8/16/24: Pollster stunned by new numbers, Megyn Kelly slowly turning on Trump

David Pakman
Welcome, everybody. Hope you are going to have a good weekend.

We have some really interesting video to take a look at today. One of the pollsters that I have never been a fan of, but I do think occasionally has some interesting insights, is Frank Luntz. Frank Luntz has been widely considered essentially a mouthpiece for the right for a long time. But he doesn't have zero skill as a pollster. And sometimes it is interesting to get his perspective, particularly when we know he has some kind of stake in the game. Well, Frank Luntz appeared on CNBC earlier this week, and he said he is stunned by what he is seeing in the reversal in enthusiasm since Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive democratic nominee. He says he has never seen anything like this in a 30 day period, within a campaign, in his lifetime, in his entire career doing this. Let's take a listen to what he had to say, and then let's think about it.

CNBC Anchor
Polls in the presidential ratio and the vice president Harris gaining ground in some swing states and even eroding some of former President Trump's lead in Florida. Our next guest says if the election were held today, she would win. Joining us right now is pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz. That's a turn.

Frank Luntz
It's more than that.

CNBC Anchor
That's a plot twist.

Frank Luntz
Her, she's bringing out people who are not interested in voting for either Trump or Biden. So the entire electoral pool has changed. And if it continues in this direction, you have to start to consider Democrats winning the Senate and Democrats winning the House, the actual people who are participating. She's got intensity now. She's got an intensity advantageous. She's got a demographic advantage. And I haven't seen anything like this happen in 30 days in my lifetime.

CNBC Anchor
How big is that marginal extra voter that she's bringing in? I mean, how much does that change the pool?

Frank Luntz
1%, maybe two. That's it. But that's enough, right?

CNBC Anchor
Can I just ask you, though, about the veracity, frankly, of the polls right now? Because you go back and look, and there was an interesting report yesterday showing that if you look at where Donald Trump was in terms of what the polling showed this back in 2016, undercounted, you go even in 2020, undercounted. And so you start to think about the margin of error situation where maybe she's up one or 2%, but is the Trump vote fully counted?

Frank Luntz
But that's why my process is not just to do the numbers, it's also to do the focus groups to listen, to understand why people feel this way. And now my groups are broken up by young women saying, I'm not voting for him anymore. Make no mistake, there are three attributes, three components.

CNBC Anchor
I think it's a switch. It's not because you said, I'm not voting for them anymore. So you think they were voting for Donald Trump. They were, and now they're voting for Harris.

Frank Luntz
The people who are undecided have all collapsed towards Harris.

David Pakman
Okay, let's pause it there and you can find the full interview. And it's interesting. First point, it is stunning how fast this turnaround has happened. It hasn't even been a full month, I don't think, and in this month, we have seen a failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump already recede into the background after Joe Biden said, I'm not running support coalescing around Kamala Harris, with record fundraising and delegate support being voiced, a total reversal in the polls, and no one's talking about Joe Biden anymore. And the fact that he stepped aside and it's been about a month or not even that. So there's two takeaways here. Number one, things can change very quickly, apparently. And number two, things could still change very quickly between now and November. And that's the risk of saying, wow, the momentum is behind Kamala Harris. And so that's inevitably going to be the way this lands. It may not. It may not. Now, I want to say one other thing about these undecided voters, or sometimes we might call them swayable voters, gettable voters who are, they are expressing a preference. I will probably vote for this person, but depending on what happens, I might change my mind. Very often when I hear about these undecideds, it really sounds like cagey Republicans who always vote Republican and are definitely going to vote Republican, although I am still skeptical in general of how someone could truly be undecided at this point, if we reframe it to think more about swayable or gettable voters, it does seem as though something different is going on and that the sort of lack of excitement for either candidate while recognizing that Trump's a loser at the end of the day and not someone you want to be in business with of any kind, including having him be president.

Given the 20 years younger, brighter, more didactic and sort of dynamic, Kamala Harris said, ok, it's no longer what feels like a sort of lose lose. And even if they are independents or center right or whatever, they now have an option they can feel much more strongly about. And of course, the political donations that are flowing in behind Kamala Harris suggests this is the case. So take him or leave him. As far as Frank Luntz is concerned, when you hear him say, I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime, that is something. And it is something we're going to continue watching very closely. Anecdotally, we've heard from a bunch of different Republicans who are expressing concern, disdain or disgust in different ways with the way that Donald Trump is running this campaign. I have another one to add to the list, and it's my friend Megyn Kelly. I was on Megyn Kelly's show recently, double teamed by her and Hogan Gidley. Not the most pleasant appearance, but you can see how it went. Find it on YouTube or on our website. Megyn Kelly now says, you know, he's rambling.

