to work on.

Jonathan Karl
Trump was asked recently very directly, would you be ready to be president on day one?

And it was notable that he didn't answer the question.

Instead, what he said is the vice presidential candidate doesn't matter.

I mean, what did you make when you, when you heard him not answer that directly?

JD Vance
Well, he said that a million times, both in private and in public.

Jonathan Karl
But he's asking, are you ready?

JD Vance
Most people. Oh, come on, John. Most. He's right. Most people, 99% of the country, they don't vote on who the vice presidential nominee. They're voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris, not for JD or I.

David Pakman
Him.

JD Vance
Waltz right. But what I think that he does believe, because he made it, the main focus of his vetting process is do I think this person can be president on day one if, God forbid, something happens? Yes. So I.

David Pakman
Speaker one. Yeah, except he didn't know. He hasn't said yes once. That the funny thing is, JD goes at the end of the day, what matters here is that he believes I can be president on day one. He's now been asked that multiple times and he hasn't said yes at all. So the JD Vance interviews a disaster. Everything going wrong. Let's now check in on Tim Waltz. Tim WaLLS absolutely chumped Trump on the obsession with the size of Trump's crowd. We're increasingly realizing that Donald Trump is not well endowed when it comes to the size of his political crowds. And it seems as though the Harris Walls campaign is bringing out near record crowds almost anywhere they go. Tim Walls, hilariously, in Glendale, Arizona, hitting Trump on this. And he does it so well.

Tim Walz
Hey.

Yeah.

David Pakman
Wow.

Tim Walz
Well, you might have seen a few people showed up in Philadelphia the other night, and then 10,000 plus walked into a field in western Wisconsin.

And then on Wednesday, the largest crowd of the campaign showed up in Detroit, Michigan.

But Arizona just couldn't leave it alone, alone, could you?

David Pakman
Wow.

Tim Walz
You know, it's not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything.

Donald Trump
Wow.

David Pakman
Really a masterclass in political mass communication. He is really, really good at this, hitting the repetition with this mind your own business stuff. And this continues to get really good reactions from the crowd.

Tim Walz
Look, you and I, especially the gray hairs in the crowd, we know, we know our relatives, Republicans used to be the people talking about freedom, not this group. When they talk about freedom, it means that the government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor.

Look, in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. We may, we maybe wouldn't make the same choices, but we respect them. And I know in Minnesota and in Arizona and places across this country, you know, what makes society work best is when you learn a golden rule. Mind your own damn business. Mind your own damn business. You don't need it.

David Pakman
This, this messaging is working well because it's taking back the talking point of we, the Republicans are the party of freedom. And then just one more nice little clip here. Here is Kamala Harris at the very same Arizona rally.

Kamala Harris
So, Arizona, I ask, are you ready to make your voices heard?

Do we believe in freedom?

Do we believe in opportunity?

Do we believe in the promise of America?

And are we, are we ready to fight for it.

And when we fight, we win.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

David Pakman
So that's the vibe and the atmosphere at the Harris Walls rallies. I think you get it after the break. We're going to get rejiggered here. After the break, I will show you what it's like when the crowd is silent because they either can't understand or can't believe the garbage that is coming out of your mouth. That's after the break. Stay with us in today's insane media landscape. To stay informed and prepare for the show, I turn to trustworthy publications of record like the Washington Post. No one can beat the Washington Post's track record of investigative journalism and speaking truth to power. And now the Washington Post is a sponsor of the David Pakman show. Did you know? The Post offers a cool feature for audio lovers like you. You can actually listen to articles in addition to reading them, so you can tackle your to do list and catch up on the news at the same time. And if you thought the Washington Post only covered politics, think again. You name it, they cover it. Climate and culture, crosswords and cooking. The Washington Post helps you discover a world of surprising stories, important insights and actionable advice. It's important to me that this show only be sponsored by a reputable news organization like the Washington Post, and my audience needs to stay informed. You really need a daily newspaper to read online to do that. From May 21 to June 3, my audience can subscribe for just twenty five cents per week for their first year. That's 90% off their typical offer.

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Take a look at these stunning 28 seconds of the speech.

