8/15/24: Trump & Vance both fail at speeches, RFK wanted Kamala job

This episode delves into the political maneuvers and speeches of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump, and JD Vance, analyzing their impacts on their respective campaigns.

1. RFK Jr.'s political maneuvers reveal his opportunistic approach, offering endorsements to both Trump and Harris in exchange for a cabinet position.
2. Trump's speeches continue to lack coherence, often deviating into personal attacks and unfounded claims, diminishing his campaign's credibility.
3. JD Vance struggles to connect with voters, with poorly attended events and speeches that fail to address key issues effectively.
4. The episode portrays a clear disconnect between political rhetoric and effective policy-making among the discussed candidates.
5. Despite their efforts, both Trump and Vance face significant challenges in gaining traction, as illustrated by their unsuccessful speeches and campaign missteps.

1: RFK's Political Strategy

RFK Jr.'s strategy to secure a job by offering endorsements is explored. "David Pakman: RFK's attempt to leverage endorsements for a job reveals his lack of genuine political alignment."

2: Trump's Campaign Missteps

Analysis of Trump's failing speech strategies and the lack of substance in his campaign. "David Pakman: Trump's speeches lack coherence, often filled with unfounded claims and personal attacks."

3: Vance's Campaign Woes

Vance's inability to attract significant support is discussed, highlighting a series of campaign gaffes. "David Pakman: Vance's poorly attended events and ineffective speeches illustrate his disconnection from voter issues."

1. Scrutinize Political Claims: Always verify political statements and promises against credible sources to avoid misinformation.
2. Engage in Civic Activities: Participation in local politics and community discussions can enhance understanding of political dynamics.
3. Educate on Political Processes: Understanding the electoral process can empower voting decisions and encourage more informed civic participation.
4. Promote Transparent Communication: Advocating for clarity and honesty in political communication can lead to a more informed electorate.
5. Encourage Critical Thinking: Critical analysis of political speeches and strategies can help discern genuine policies from rhetoric.

-- On the Show:

-- A deep dive into the use of populist rhetoric by the Trump/Vance campaign despite an established track record of supporting policies that are very much not focused on helping the lower and middle class

-- Robert F. Kennedy Jr reportedly tried speaking to Kamala Harris about endorsing her in exchange for a job in her administration, something he also tried to discuss with Donald Trump

-- JD Vance, Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate, gives a failed speech to a barely-there crowd in Byron Center, Michigan, reminding voters why Republicans think he was a terrible pick

-- Donald Trump holds a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, during which he pulls out packages of Tic Tacs and is barely able to speak

-- Trump supporters are interviewed outside Trump's rally in Asheville, North Carolina, and serve as a stark reminder of why so much has gone wrong in the United States

-- A reporter confronts Donald Trump about his debunked lie that Kamala Harris' recent airport crowd was AI generated, and Trump has no explanation for why he lied

-- Donald Trump is reportedly watching the video of his getting shot over and over again, and is believed to be suffering from PTSD according to sources close to him

-- Voicemail caller accuses David of doing something sexist, but the explanation might come as a surprise

-- On the Bonus Show: Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in "beer" poll, the Biden administration has released the first 10 negotiated drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, JD Vance commits to two debates against Tim Walz, much more...

People

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kamala Harris

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

A
Welcome, everybody. I don't know that there's anyone in my core audience who is still considering supporting Robert F. Kennedy Junior in November. But if you are, this is yet another story that I think really should expose the nakedly self centered motivations of Robert F. Kennedy Juniore, uh, in running for president this time around. Remember when a few weeks ago, we learned that RFK went to the Trump campaign and floated the idea of getting out of the race and endorsing Donald Trump? If Donald Trump promises a job in his administration, that was too brazen, a quid pro quo, even for the Trump campaign, who said, it's going to be very obvious that it's a quid pro quo. This isn't a good idea. There is new reporting from the Washington Post that Robert F. Kennedy Junior did the. Tried to do the exact same thing with Kamala Harris.

Yeah, Robert F. Kennedy junior tried to meet with Kamala Harris to discuss cabinet job. Harris has rebuffed the offer of an endorsement, while Kennedy also has had conversations with republican nominee Donald Trump about his role in an administration. The reporting by Michael Sher and Josh Dossie explains that last week Robert F. Kennedy tried to get a meeting with Kamala Harris to say, hey, I'd like to be in your administration, maybe a cabinet secretary, and in exchange, I would throw my support behind you. Implicit in that would be, he would get out of the race and then if you win, you give me a job. Harris and her advisors have not responded with an offer to meet, nor have they shown interest in the proposal. According to people familiar with the conversation, this took place through intermediaries. And, of course, last month we saw the exact same thing done with Donald Trump. Given the difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in terms of policy, vision for America, respect for democracy, et cetera, et cetera, the idea that Robert F. Kennedy could genuinely, in a deeply held way, say, I would be willing to endorse you, Donald Trump, or I would be willing to endorse you, Kamala Harris is very difficult to believe, unless you understand that it has nothing to do with the politics of Harris or Trump as evaluated by Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and rather has everything to do with how can I get myself a job in the administration. Now, it seems very clear at this point that Robert F. Kennedy junior s presence on the ballot helps Kamala Harris and hurts Donald Trump.