I find it boring.

He is experiencing age related change. She did an interesting interview with Nate Silver the other day. And again, part of this is they walt, they all want an escape hatch. They want to be able to say, if this does go down in flames, this being the Trump candidacy, I want to be able to have something on record that while I supported Trump, I didn't agree with the strategy. That's to some degree what Megyn Kelly is doing, but she is pretty accurately getting at much of what is so, so much a turnoff to vent many voters about Donald Trump. Take a listen to this perfectly logical question to ask.

CNBC Anchor
You know, why not just step aside now? I think that's perfectly logical. And the media should ask that question more and ask questions about Trump. Again, I would encourage more reporting on is Trump in some state of decline? I think that's a fair question to ask of any 78 year old.

Megyn Kelly
That is a fair question.

CNBC Anchor
Yeah.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's absolutely a fair question. And look, I mean, we've, one of the reasons why Trump gets upset with yours truly is because I have been raising that question for a while. And when he has what appear to be senior moments, I will call him out on it. And he doesn't like that. And I can't say that I blame him, but that's, that's my job.

I will say that in that discussion with Elon, to me, he seemed quite rambling. I mean, it was like, yep, he rambles. He goes on too long at his rallies and in these exchanges and at his presser the other day to where you get kind of bored, you lose the thread, you lose interest, which is not something you're used to with Trump. Trump in 2016, he was tough to lose interest in. And I think that's probably an age related change. So I think this is one of the challenges that the people around him who are, I'm sure, are desperately trying to get him to stick on message.

David Pakman
No.

CNBC Anchor
Look, for the first 30 minutes or so of the convention speech in Milwaukee.

CNBC Anchor
This is all right.

David Pakman
And I think we can stop here. Now, Nate Silver gives his analysis. Do I really think that Megyn Kelly is questioning, would Kamala Harris be the right person for me to support? Would she be better for the country? Of course she's not. She is locked in on this hardcore, you know, I guess she's now or maybe always has been, quote, a Christian in the political sense of it, where she sees Trump, despite his many affairs and all of it, as the pro religion candidate in some way. I think she's fully bought into the economic claims of the republican sort of package in the United States.

I think this is just starting to point out the way I've shown you, Greta Van Susteren doing, the way I've shown you Kayleigh McEnany doing Stuart Varney, Neil Cavuto. You know, they're all kind of starting to do this so that later, none of them get stuck in the montages of, you were saying it was all fine and he was going to crush and he was going to win and all of it. So I wouldn't read more into this about a, I wouldn't read into this that there is a shift in the beliefs of these folks.

What I would read into it is that there is some connection to the reality that this campaign is really not going well for Donald Trump. And there's the real potential to see a landslide loss. I mean, when you look at how close Florida is, North Carolina tied in a poll, the rust belt looking increasingly good for Kamala Harris. When you see that the scenario for a Trump landslide seems almost impossible, he could absolutely win electorally, lose popular vote by a little bit. Absolutely possible. But the asymmetrical analysis here is, I don't, based on today's polling, there's no way Trump gets a landslide. Trump may win, but there's a chance here that Kamala Harris gets a landslide. Now, as we learned from Frank Luntz earlier, things can change very quickly, and this may change in the ten or so weeks remaining between now and the election. And that's what we have to be careful of. Donald Trump two days ago had this totally whacked out rally in Asheville, North Carolina, where he pulled out different sized tic Tac containers. This is actually very interesting. Trump did an interview with the local ABC affiliate ABC 13 at that rally. It did not get a lot of attention. It got a couple hundred thousand views on the website of ABC News 13, but it has not been widely reported on and it is truly nuts. I'm going to play a couple of moments for you. In this first moment, Trump makes the absolutely ridiculous claim that if he becomes president, energy prices will drop 50%. That's like a double exclamation point.

50%? What are you talking about?

ABC 13 Anchor
The economy is the number one issue to voters, again, in a big way, especially that includes swing voters in very crucial swing states like North Carolina. They want specific economic policy promises.

Specifically what? Can you tell me what the average american household can save per month, per year under another Trump tax cut?