Donald Trump
That's a few months now. It's, the numbers are much worse. They've let an invasion of our country happen. But I took a look, and because I took that look, I mean, what are the chances of that? So I just want to thank everybody, because I'll tell you what, the level of love and compassion and, and all of the things that we all went through, it was a terrible thing.

David Pakman
Yeah, they came for republican red meat and all they got was, was a disjointed word salad. Instead.

You know, it's, it's notable that even his most committed cultists, who presumably are the only people remaining still going to these harebrained rallies, even, they're visibly bored with the same old stories, which Donald Trump increasingly struggles to tell coherently. Trump then, yes, there were glitches, a lot of different glitches. At one point, he talked about somebody being deportated.

Donald Trump
Speaker one, deportation. He didn't want the person deportated.

David Pakman
I wouldn't wish deport a dedian on my worst enemy. I really wouldn't. And then, of course, you knew it was going to happen. Trump suffering from a lack of endowment when it comes to the size of his crowds, starting to lie and distort about the size of the Harris walls. Crowds which are genuinely huge.

Donald Trump
I think we're going to write up one standard speech. You read it from beginning to end. You know what would happen? You'd start walking out there saying, oh, look, Trump's not holding speaker one now.

David Pakman
You know what's really funny? Trump delivers the same speech that he repeats from beginning to end. And every single speech we hear reports or we see video of people walking out while Trump is speaking, but he wants us to believe that it's happening. At the Harris Walls event yesterday, they.

Donald Trump
Said, oh, she had a big crowd. All the crowd. The press is talking about the crowd. In New Jersey, I had 107,000 people. The press never even talked about it in.

David Pakman
The reason the press doesn't talk about Trump having 107,000 people is that he didn't have 107,000 people. It's something like 70 something thousand people go to whatever town that was in New Jersey. Was it Wildwood? I don't remember. Someplace on the Jersey shore, 70 something thousand people go on a normal weekend day total. Like, to go to the beach, to go to restaurant. That's the max, max, max number. Some of them accidentally stumbled by Trump's rally. But by all accounts, Trump's rally had 15 to 20,000 people. That's why the media doesn't talk about him having 107,000 people there. And this, by the way, is why we have to keep talking about the size of Trump's crowds, because he can't handle it. It is wildly triggering. You know, I look at fundraising, I look at polling. I, I don't really focus on crowd size, especially like in 2020 when only one candidate was doing rallies. What will rally crowd size tell you in 2020, when Biden's not even doing rallies of the sort that Trump is doing? But I. We should talk about it because it drives Trump absolutely up a wall. Trump was working on attack lines against Joe Biden with his Montana audience, which is weird because he's not running against Joe Biden anymore, but he seems to think he is. Also, there seems to be a woman sleeping behind Trump over Trump's left shoulder.

Donald Trump
I think Krooka Joe is more correct.

David Pakman
I'm sorry. I guess that's a guy. I don't even want to assume. I don't know. Someone looked sleepy.

Donald Trump
You like? All right, ready?

Crooked first, right?

What do you like better, crooked Joe or sleepy Joe?

David Pakman
Oh, okay. Correction. It's a man, not a woman. And they were pretending to sleep because Trump was saying sleepy Joe. So I correct myself. There was not a woman sleeping. There was a man pretending to sleep.

Donald Trump
Crooked seems to always win. I mean, he's a crooked guy.

All he had to do is think of it. If he didn't do the debate, he'd still be running.

David Pakman
All right, so Trump seems to, weirdly still be focusing on how to attack Biden even though Biden is no longer running. Not only are the crowd sized stories getting to Trump, the. You guys are weird stories. Are getting to Trump as well.

Donald Trump
And then he said, by the way, JD Vance is doing a phenomenal job.

But then he said, well, think of that.

Think of the things I just said. Then he said, you know, I think JD Vance is weird. You know, it's a word that they use. I think he calls me that, too. No, we're not. We're very solid people.

We want to have strong borders. We want to have good elections. We want to have low interest rates. We want to be able to buy a house. We want great education.

We want strong borders.