So there's even a question, if you're Kamala Harris, of why would I even want RFK Junior to get out? His presence is probably good for me, including in states that now seem to be in play, like, for example, North Carolina. But that's not really the big takeaway for me. We can make the math argument for why Kamala Harris would say, I'd rather him he stay in because it's probably good for me. The idea that you could be willing to endorse such diametrically opposed individuals if they give you a job makes it clear that there's an authenticity question here and that we should be questioning the motivations. Now what, what he's effectively doing here is shopping an endorsement between Trump and Harris. And what's wild is they both said, no, thank you. Now, the other question that I think is relevant here to consider, at least theoretically, is, when you let me back up a little bit, why, especially now, is it sort of irrelevant to Kamala Harris whether RFK gets out? Why do I say that it's worse for Trump for him to stay in?

There was ambiguity and very much mitigated enthusiasm about Joe Biden as a candidate. For many on the democratic side, since Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee after Joe Biden said, I'm not running for reelection, the financial contributions have consolidated around Kamala Harris. The number of undecideds has shriveled and shrunk dramatically, as people say, okay, now I see what the options are. Now, there is a much more obvious difference here in terms of energy, in terms of everything, than there even was with Biden, although there was quite a difference, but it was still, you know, two, two guys that most of the country felt were too old to be doing this. Now that there is this very clear difference, we see that the number of ambiguous people on the left and even within the independent voters are diminishing dramatically. So that gets us to the next question. If you're not already supporting Kamala Harris, is an endorsement from RFK going to convince you to support Kamala Harris? I don't think so. And so the other reason why it seems very logical that Kamala Harris is not taking the bait, meeting with RFK or getting involved in this is, I would be very skeptical that even if you do it, even if RFK gets out in exchange for this potential future job and says, I'm endorsing Kamala Harris, I don't know that she gets more than 50% of the people still supporting RFK and it ends up being a wash. Imagine that he gets out and goes vote for Kamala, and half of his supporters say sure, and half of his supporters say no, which I think is optimistic.

She's in the exact same place because she's picked up the same number of votes that Trump has picked up. So I think it's smart of her not to get involved in this and really just everything falling off the walls for RFK while he publicly says, I'm staying until the end, he's shopping endorsements and getting out of the race to both, both of the major party candidates. If you still support this guy, honestly, if you still support this guy, I want to hear from you. Why info at david pakman.com. and don't you care about his nakedly self centered motivations here in shopping endorsements to two candidates who couldn't be more different? We continue to learn that JD Vance is really not very good at this.

B
We've endorsed JP, right? JD Mandel.

A
JD Mandel held a campaign event, if you can call it that, in Byron Center, Michigan. The idea here was, let's get a crowd out. Let's really get into these critical battleground states and show that JD can motivate a crowd and he has support. And I think 25 people showed up. This was one of the most pathetic events I've seen. And it is a reminder of why Trump and the people closest to Trump, other than, I guess, his two older sons, who liked the idea of JD Vance. So many of the people around Trump are saying, why did we pick this guy? Here is JD Vance attacking the tone of Kamala Harris's campaign, and he's still talking about how she laughs. Kellyanne Conway, Greta Van Susteren, now Megyn Kelly, Neal Cavuto, Stuart Varney, Kevin McCarthy, they're all saying this is not how you're going to defeat Kamala Harris. And here's JP Mandel talking about how she laughs.

C
She says she's having fun.

But while she's having fun, Americans are suffering under her policies.

When she laughs during a speech, remember that there are american families crying this very day because they cannot afford groceries.

When she does these rallies and does these events and does these fake dances, remember that there are parents who lost their children to drugs or violence who will never see their children move again, much less dance again.

A
Now, of course, Trump dances at literally every rally. If dancing when serious things are happening is a disqualifier, Trump's disqualified. But who cares, right?

C
She tells you. And this is her new slogan, we're not going back.

Remember that for three and a half years, that is exactly what we've been doing. We've been going back to a place where Americans aren't kings in their own country, but paupers begging their government for precious scraps of safety, security, and food. We are going back, Kamala Harris, because of you, and we're gonna fire you because we want to take this country forward.

A
All right, so finally getting the crowd of 25, literally dozens of people, they're very excited by this message. Maybe the funniest moment from this entire thing was someone from the crowd yells, fire Granholm. Now, Jennifer Granholm is the secretary of energy.

JD Vance gets confused and says, we are going to fire the agriculture secretary. Of course, the agriculture secretary is Tom Vilsack. This is great. Other steps besides drilling, can the Trump Vance administration take to lower those grocery prices for people?

C
That's right.

Well, the first is we're going to fire, we're going to fire the agriculture secretary. Right? She's not doing a very good job.

A
She's not doing a very good job. Is JD Vance misgendering someone? The secretary of agriculture is Tom Vilsack. It's a man, baby. Jennifer Granholm is the secretary of energy. But who cares? Right now, the really serious part is firing the secretary of agriculture is not going to bring down grocery prices. A deflationary spiral would bring down grocery prices. But why let details get in the way of an applause line, right?

Asked also was JD Vance about the fact that Trump continues to make personal attacks against Kamala Harris. Vance awkwardly laughs and says he's not going to repeat the question.

They're urging the former president to do less personal attacks on terrorists, focus more on messaging, more on policy. Do you agree with that?

C
Well, look, the question, I'm not going to repeat that question because it's kind of insulting to our president.

A
So, so first of all, what do you mean, our president? Our president. You're talking about Joe Biden.

He's referring to Donald Trump as our president. They pretend like he's still the president of the United States.

C
I'll repeat the ones that aren't insulting our president. Look, here, here's, here's, here's the answer to the people, people who say that Donald Trump should do something different. They had an opportunity to make Donald Trump do something different by challenging him over three separate primaries, every single one of which he won. So I think that Donald Trump has earned the right to run the campaign that he wants to run.