Donald Trump
Well, they'll be. Per year. They'll be saving many thousands of dollars. Bring energy prices down to a level that they haven't seen since me, since four or five years ago.

We were energy independent. We were going to soon be energy dominant. We'll have energy prices down. I believe we'll have them cut by 50% and even more.

David Pakman
Ok.

Think of how ridiculous that is. I would, I am not a betting man. I would bet anything that Trump does not decrease energy prices 50%. It's 2016 all over again. Jared will solve the israeli palestinian conflict during my first term. We will build a wall across the entire US Mexico border in my first term that Mexico will pay for. We're going to fix trade by putting tariffs on China when? Which will make things more expensive for american companies.

Those were unbelievable claims in 2016. These are unbelievable claims now. And by the way, he keeps saying we're going to be energy independent. We are more independent as far as energy goes today than we ever were under Trump, by his definition, which is oil and gas production.

At another point, the topic of taxes came up and Trump put together sort of some strange sounding numbers about taxes. Listen to this.

ABC 13 Anchor
Kamala Harris could inherit what's called the middle and working class tax credit from the Biden administration. This is just a proposal that would save american families, according to that $6,000 a year or bring in 6000 a year, that they would repeal your 2017 tax law to do that. How does that make you feel? And how does someone from western North Carolina take all of that in?

Donald Trump
Well, they'll be paying three and four times more taxes if they do. I got the largest tax cut that has been given, bigger than Reagan, bigger than anybody, and it expires fairly shortly into the next administration.

If they cut that if they don't do anything with it, if they don't extend it or do something with it, the people of North Carolina will pay four times more tax than four times more tax.

David Pakman
Kamala Harris will raise your taxes for x. So I guess, like, if you're in the 25% tax bracket, you will now pay 100% tax. If you're in the 27% tax bracket, your tax rate will go up to 108% tax under Kamala Harris. These things are meaningless in the sense that he's using words. I recognize the words. They're words from the english language, but they don't make any sense. He was asked, how will you stop price gouging? And he says, by drilling for oil. Huh.

ABC 13 Anchor
Speaker one as Kamala Harris says, her day one promise, if elected, would be attacking price gouging in America to help with daily expenses. What is Donald Trump's day one promise?

Donald Trump
There's no such thing as her going out and doing that. What you want to do is create the incentives so that people can't cheat, they can't price gouge. And the way you do that is drill for oil and get everything down. And all of a sudden, people can't do that. They can now because there's such a scarcity of everything. You can price Gouge.

David Pakman
Can you understand what he's saying?

If you drill for oil, all of the prices will come down and no one will be able to price Gouge people. Can price Gouge now because there's scarcity?

What is he talking about? I mean, it's these, this is not competent speech in any way, shape, or form. And the interviewer, I can't say the interview is doing an awesome job of combating some of these claims. Trump does make it difficult to do that because he just steamrolls you and he keeps going.

The new one that they're floating is the economy at the end of the day, is not that important. And Trump's pushing that one, too.

ABC 13 Anchor
The economy, in your mind, may not be the biggest topic happening right now. Why did you say that? And what would you say it is?

Donald Trump
Well, it seems to be the economy, if you look at polls. But I also think it's the border. It's millions and millions of people coming into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and even insane asylums where they're closing up all over the world. Not just, just in, not just South America, sadly, it's all over the world. This is coming, speaker one.

David Pakman
Okay, so now he goes into his insane asylum rant. Why is the economy not that important, sir? Well, because I've decided the border is a much more convenient thing. Not a single poll finds this. There is no evidence of terrorists coming in by the thousands. There is no evidence of so called insane asylums being emptied out into the United States. The reason that they're now going with the economy is not that important, even though we all know it is, and every poll tells us that it is, is that it's harder and harder to argue that the economy is in rough shape. When you look at unemployment, the stock market, inflation, GDP, wage growth, it's really hard to make an empirical case that the economy is a mess. And so the new one that they have as well, we just don't think the economy really is that important.

Last clip from this, Trump asked about the assassination and he says he believes it was God. That's what saved him.

ABC 13 Anchor
Last question, Mister president, one month ago, an attempted assassin tried to take your life.

How are you feeling right now? So the voters know how? What are your thoughts about that?