I think we're very, actually, I think we're the opposite of weird. They're weird. You know what they do? They give. They work with the press on coming up with the sound.

David Pakman
There's no way I am. But you're really with a weird one. I mean, that's really as weird as. Not me as actually, they have nothing. But I know you are, but what am I? That's what they're relegated to. Trump continuing the transphobia, which always gets the biggest applause. The crowds are dead. They are bored out of their minds wondering, when do I get to go home? Except when Trump launches the transphobia. And he did once again against olympic boxer Imani Khalif, which, just as a reminder, was born a woman, has always been a woman.

There's no trans issue here. And yet people like Trump and others are arguing that she was actually born a man.

Donald Trump
And I'd like to congratulate the young woman who transitioned from a man into a boxer.

You saw he won. She won the gold medal.

How about the young italian, beautiful italian boxer? She got in there and she didn't know what was going on.

David Pakman
Yes, none of that is true. No evidence whatsoever that Imani Kalief transitioned. No evidence that Imani Kalief was born a man or any of it. Just a transphobic story over which many media outlets have now had to apologize. And then finally, Trump wrapping the rally by calling Kamala Harris dumb, which I don't think is landing with anybody.

Donald Trump
Since becoming a presidential candidate, she has refused, refused to do a single interview. You know why? Because she's dumb.

David Pakman
Yeah, I don't think this is landing. Dumb is not convincing anybody to vote for Trump. Dumb is coming off as misogynistic and sexist, which it is. And there are both suburban women and just voters in general that are disgusted by it. This is not landing. But all he has are ad hominems and fury about the diminished and shriveled size of his crowds compared to those of Tim walls and of course, the person at the top of the ticket, Kamala Harris. Donald Trump got his black guys confused in a disoriented and visibly confused moment. This is, you know, if this weren't 2024 and we hadn't already been, been dealing with stuff this bonkers for years, you wouldn't believe this story. Donald Trump raised eyebrows the other day during his press conference at Mar a Lago when he told a story about almost dying in a helicopter. Here was the story. And we figured out it all comes down to Trump not being able to a distinguish different black guys that he knows. There's been some discussion around Vice President Harris relationship with Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, and how that might have intersected with her career trajectory. So I'm just wondering if you followed that discussion at all.

Donald Trump
Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing. And Willie was, he was a little concerned. So I know him. I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven't seen him in years, but he told me terrible things about her.

David Pakman
Yeah. So, all right. So former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown almost went, they went down in a field in a helicopter. Here is Willie Brown interviewed on CNN. Here's his perspective on the whole thing, just to clear things up. Have you ever been in a helicopter that made an emergency landing with Donald Trump?

Tim Walz
No.

David Pakman
Have you ever been in a helicopter with Donald Trump?

Tim Walz
No.

David Pakman
He is apparently tonight getting angry about all of this, calling the New York Times and berating them for their story on this, claiming he says, we have the flight records of the helicopter and apparently said the helicopter landed in a field.

You have no memory of anything like that ever happening?

Tim Walz
No.

David Pakman
What could he possibly be thinking about?

Tim Walz
I have no idea.

Kamala Harris
It's so good.

David Pakman
Oh, it's so good. So what ultimately happened here? We figured out what happened here.

Wrong black guy. Case of mistaken identity. A politico has a story. The other black politician who says he was with Trump in the near fatal chopper clash crash, former Los Angeles city Council member and state senator Nate Holden said in an interview he remembers the near death experience well and it explains that its former LA state senator and city council member Holden said, willie is the short black guy living in San Francisco. I am a tall black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike. Holden is now 95 years old.

Does this story require any more analysis? I mean, it's just Trump threatened to sue the New York Times. The New York Times put out an article saying Trump claims he has helicopter trip records and threatens to sue because the New York Times investigated it. Spoke to Willie Brown. Willie Brown's like, that didn't happen. Just flat out did not happen. Trump called and said, I'm going to sue you. He was actually on the phone with Maggie Haberman reportedly and said, we're going to sue over this. And just, it never involved Willie Brown just had nothing to do with Willy Brown whatsoever. So let's not go overboard with analysis. Trump just got his black guys confused. It's that simple. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube.com slash the David Pakman show. Hit that subscribe button. We'll take a quick break and be right back.