A
All right, so he's saying if he wants to insult Kamala Harris, he has, he has every right to do that, despite the fact that every Republican is telling him, you're not going to win like this, Trump, you're not going to win like this, JD. Then claims that Kamala Harris is actually the acting president and Biden isn't really doing anything.

C
Why did it take him so long to get inflation to where it is? And why are prices so high? It's because Kamala Harris failed to do her job. So if they want to go around, and this is, you know, it's funny, Kamala Harris, on the one hand, will say on day one we're going to tackle the affordability crisis. And like I said earlier, Kamala Harris has been the vice president for three and a half years. And I think, ladies and gentlemen, she's in effect, been the acting president because we all know Joe Biden is at home. So she's been the one controlling government policy for three and a half years. She says she wants to tackle the affordability crisis on day one and then on the other hand, she'll say, oh, we've already got inflation under control.

A
It seems JD doesn't understand that the vice president doesn't make policy. But if it were true, if it were true that Kamala Harris has actually been the functional president of the United States for the last three and a half years, the economy is looking pretty good. So that would be a reason, I guess, to reelect her. It's a double edged sword and both sides are JD stabbing himself because he is very much not good at this. One other kind of funny moment. Vance weighed in on the price of cars.

B
Speaker one.

C
Thanks to Kamala Harris suspending policies, the average new car costs nearly $50,000 a year.

A
So I'm going to assume that he meant the average new car cost nearly $50,000, not $50,000 a year. I believe the real number is that the average new car is $47,000 a year. Now, that's an example where I don't know how much the mean tells you because you're averaging in some really, really expensive cars. But of course, most people don't buy new cars. Most people don't buy new cars every single year. Yeah, I have a $50,000 a year, a new new car budget. It's just another little reminder around the edges of how terrible he is at this and how he's not connecting with voters in any real way. And, I mean, 25 or 30 people showed up to this event. So if I were Trump, I would understandably be saying to myself, why the hell did I pick this guy? I do think he's in too deep, and getting him out and replacing him would acknowledge that he made the wrong choice. I think Anthony Scaramucci made the point last week, so I do expect JD to stay. Uh, but he's certainly not helping Trump at this point in time. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. We are on the verge of 2.4 million YouTube subscribers. Once that happens, it will be full steam ahead to 2.5 million subscribers. Help us do it. We'll take a quick break and be right back.

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Really, in all seriousness, continuing to raise concerns about whether he is up to the task, whether he is fit to campaign, never mind whether he is fit to be president of the United States and trying out his year fired line on Kamala Harris. When you have nothing else, go back to what you used to do on your reality show.

B
Right, Kamala, you're fired. Get out of here. Go. Get out of here.

Right.

Get her.

A
Boom, boom. Get her the hell out of here.

And then he pulled out the Tic Tacs. And this was really a moment that many found to be sort of like the last straw. This guy is unwell. This guy's mentally ill. Not that we stigmatize mental illness. We would want treatment, of course, republicans often want to make that more difficult. Here is the tic Tac routine, I guess, trying to make a point about shrinkflation.

B
Speaker one, look at this. So this is Tic Tacs, right?

I don't know if I like the company. I've never met. I have no idea. They're so lucky. This is. Look at all the television. This is the greatest commercial they ever had.

A
This guy's got a degree from Wharton, I want to remind you.

B
But that's what happened. This is inflation.

This is Tic Tac. This is Tic Tac. This is inflation.

A
This is what, by the way, Trump's hands are so small that even the prop tiny tic tac container looks normal size.

B
Happened. I just happened to have, somebody gave me this one today. I said, speaker one.

A
All right, so anyway, uh, very much not going well. And then marginally more substantively, although not really Donald Trump referring to Kamala Harris as an incompetent lunatic, not taking the advice of every single remotely sane Republican who says the insults simply are not working. You're not going to win with this, sir.

B
Today we're being laughed at all over the world.

You're paying the price for Kamala's liberal extremism at the gas pump, at the grocery counter, and on your mortgage bill and on everything else. How about your car insurance? How's that doing? Not too good. Right?

I saw it today. It's up like 82%.

We're not going to let this incompetent.

A
Socialist Loona, car insurance, by the way, famously regulated at the state level somehow is now Kamala Harris fault.

B
They keep breaking our economy for four more years. It'll destroy our country.

On election day, we're going to tell her that we've had enough, that we can't take it anymore. Kamala, you're doing a horrible job. You were a terrible attorney general. You were a terrible district attorney. You're the worst vice president in history. Kamala, you're fired. Get out of here.

A
All right. Anyway, so now that's the you're fired lead up. And then continuing with this very same approach, he goes back to the issue that is at the forefront of the minds of Americans, the way that Kamala Harris laughs.

B
Laughs. Don't laugh.

No, it's her.

No, her laugh is career threatening. They said don't laugh. She hasn't laughed. She doesn't laugh anymore. It's smart. But someday it's going to come out. That's the laugh of a person with some big problems.

A
Yep. Every Republican worth anything in terms of listening to says that's a bad idea. You're not going to win with that. Women find it misogynistic.

Anybody with a brain finds it absolutely distasteful.

But Trump's not stopping. He's going to go down with the ship. I guess at the end of the day, a number of completely unintelligible word salads where I identify the words he's using as English, but they're not really making any sense. And here's one of them.

B
Now, this is a little bit different day because this isn't around. This is, we're talking about a thing called the economy.

They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what's happened with inflation and all of the other things. So we're doing this as a intellectual speech. You're all intellectuals today. Today we're doing it and we're doing it right now. And it's very important.

A
Yep. So I don't know what that means. And then another one of these WTF moments. Trump talking about darling and electricity.

What is this? I don't even really get what this.