Donald Trump
Well, it was a terrible thing. It was amazing. God was watching over me because it was a miracle. If I didn't turn a certain way at a certain time, it was, you know, no chance. And it's very much a miracle for those that don't believe in God. I think you'll start believing in when you see that. A lot of people have actually felt that it was a very terrible day. A lot was learned. We lost a great person in Corey. We have two other people that were very badly hurt, weren't really expected to live, and they are living and they're going to be okay.

David Pakman
Now, he does mention Corey did die. This is the guy who was standing behind Trump and was killed.

Whenever they bring up this God was watching over me stuff, why was God not watching over Corey? I mean, seriously, and I know that you can very, you can always say we can never understand, we could just never understand why this was the way that God operated or this is the way that God decided to do this. But it doesn't really make any sense. If God works in mysterious ways and we can't understand why God allowed the bullet to kill Corey, then we similarly can't really say that God acted in order to spare Trump. Why didn't God make the gun jam? Why didn't God prevent the shooter from even being there or even being born? It's, this stuff is obvious, overt nonsense. But particularly when one person was killed and two were injured, there are such obvious questions about why did that happen? If all of this was God's doing. Couldn't God have simply made the bullet miss you, but ricochet away without hurting anybody at all? Well, no, no, no, no. That doesn't work, and we can't possibly understand it. I'm really sick of this whole thing. And I can only imagine that if you're a family member, a friend or loved one of the guy that did die, that at least on some level, you find it all pretty disgusting. So a really weird interview did not get a lot of attention, but it should have. And as you can see, Trump just doesn't look good. Doesn't look good, sweaty and disoriented. And, you know, he does this thing where while he's listening to the questions, he, he kind of spins. It's, it's all really weird.

And the alternative is Kamala Harris, who's filling arenas and answering questions that are asked of her and just kind of existing in a marginally more normal way. So we've got a long way to go, but it's hard not to look at the totality of the situation and say, it's looking okay. It's certainly looking okay. Let me know your thoughts info at david pakman.com subscribe to the YouTube channel for free and make sure you've pre ordered my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine, at david pakman.com echo. We'll take a quick break and the Friday show will continue.

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Now, I don't want you to think for a moment that the reason they're being more careful is because of any change to their political views or to the way that they interpret and understand the political context. They're being more careful because Trump is doing everything wrong. And he might, we don't know, but he might get absolutely crushed in November. And they all want to be on the sort of, they all want to be able to say, I expressed concerns early on. I knew that this could happen. I warned everybody about this. The latest of these guys is Bill O'Reilly. Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly who now, I guess, is on news Nation and does his own thing. He gave a little assessment of Trump. It was riddled with lies and distortions, of course, about Joe Biden's record about Kamala Harris. But he makes some good points, including that Donald Trump's emotional reactions to everything that's happening, crowd sizes, everything Tim Wall says it's showing the lack of discipline. And to some degree, Bill O'Reilly is exactly right. So let's listen to Bill O'Reilly's cautious assessment, uh, inspired not by any come to Jesus moment in terms of, you know, recognizing the reality of the world, but simply understanding Trump may lose, and I should get something on the record about it.

H
I think that the former president lacks discipline still, in messaging.

David Pakman
Yes.

H
You know, when you are running for an office and, you know, the deck is stacked against you, where the media, as you pointed out, is not going to report anything, honestly at all. Nothing.

And the Democratic Party has got a constituency that hates you.

David Pakman
So, you know, I mean, yeah, there are people in the democratic party that hate Trump because of the things he's done and the things he's promised to do. But this entire idea that, oh, we're the victims, we're all the framing is classic O'Reilly spin. He likes to say how he does no spin, it's total spinous. But he gets to the liabilities of.

H
Trump, and that will drive a vote out. Doesn't matter what the issues are.

Then you have to basically figure out, if I want to win, I have to do this.

So to me, this would be the economy above all. You're spending so much money on the essentials of life, and it's because of Biden Paris.

And there's no, they can't refute that. The numbers are the numbers.

David Pakman
And now, of course, you can refute it. So there's two sides to this.

O'Reilly is right.

That as a general principle, Tim Miller said this to me, others said it to me as a general principle. Don't run on. Kamala's dumb. Don't run on. She was indian but became black. Don't run on. She's only got the jobs she's gotten because of her, the color of her skin. Don't run on that stuff. Run on policy. The problem is the economy's pretty good. And when Bill O'Reilly says the numbers are what the numbers are, yes, inflation is positive in that we don't have a deflationary spiral, but inflation is right where one would want it to be. In general economic terms, the unemployment rate has been low. Job creation has been high. Stock market performance has been good. So I agree with O'Reilly. You got to do issues. I disagree with O'Reilly that the economic case against Harris by, against Biden, Harris.