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They fill their quote unquote food with mysterious meat byproducts and artificial flavoring and colors and preservatives. Feed your cat the human grade food they deserve. Head to Smalls.com Pacman and use the code Pacman at checkout for 50% off your first order and free shipping. That's smash.com Pacman for 50% off and free shipping when you use code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes stunning new polling numbers that are setting the failed former president off on another wannabe tyrannical rant on truth social. Two bits of news, both remarkable. After seeing Donald Trump win North Carolina in 2016 and in 2020, Kamala Harris has now tied Trump in North Carolina. And secondly, despite republicans consistently scoring better on polls with regard to who is better for the economy, Kamala Harris, in a new Financial Times poll, is now polling ahead of Trump on who would be better for the economy.

These really are remarkable numbers. Let's start with North Carolina.

Kamala Harris ties Donald Trump in a state he won in 2016 and in 2020. Newsweek reports.

The YouGov Blue survey shows Harrison Trump deadlocked 46 to 46.

This was based on 800 voters sampled between August 5 and 9th, with a margin of error of just under four points. This is a major shift as North Carolina has been more consistently republican over recent years. This does not mean that Kamala Harris is going to win North Carolina, but it means that North Carolina is as competitive as it has been for a very long time. Also, really bad news for Trump. Voters now say they trust Kamala Harris more than Donald Trump on the economy.

As you can see here, in general, this is a rolling poll. In general, we have quite a gap, as many as 1012 points where voters believed Trump rather than previously. Joe Biden and now Kamala Harris would be better for the economy.

And we now see an increase for Kamala Harris, a decrease for Trump. 42% of voters believe that Kamala Harris would be better for the economy, 41% believe Trump. And the number that believe neither candidate would be best has declined significantly. Let me tell you why this is so critical.

If you follow american politics and the economy, you probably know that there is a long history of Democrats being better for the economy and of voters wrongly thinking Republicans are better for the economy. Why do I say wrongly? Well, when you look at average job creation, it's higher under democratic presidents. When you look at the average unemployment rate, it's lower under democratic president presidents. When you look at GDP growth, it's higher under democratic presidents. When you look at stock market performance, it's higher under democratic presidents. When you look at wage growth, it's higher under democratic presidents. I could go on.

But regardless, Republicans have done a terrific job when it comes to messaging of convincing voters they are better for the economy.

We almost never see poll results like this showing the Democrat tied or ahead of the Republican, just two and a half ish months before an election on this issue.

None of these individual data points are dispositive about who is going to win, but it is a very, very good sign. A feeble Trump, I guess, self conscious about the shriveled nature of the size of his crowds, is now wildly claiming that Kamala Harris cheated and faked the crowd when she did a rally at an airport. Donald Trump taking to truth, social truth central, and says, quote, has anyone noticed that Kamala cheated at the airport? There was nobody at the plane and she aide it and showed a massive crowd of so called followers, but they didn't exist. She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture. But there was nobody there. Later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror, like finish on the vice presidential plane. She's a cheater. She had nobody waiting and the crowd looked like 10,000 people. Same thing is happening with her fake crowds at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win elections, by cheating. And they're even worse at the ballot box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is election interference. Anyone who does that will cheat at anything. Now, it's funny for Trump to say that, because he reposts AI images of himself to truth central all the time. Trump looking like, you know, some kind of super Fitzhen gladiator and all these different things. So Trump does that, but then he posts the supposed proof, and it's a picture where you see the vice presidential plane and a crowd on the left.

And then on the right, you see a zoom in with a red area that claims to show in the reflection that there are no people there. Now, I can't tell you much about that image other than that image itself, maybe what was actually manipulated. But here is video, and as you can see, there is, the video is sort of zoomed in on the plane, and then it zooms out and there's people everywhere. You see the tech setup, you see the stage, you see, I mean, it's just, we have the full video. It's, there's, there's no way that that was AI, we have the entire thing. People are moving. Everybody's waiting.