B
Is, do you think that's going to lift your prices a little bit? Think of that. They're going to take away 84%. And the real stuff, that's the stuff that powers the plants.

It's not wind that goes around and around. And, darling, let's watch the president's State of the Union speech tonight. I'm sorry, we won't be able to do it. The wind isn't blowing, darling. We have no electricity.

A
Trump seemingly continuing not to know about battery technology, which has been around quite a long time. Donald Trump also during this speech, because remember, the speech is about the economy insisting that when it looks like he might win real, not reelection, a second term, a non consecutive term, when it looks like he might win the election, the stock market goes up. When it looks like Kamala Harris will win, the stock market goes down, which is very much not the way that it's working today. Kamala Harris has her best polling of the campaign. And as I am recording this, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 400 points. But never let the data get in front of a good propaganda talking point.

B
Many people say that the only reason the stock market it is up is because people think I am going to win. Did you ever hear that?

A
Many people say is code for no one serious is saying.

B
But there was one day a couple of weeks ago when they weren't thinking that. And you saw what happened. This will be a 1929 style crash.

A
You know, and of course, Trump promised the 1929 style crash under a Biden administration.

We've never seen a higher stock market. We've never seen more all time stock market highs than we have under Joe Biden. Trump then showing that he is terrified of Tim Walls and the fact that Tim Walls makes JD Vance look so bad. So bad when Tim walls fires up an arena with 10,000 people in it and JD Vance speaks in front of some trucks to 25 people. The day he. The way he did yesterday, Trump knows it's not going well and he's taking it out on Tim wall the way she wants it.

B
I mean, the clown that she picked as a vice president, this guy's a clown. He was so bad.

You know, when Minneapolis was burning down, he didn't want to call in the National Guard. I got him on. I got him on the phone. You got to get the National Guard. Get it, get it, get it. I'm telling you, if I didn't force it upon him, you might not have the city.

A
Of course, Trump is now rewriting history after Trump got caught on an audio recording saying Tim Walls handled everything great in Minnesota. Now he's saying he only handled it great because I forced him to do it. Trump pulling out another of his verbal clutch crutches where he says, no one knows. They have no idea what something means. When Trump says they have no idea what something means, what he means is I have no idea what something means. And in this case, it's net zero. The concept of net zero under Kamala's.

B
Extreme high cost energy policy known as net zero. You know what? Net zero, they have no idea what it means. By the way, it's net zero. What does that mean? Nobody knows. Ask her what it means. We're going to go to a net zero policy. What does that mean? I have no idea.

A
Ok, let me explain it to you very simply. Net zero means the amount of energy consumed and the amount of renewable energy generated over a period of time are the same. So I'll give you an example. My solar panels are net zero over a year. Over the course of a year. In the summer, my solar panels generate way more electricity than I need for everything. In the winter, I run a deficit. There's not as much sun. So in the winter, I use more electricity than my solar panels generate. But over the course of a year, it's net zero in that I'm generating more than enough to cover all of my usage. That's net zero. It's very simple. And when Trump says no one knows what it means, what he means is he doesn't know what it means. And I don't think that comes as a surprise to anybody. Trump talking about his completely harebrained spaces with Elon Musk the other night with.

B
Me, they asked me a little bit different question. That's all right. Did everybody the other night see Elon and me? Right?

That was one of the most successful shows ever done. I mean, that was a lot of people.

A
Better than the Seinfeld finale, that's for sure.

B
People like him. I think they like me, too, come to think of.

But he's great, and he gave us his full endorsement. He's a great guy, but he basically, you know, he's a guy doesn't need this stuff. He, what he wants to do is see our country be great again. And he understands. And it's very hard for him to endorse the opposing party. It's not easy. It's very hard. But, you know, he really cares about our country, and he knows the opposing party has destroyed, really destroyed our country.

A
And, yeah, so there's a glitch and he's praising Elon Musk. And then finally, Trump wrapping the speech in Asheville, North Carolina, which just felt like it went on forever with the inspiring message that we are literally now a third world country.

B
We have a lot of important subjects because our country has become a third world nation. We literally are a third world nation.

We're a banana Republican so many ways, and we're not going to let that happen.

A
Right?

Not a message that I think is going to get the vote out for Donald Trump. I can kind of see why he's only doing one event a week. They are an absolute disaster. And if you need a little context for the environment in which this happened, just check out what Trump supporters had to say at this very rally. Trump did his one campaign event of the week in Asheville, North Carolina, yesterday.

Right side broadcasting and other right wing, right wing networks were there interviewing supporters of Trump. And it was really, really bad. Really bad. Here is a woman talking about how positive in terms of christian love the environment is at Trump's rallies while someone in the background yells that Kamala Harris is a whore. Okay, think of the contrast. This woman talking about how christian and great it is, and you hear Kamala's a whore being yelled in the background.

D
In love, you know, not antagonistic like things can be, but say things in love.

B
Amen. That's really been the overall theme as we go to these across the country is that people are here having fun, spreading the message of the gospel, unafraid of that. And you won't necessarily get that from corporations and from that normal mainstream media as well. You also get interesting chants that take place sometimes that may or may not be appropriate. But, you know, it is. It's, it's really, we like to cover every aspect at RSBN of these ra.

A
Okay. I guess maybe the guy is yelling that she's a hoe rather than a whore, but it's a very similar sentiment. A woman at the rally was asked, what policies would you like to see Trump do right away? Her answer left a little bit to be desired. Like the, the different things that we had with the oil fields and also the wall. Ok. The different things with oil fields and the wall she would like to see on day one. Here's a woman who says she supports Trump because he got shot.