H
Is, and the border, I mean, I think Kamala Harris is looking foolish by saying, oh, I'm a tough border queen. Now all Trump's got to do is rerun the Lester Holt interview on NBC. And Holt said, hey, how come you haven't been to the border? She says, I have been to the border. Holt goes, no, you haven't. And then she goes, I haven't been to Europe either. Just run that clip 100 times.

So why isn't he doing discipline? It's all about, I don't know.

I don't know who he hires or why they're not doing it. One thing I know about Donald Trump is that he's a very emotional guy. People don't think he's emotional, but he is. And if he's having a bad day, that bad day is going to come out.

David Pakman
Let me translate. It's not that Trump is emotional in the sense of being in touch with your emotions and reacting strongly in a deep and meaningful way to think. What he means by Trump is emotional is that he tantrums. He's emotional in the childish sense of the word.

H
During a rally or an interview like Musk tonight, having a good day, then his presentation will be more crisp.

But he isn't like a guy who is internalizing what he should do. He just flies and he doesn't really think about the repercussions of what he.

David Pakman
Says, that's for sure. So listen. Upside, they are finally acknowledging a problem with their candidate compared to the even older Biden, who was low energy, you could make the case that Trump was in some sense appealing compared to Kamala Harris, 20 years, almost Trump's junior, going around the country with a positive vision, packed crowds, filling the arenas that Trump can't fill, sometimes the same week that Trump fails to fill it, with Tim walls really contributing in a positive way to that campaign.

Now all of a sudden, the picture doesn't look so rosy. They recognize there is the potential, potential for Trump to lose in a landslide. And now they're sort of being a little more cautious about Trump's personality. Here's another really funny one. Fox News interviewed Barron, Trump's friend, a 17 year old named Beau Louden, as if this is where we're going to learn about what's happening in the dynamics of this race. This is just so funny. And I don't know what is actually funnier or, or more tragic. Is it funnier or more tragic that Fox News brings on Beau Louden as a serious political analyst rather than just the extraordinarily biased friend of Barron Trump? Or is it funnier and more tragic that Bo Louden seems to have actually memorized the widely failed MAGA talking points? Take a listen to this. This is scary stuff. What issues are so essential to the Gen Z voter that the Trump campaign needs to hammer home in order to win them over?

I
Well, I think, you know, there's a lot of statistics being put out on how unhappy Gen Z is with their finances, you know, with how brutal our economy is. And that's the number one thing Trump did. Trump had a booming economy. Our economy thrived on our, he didn't run America, you know, like all these other presidents. He ran like a businessman.

David Pakman
Right? And of course, it's so funny because he's, he's got all the right talking points. But the talking points are eight years old, and they make no sense because Trump's had so many failed businesses, we have no evidence that a country should be run like a business. He, he's getting the talking points from when he was eight years old and repeating them without them making any sense. And it's sort of funny, but also really sad to see this.

I
And he made it thrive like one of his businesses. So, you know, with President Trump, people know that their pockets will be full, and they know that their, their families would be protected. Their border will be secured.

David Pakman
It's like, what does that even mean, their pockets will be full. Wage growth relative to inflation has been far higher under Biden than under Trump. The stock market has performed better under Biden than under Trump. Unemployment's been lower with fewer people out of work under Biden rather than under Trump. So he's got the talking points. They just don't make any sense.

I
And, you know, it is interesting how Kamala is kind of chasing Trump's accomplishments.

David Pakman
Like a, like a notice. He even has the mispronunciation of Kamala down Kamala trail of cookies.

I
You know, she wants to, he wants to say no tax on tips, which is great for a lot of Gen Z.

You know, put me in the hard nine to five, 5 hours.

And now she's saying, no tax on tips. And he wants to secure the border and keep us safe. Now she wants to secure the border. But the thing is, everyone's saying you're president now. You know, you're in the office now. Why not do it now? I don't know. Instead of making all these promises right.

David Pakman
Now for voters between the ages of 18 and 29, they prefer Kamala over Trump by about 16%. So to that Gen Z voter who's really caught up in the Kamala honeymoon right now planning to vote for her, what would you say to change their mind? 20 seconds to you, Beau.