I don't, you know, I don't know what else to tell you. Now, we can look at this and say, funny, right? Oh, Trump's lost his mind. He's having another orange meltdown.

Sure. But in all seriousness, this is all likely part of a buildup, a preparation to deny the election results if he loses. And there was an MSNBC analyst who pointed out that in general, you just lie and lie and lie. And even if people know you're lying, it can generate apathy in the voting base and discourage participation, because, oh, these liars. It doesn't matter if I vote, they're just gonna lie. They'll do this, they'll do that. They're lying about everything. I don't even know what's true. And so that's the dangerous part of it. Now, one funny little note, we have actual video of Trump getting on an office plane and he is pretending to wave to people and there's nobody there. So as usual, there's an aspect of projection where the thing Trump is accusing Kamala of doing, which is getting off a plane and pretending there's people to wave to, Trump does it all the time. Look at this.

A legend in his own mind.

All right, so Trump fistbased, fist bumping and asking, acting as if there are huge crowds, but there are not. So this is really pathetic. And if there were not, we could simply stand back and laugh at it. If it weren't for the fact that in general, the building, cumulative, corrosive effect of these lies can generate voter apathy, it can generate abandonment of the political process, and also is part of Trump setting up. Listen, she faked her crowds. This was fake. That was fake. Of course she stole the election. Now I'm going to try to become president, even though they say I lost. That's the really dangerous in a pot of coal, not gold, but a pot of coal at the end of this very dystopian rainbow. So that's what we have to watch out about. One funny little note here that I wanted to mention. Celine Dion has put out a statement now crushing Donald Trump for the unauthorized use of her song at a recent rally. But there's also other really funny stuff related to this. At Trump's meltdown rally in Bozeman, Arizona, a few days ago. I'm sorry, Bozeman, Montana. A few days ago, before Trump came out, they played a music video of Celine Dion's my heart will go on while the crowd waited for Trump, who was very late. And of course, this is a song emblematic of a sinking ship, the Titanic.

Okay. Anyway, so obviously analogous to the sinking ship on which Trump finds himself electorally, we hope Trump, Celine Dion has now put out a statement denouncing Trump, as well as his use of the song because it was completely unauthorized, the statement reads. Today, Celine Dion's management team and her record label, Sony Music Entertainment Canada, became aware of the unauthorized usage of the video recording, musical performance and likeness of Celine Dion singing my heart will go on at Donald Trump JD Vance campaign rally in Montana. In no way is this youth use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use.

And really that song. Of course, pointing out the continued irony, a tragic irony if you are MAGa, a delightful irony, if you're on the side of reason, of using a song about the sinking of a vessel by hitting an iceberg, a true tragedy, emblematic and analogous, we can hope we can hope to the Trump campaign right now, these people just cannot get anything right on today's bonus show. We've got some great stuff on the bonus show today. Number one, Kamala Harris says she supports eliminating taxes on tips just like Trump.

Is her reasoning the same as Trump's? Well, we will talk about that. Secondly, Georgia MAga election deniers are going all out to rig Georgia for Trump. What can we do to stop it? And thirdly, one of the things you may be noticing if you look at polls lately is that the number of undecideds is declining quickly and there is a very rapidly shrinking pool of undecided voters left, which is something we've seen since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the ticket. We're also seeing a significant decline in those who say they are supporting Robert F. Kennedy junior or other third party candidates. So why is this happening? Why is support consolidating all of these stories and more on today's bonus show? Sign up at join pacman.com. remember to make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. And of course, pre order my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine, at david pakman.com slash Echo. We are up to. Oh, let me update. So last week we had 450 pre orders. We're not even really in the preorder period. It's going to start in October, but we're doing like pre pre orders. I told you I'd keep you posted weekly. Last week we were at 450 pre orders. We're now at 614, 614 pre orders. Every format counts. Audiobook, Kindle, ebook, hardcover. You can get it at just about any place that sells books, and you can also find it at david pakman.com echo. Send us your pre order receipts info at david pakman.com. i will see you on the bonus show, and I'll be back here tomorrow. Tomorrow.

8/12/24: Kamala crowds and polls explode while Trump hides and Vance fails

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