D
And we're gonna stand here so we can hear what he has to say. But we also know we're gonna be protected by it. With this man. We seen it. He sat there and got shot. And then he stood up and said, fight fight. I don't know anybody else that has done that in my time, and I have been here for a while, and I have never seen that. I've never even seen somebody that's not a politician, but gets up and has us sitting there waiting and listening to see what he has to say. And that, to me, is amazing because we're all here for him, but he's here for us.

A
Right? Exactly. Exactly. And that was just so impressive. They also interviewed men at the rally, and a guy at the Trump rally said what this election comes down to is fundamentally about good versus bad, evil versus righteousness, and that Trump has God's hand on him. Usually it's Trump putting his hand on someone else. In this case, it's God has his hand on Trump. I don't think it's no longer just about good versus bad. It's, it's pure evil and righteousness. Right now, I think Trump is, is God's got his hand on him. I think he can help the country turn around and turn us back to the roots of what our founding fathers institute for our country, getting back to, to God and praying to him. And do you think it's painful physically, to be this delusional? Like, is there a physical symptom when you're this delusional? There was also no shortage of grift at the rally, really taking the cue from their dear leader. Here are some women at the Trump rally selling a book called Pray for Trump, written by someone named Bible David. That's not me. Just so everybody knows, I am not Bible David. This is not my book. And it's a book of prayers that you can, I guess, say for Trump. He wrote the book back in, I think, February, January when it came out. And so we believe he wrote the book when it came out. That's logical. It's shocking. Nobody's written a book after it came out. I'm glad she clarified that the book was written prior to its release came out. And so we believe that we have to win this election first in the spirit, before we can win in the natural.

So we're just trying to raise awareness, get some people to buy the book. There's prayers in here that we can pray because we believe there's power in the name of Jesus and that if we band together and we pray for Trump, that he will win this election.

There you go. So get the book. If you're, you know, if you want to pray for Trump but you're unsure what prayers to use, that's the book for you. And then there was also a guy at the Trump rally selling a cd with songs about Trump, which God downloaded into this guy's body. I guess God hit the body with.

B
Nine songs, and God just downloaded these nine songs into my heart in 30 days. I recorded them, and this is an awesome cd. There's songs like Trump derangement syndrome.

A
Great song.

B
Let Trump be Trump.

A
The never Trump lose the nevertrump blues has the potential to do to the music industry what Ozzy's crazy train did.

B
And I've just been selling it as I can. But I handed this to Don Junior at a small venue. He was with his security, and he took it. He looked at him and handed to his security, and it was gone. I want to get this into President Trump's hands. If it gets into his hands, it's going to be played like mad.

A
Exactly. So there is. There are cds and books available and then just some really scary stuff. Here is a woman who says women's rights is why she's voting for Trump.

For Trump. Speaker one. I think that women's rights are really.

B
Important and that Trump is fighting for women's rights.

A
I think Trump is bragging that his selections to the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And a woman says women's rights is why I'm voting for Trump. For Trump.

And then finally, maybe the best comment from any of the rallygoers is a gentleman who said, listen, I love Trump, but the campaign's a disaster.

JD Vance was an ever Trumper. What the hell are we doing here? Really? This is the perfect coda onto this.

B
I love Trump. I love him to death. But I'm not a real big fan of his campaign. I'm not a real big fan of Chris La Sabina, Susie Wiles, and even JD Vance, who was a never Trumper. So it, you know, it begs the question, you know, why are we even here?

A
Great question. That is the critical question that I would ask every single one of these people. Why are we here? You're here because you support women's rights, but you're supporting Trump. You're here because you're selling a cd with songs downloaded into your brain, by God. Why are we here? This gentleman really asking the question we've all been wondering about. This is why we can't have nice things, or as many as we might would otherwise have in the United States. Scary and shocking stuff.

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And he uses populist rhetoric to try to do this. Now, as I've told people before, the thing about populism is that it's fundamentally a rhetoric. It's not a set of policy ideas. And this makes it so that you can be tricked by populist rhetoric into supporting candidates whose policy ideas are actually horrible and even you might be against if you knew what they were. And I've said before, as an example, that both Bernie Sanders and Tucker Carlson will often use really similar sounding populist rhetoric. But when it comes to how they would put in place policy, they could not be more different. And likewise with Trump, if you dig beneath the surface just a little bit, his actions and policy ideas tell a very different story. He tries to craft this populist image to win over republican voters, but his policies and his choices show this pattern of siding with the billionaires and siding with corporations over the everyday workers that he says that he champions. Take, for example, Donald Trump's vp pick, JD Vance. Vance is this Silicon Valley venture capitalist with billionaire Peter Thiel's backing. He's publicly opposed to the pro act, which is a big labor protection bill. Vance has this short but very telling record in the Senate, where he's done really nothing to inspire the confidence among union leaders. He's opposed critical labor legislation. He supported measures that would weaken unions, rejected pro worker nominees to key federal agencies, and his background, the Yale law degree, the connections to Silicon Valley.

It all sort of seems at odds with the supposed working class Persona that he's cultivated. And despite the evidence, Trump managed to convince many in 2016 that he was a pro worker champion, and he's trying to do it again. But if we actually look at the record and we look at the specifics of Project 2025, we very quickly see the reality, which is Trump Vance are not friends to the working class.

While Trump claims to represent all of the forgotten men and women, the labor section of Project 2025 is really focused on boosting corporate profits, weakening unions rather than improving wages or working conditions. And the plan is overtly hostile to unions. It even suggests the potential dissolution of public sector unions, including those for police, firefighters and teachers. We heard during Trump's conversation with Elon Musk and on spaces just how hostile Trump is to workers. Stuart Applebaum, who's president of the retail, wholesale and department store union, pointed out that Project 2025 is all about rolling back workers rights, including measures like making it easier for 16 and 17 year olds to work in hazardous jobs, changing rules so that workers qualify for overtime only when they've worked 80 hours in two weeks rather than 40 hours in any one week, classifying gig workers as independent contractors, stripping them of minimum wage and overtime protections. And this plan also would weaken unions by making it easier for workers to decertify unions at any time, rather than just during the period before contracts expire, by banning project labor agreements that favor unionized contractors, rescinding the persuader rule, which requires employers to disclose if they hire anti union consultants. And so one of the overarching, arching themes here in Project 2025 and in Trump's view on on labor, is the desire to reduce the power of the federal administrative state. That's how they talk about it.

It's a very Steve Bannon language. But the section on labor would actually increase the Department of Labor's power when it comes to overseeing unions, which are often at odds with what the Heritage Foundation's corporate supporters would want. It's another one of these. Here's my principle, except when it's inconvenient. And Project 2025 has no proposals that would strengthen worker voices or make it easier to unionize. For example, it doesn't support allowing the National Labor Relations Board to fine a company if it violates labor law. This is like a basic key provision of accountability and of the pro act, supported by Democrats but opposed by Republicans. And instead, if you look at Project 2025 section on labor, it opens with a religious statement talking about giving workers the support they need for rewarding well paying and self driven careers and restoring the family supporting job as the centerpiece of the economy. And it even talks about the judeo christian tradition stretching back to Genesis as recognizing fruitful work as integral to dignity and service to God. This is bonkers stuff. The entire chapter on labor only includes a single recommendation to raise workers pay, suggesting on the sabbath there should be overtime pay on a religious basis. The chapter then pivots to culture war issues targeting diversity, dei, et cetera. Project 2025 doesn't mention increasing the federal minimum wage. It's been stuck at 725 for 15 years, doesn't support paid family and medical leave, and despite claims of supporting family friendly policies, the plan does nothing to help workers balance work and family life.

So Trump's and pro labor rhetoric is completely hollow. However, one policy Trump keeps promoting is no tax on tips, which sounds pro worker, but it's quite misleading, and it does little to help the majority of workers. So we should, we should dig into that. One of the most popular policies that Trump has proposed so far in his campaign is eliminating federal taxes on tips in an attempt to appeal to working class voters, waiters, bartenders, hairdressers, and this proposal is so popular that even Kamala Harris has embraced it, with many on the right now accusing Kamala Harris of stealing Trump's policy, many tipped workers already pay little or no federal income tax. For instance, half of all servers earn $32,000 or less, so they would see very little benefit from Trump's plan to begin with. That's the first thing to understand.

The federal tipped minimum wage has been stuck at $2.13 an hour since 1991, leaving these workers guaranteed only 725 an hour with tips, which is very far from a minimum wage. In from a living wage in 2024, most servers, except the top 10%, who make over $60,000 a year, would see minimal benefit from no tax on tips. It also doesn't help other restaurant workers, the hosts, the cooks, the dishwashers, who earn an hourly wage but often don't get tips. The National Restaurant association and other groups like the policy because it could undermine efforts to raise the minimum wage, which is really what they're against. And by getting rid of taxes on tips, they hope to reduce support for higher minimum wage initiatives. Labor groups like restaurant Workers United and one fair wage criticize the policy as a fake solution, which doesn't really address the issue of low wage workers. Unlike Trump, Kamala Harris has also committed to raising the minimum wage for hourly workers. She hasn't said by how much. But there's skepticism because of President Biden's previous unfulfilled promises on minimum wage increases, blaming his failure to do so on the Senate parliamentarian. But bottom line, if implemented alongside a minimum wage increases, no tax on tips could be a modest boost to service wake workers. But it really can't be seen as a replacement for a more impactful minimum wage increase. And so there's concern that both Trump and Harris could use the no tax on tips proposal to placate workers instead of actually pushing for wage increases.

So this is one reason why Kamala Harris should offer a meaningful alternative to Trump's fake populism rather than just adopt adopting his policies. And we should talk about how that could be done.

Despite Trump's pro corporate track record, he is shockingly still seen by some as a working class hero. He spent his entire life trying to remain isolated from the very folks he now claims to respect and want to want to support. But we put that aside for a moment. Kamala Harris needs to break through this narrative with a genuine alternative that really benefits workers, not just a repackaging of Trump's promises. Now, her choice as Tim Walls as running mate is a really great move in this direction because Walls is known for his no nonsense approach. He has a track record of progressive victories, really could be a game changer. And he also offers a sort of populist rhetoric. But we look at his work as governor of Minnesota and we see that his populist rhetoric is backed by actual achievements. In 2022, Waltz achieved a legislative trifecta with a 34 to 33 Senate majority and a six vote edge in the House. That's a slimmer democratic majority than Biden had at the beginning of his terminal, and he managed to pass one of the most progressive agendas in the country. So even with slim margins, change is possible. And under Walls's leadership, Minnesota passed some groundbreaking legislation on child poverty.

They passed a sizable child tax credit expected to cut child poverty by about a third universal school meals, free breakfast and lunch for all public school kids on higher education, the North Star promise, which guarantees free public college tuition for students from families that earn under $80,000 a year, boosting k through twelve spending by over $2 billion, making sure school employees can get unemployment during summer break. And then as far as real labor victories, $15 minimum wage, twelve weeks paid family and medical leave regulations to improve conditions in Amazon warehouses and meatpacking plants. And Tim Walls also signed SF 30 35, which is arguably the most significant worker protection legislation in Minnesota's history mandating paid sick days, banning non compete clauses, protecting workers from anti union meetings and other provisions, and doing so much more for vulnerable workers. So it's the Tim walls labor friendly approach that has earned him the backing of 26 Minnesota labor leaders urging Harris pick him. UAW president Sean Fein said walls is one of the union's top choices for VP. Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Walls is a laboratory for opportunity, saying that the things he's doing are analogous to what Franklin Roosevelt did under his New York governorship. So walls selection solidifies, hopefully support among working class voters, especially in key battleground states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. He's connecting with blue collar voters, as we can see during rallies and at campaign events.

And it's really a blueprint at the end of the day for how you can have a genuine alternative to the empty, populist rhetoric of people like Donald Trump and JD Vance. Now, if you look at what red state governors are focusing on, its culture wars, it's cracking down on woke books, drag queen story hour, reproductive freedom lab, grown meat some republican governors are going after. And meanwhile, Tim Walls delivers tangible benefits to working families. So the Harris Walls ticket has a real opportunity here. They have to highlight the successes. They have to lay out the vision for a pro worker agenda. It is accurate to say that Joe Biden is the most pro union president we've arguably ever had. Harris Walls, if what Walls did in Minnesota serves as a blueprint, could be even more pro union and pro labor. Because at the end of the day, a relatively small percentage of american workers are in unions. But most Americans have a job. One of the most pro labor administrations is absolutely possible. Focus on the real economic improvements, meaningful things that you're doing for workers. And meanwhile, we have to expose Trump's hollow populism. We have to expose JD Vance's completely bogus recreation of his life story as a champion for the working class when he is far from it, and actually select an administration that would really be for the working class. So there's an opportunity.

Step one, understand the empty rhetoric of Trump. Step two, understand what the ideal would be. And step three, evaluate Tim walls, his record, to say, oh, here's how he compares in Minnesota to what we would like to see at the federal level, and then vote based on that. To me, the right vote is very clear.

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All right, this is really good stuff. Donald Trump was confronted yesterday after voting early. I know. We'll get back to that. Donald Trump was confronted about his completely whacked out, obviously false and widely debunked claim that Kamala Harris's recent rally crowd at an airport was AI generated and fake. It wasn't. We have the video. We have multiple angles. We have everything. Trump was asked, why did you say that?

Why did you say something where it is very clear that that was not true, what you said? And Trump just kind of goes, I don't know. I don't know who was there completely copping out. And this is what happens when you confront these people. They find a way around where they go, well, my crowds are really big, which is exactly what Trump did. And he said Harris's crowd sizes were AI and that the white people there, there's all kinds of video evidence of people who were there who've proven that false. Can you tell us about why you made that claim?

B
Well, I can't say what was there? Who was there? I can only tell you about ours. We have the biggest crowds ever in the history of politics. We have crowds that nobody's ever seen before, and we continue to have that. We have a level of enthusiasm that nobody's seen before. They want to make America great again. That's what's happening. We're going to make it great again. Right now we have a failing nation. We're in a failing nation.

A
All right. So then he goes into talking point coma. He says, I can't tell you who was there or who wasn't there because I wasn't there. But a few days ago, he had no issue at all putting out an unhinged truth on truth social, which had very little truth in it, claiming Kamala cheated. The crowd is fake, the crowd is AI generated. Then he's confronted about it and he very bravely all of a sudden goes, listen, I don't know what's going on. I can just tell you my crowds are really big. I've had the biggest crowds of anybody. Number one, he's not even getting the biggest crowds of this campaign.

Number two, I recall Barack Obama having pretty big crowds. And number three, I hate to go, I hate to go dictatorial, but there are some dictators, including in world War two era Germany, who had pretty big crowds. So I don't even know why he needs to go into this. I have the biggest crowds in history because he doesn't, he doesn't even have the biggest crowds of this election. Who's he lying to at this point? It almost seems like he's lying to himself. Now, there were some other funny moments from this little mini press conference Trump gave, gave after voting early.

Trump at one point, of course, opposed early voting, but he voted early. And he explains that.

B
Speaker, one great honor to vote. They've done a fantastic job here and we appreciate it. We think we're doing very well. We just had a poll that shows we're doing very well.

And we have an interesting couple of months ahead of us.

A
Now, why is Trump voting in a way that he previously said is insecure and rife with fraud and all of these different things? Well, because it's rules for thee, but not for me. Now, interestingly, many of you wrote to me and said, how is Trump even voting? He's a convicted felon. You're not allowed to vote as a convicted felon. We discussed this a little bit when Trump was first convicted. Trump's a Florida resident now. He was convicted in New York. In Florida, if you have an out of state conviction, as long as you would be allowed to vote in the state where you were convicted, you're allowed to vote in Florida. So Trump's allowed to vote in Florida right now because he would be allowed to vote in New York right now. But what's the New York law? The New York law is that if you are behind bars, you're not allowed to vote. So if Trump were to be imprisoned, he would lose the ability to vote in New York were he a resident. Therefore, at that point, Florida would also say, because you wouldn't be allowed to vote right now in New York, we're not going to allow you to vote here for now because Trump would not be barred from voting in New York by virtue of not being behind bars, he is allowed to vote in Florida. Now, one more little clip from this. CNN's Kate Sullivan asked Trump, you're saying that Iran hacked your campaign.

Has the FBI actually told you that Iran hacked your campaign?

B
Do you have a question?

A
Yes, sir. What does the FBI told you about the hacking campaign?

B
Well, they're looking at it and they're doing it very professionally. And it looks like it's Iran. Iran doing it because Iran is no friend of mine and, you know, a lot of bad signals get sent. But, and it looks like it's Iran doing it. And the reason is because I was strong on Iran and I was protecting people in the Middle east that maybe they aren't so happy about that.

So that's what it seems to be, Iran.

A
Is that what the FBI told you specifically, that it was Iran?

B
I don't want to say exactly, but it was Iran.

A
Did anyone actually tell you who has any sort of semblance of authority that it was actually Iran who hacked your campaign? Well, I don't want to say, but it absolutely was. So Trump voting early, which he said is bad, Trump saying, I don't know anything about Kamala's crowds when he posted about it recently and saying Iran hacked me, but won't actually say why it is that that's what he believes, basically what we would expect. I am going to present to you now the most normal, sort of healthy in a way and rational thing that I think has ever gone on with Donald Trump. There is new reporting that Donald Trump is watching the video of himself getting shot over and over and over again, and that according to people around him, he appears to have PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder.

I have to tell you, this is completely normal. This is the most normal thing that's ever been reported about Donald Trump.

B
Trump.

A
If I were Trump and I had almost been killed by a centimeter, right, by a bullet's width, I was almost killed. We could even almost say, and it was filmed, I am sure that I would be unable to stop watching it over and over again from the sheer sort of insanity of seeing how close you were to death.

And I'm sure it would cause me PTSD or PTSD like symptoms. This is not about I love Trump now and I'm voting for Trump, but this would be, it's being reported as if this is something crazy, that Trump is watching the video over and over again. He seems to be traumatized by it. Of course he is. Of course he is. This, this is the, the most logical report that I've ever seen about Donald Trump. Now, there's some political things we can say about this as well. Trump was expecting to get a lot more boost and mileage from the shooting. It's very clear that he was, and in fact, many of us expected the exact same thing until all of a sudden Joe Biden said, I'm stepping down. And Kamala Harris raised record amounts of money and is filling arenas with tens of thousands of people and picked an all star vp while JD Vance is failing. I also expected that Trump was going to get more mileage from the assassination attempt, but Kamala Harris and Tim Walls have sort of pushed it off of the front page into section B in the proverbial, proverbial newspaper. And what's sort of ironic about it. And of course, you all know, I never condone, this isn't about condoning violence or laughing at the fact that Trump was almost killed. This is the United States of America and the way we handle shootings collectively and in the political system. And even what Trump has said is, oh, we got to get over it. We've got to get beyond it. We can't, we certainly can't change any gun safety regulations that we know.

And we need time. We need to get beyond it. And as Trump has said many times after mass shootings, we've got to keep going. We've got to get beyond that. We can't dwell as a mere note of trivia.

There have been dozens of shootings in the United States since Trump was shot, many mass shootings, and dozens and dozens of individual shootings were one or two people. Remember, mass shooting is three or more injured or killed. If only one or two people are injured or killed, it's not a mass shooting. It's just like a regular shooting.

There have been dozens and dozens of those just since Trump was shot. So the attitude they've generated of we've got to get beyond it. I mean, you go on with your life, what else are you going to do? Let's not think about gun safety regulations at all. It's kind of what Trump is now suffering from, from the standpoint of getting mileage for the campaign. So no surprise there. But also, it's normal that he's watching it over and over again. It's normal that he's traumatized. I would be, too. We have a voicemail number. That number is 2192. David P. Here's a caller who believes I have done something sexist and misogynistic.

Let's listen to the call.

B
Speaker two.

D
Hey, David, I just wanted to point out something you're doing that I think is unintentionally sexist on your part.

I just watched the video called Trump's brain collapse explained by cognitive experts. And you're interviewing two doctors, and you refer to him as Doctor Gartner, but you refer to her as Doctor Liz, and you do this over and over again. And I just want you to be mindful of using parity of language when you're referring to men and women.

A
Well, let me tell you why I was doing that. The caller is absolutely right. I would say doctor Gartner to Doctor John Gartner yesterday. And I would say doctor Liz to Doctor Liz Landsberg yesterday. Why did I do that? Was I unintentionally using a sexist language by using Doctor Liz's first name and Doctor Gartner's last name? The answer is no.

What I was doing was referring to each individual by the way they have asked to be referred to and the way they are referred to professionally. I don't know why Doctor Liz does this. My guess is because a lot of people probably get her last name wrong because it's mildly more difficult to say than Gartner.

She goes by doctor Liz professionally in things that she has done, public appearances.

She has sent me materials wherein the materials describe her as Doctor Liz. She is referred to as Doctor Liz on other shows as well. And so what I did by saying doctor Gartner and Doctor Liz is I used the naming conventions.

They communicated explicitly and implicitly that they want used. It wasn't about sexism. It wasn't about because Doctor Liz is female. I use her first name, which is less respectful than using Doctor Gartner's last name. I just did what we were given as far as their preferences. Okay, so perfectly fine voicemail to leave.

I understand why someone might think this, but also, let's be open to other possibilities, which is not that I'm accidentally using unfair or biased or sexist language based on the gender of the individuals, but maybe it's just how they've asked to be referred to in professional settings. Okay. And that's what it is. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Kamala Harris leads Trump in the beer poll. Who would you most like to have a beer with? We'll talk about it. Number two, we have the first ten negotiated drug prices thanks to the Biden administration negotiating with big pharma. Very exciting. And number three, as of this moment, JD Vance is refusing to commit to debating tim walls. Why? Well, you can probably guess to some degree why. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up@joinpackman.com look forward to seeing you then. And we'll see everybody else tomorrow on the Friday show.