I
Well, you know, I wouldn't put my biggest support in someone that thinks I'm stupid because that's what Kamala said. 18 to 24 year olds are stupid. And Trump loves the youth. Gen Z loves Trump. And he's got the support and he is going to do great things for not just Gen Z but all voters and all right.

David Pakman
So anyway, you get the picture. It's really scary when you see stuff like this because any, I have a chapter in my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine.

Any real critical thinking, media literacy and epistemology curriculum starting, you know, at age eight, nine, something like that probably inoculates a guy like this from ever falling into this stuff, except not when it's what your parents and your friend Barron Trump believes. That's the really difficult thing. So for a lot of people, shoring up education would prevent falling into this kind of trap political black hole to begin with. But he's got the talking points down. Doesn't matter that they don't make sense. He presents them confidently, just as I'm sure Barron Trump would because he learned it from his dad. Donald Trump confident even about things that you know very little about. We talked earlier in the week about how Trump is increasingly losing Fox News. He is now even losing Newsmax. This is a very interesting clip. Greta Van Susteren, former Fox News host, says that Trump is not doing the right thing when it comes to the topics he's addressing. And it's another version of what we've been hearing from those over at Fox. Take a listen.

Donald Trump
But I think to myself is that, you know, why not go after for the border and stop worrying about crowd sizes or stop, I mean, a lot of the stuff that President Trump is taking the bait and he's getting into, you know, or he's maybe even starting the bait, but he's getting into a lot of things that, you know, most american people, you know, they're more worried about inflation.

David Pakman
Ok, here's the critical piece to understand about this.

The Fox hosts, the Newsmax hosts, I don't want to belabor this, but it's important.

They're not doing this because they're turning on Trump. They're not doing this because all of a sudden they think Kamala Harris might actually be a better choice for me. They don't believe that they're fully in on this sort of maga ism.

They are making it clear that they think the strategy is wrong so that if Trump loses, and he might lose in a landslide, they can say, hey, we were worried about the strategy all along. We brought it up. We said it, we expressed concerns. We made it really, really clear that if Trump continues to pursue this, it very much might not work out. That's how they now get their consciences clear and also generate some kind of content that won't later be looked at as, look, you just cheerleaded it all along and said that everything was going perfectly and swimmingly. And at the core, there's the personal ego motivation, which is, I don't want the montage where I never questioned the strategy to be made on November 15 if this goes completely south. But there's another point, which is the employment and media concern, which is they never want to lose access. That's the critical thing for media outlets. They don't want to lose access. And so they are trying to find a balance where if Trump wins, they maintain access to Trump. If Trump loses, they have some path to a semblance of credibility where they can say, we were skeptical about that. Republicans keep coming and talking to us, and maybe Kamala Harris will also come and talk to us, if that's the next president. You have to understand that there's many layers of motivation here. They are personal, they are professional. They are about maintaining access. But to the extent that they're expressing some doubt about the strategy of Trump, I agree with them.

Their reason for doing it is what's totally different. Make sure that you are subscribed to the YouTube channel. We are very aggressively pushing now to 2.5 million subscribers, which is an extraordinary number.

Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We'll have more information about that trajectory. We'll take a very quick break. And the show continues after this.

There are two big problems with the cheap plastic disposable razors. Two thirds of people have skin irritation. And then over 2 billion plastic razors enter our landfills in the United States alone. Now, our sponsor, Henson shaving, solves both problems. With the plastic disposable razors, you have unstable blades wobbling around as you shave, which causes the irritation. It's like if you were cutting something with scissors or a knife and the blade is wiggling. That's what's happening. To your face with the cheap razors. So here's the solution. Razors produced by Henson have a blade that extends only .0013 inches past the shave plane, and that means no blade movement. More comfort before and after shaving. This is something only Henson can offer because of their precision manufacturing shop that also makes aerospace parts. Plus, the only part that you replaced is the blade itself. The razor will last you a lifetime. Better for your wallet, much better for the planet when you buy a razor at henson shaving.com Pacman, use the code Pacman to get a two year supply of blades for free. Make sure to add the blades to your cart. That's Henson shaving.com pacman. Use code Pacman for free blades after adding them to your cartae. The info is in the podcast notes well, very good news if you are Robert F. Kennedy Junior or supporting Robert F. Kennedy junior. Not so good if you are Donald Trump or supporting Donald Trump. It all has to do with North Carolina. Let's start with how RFK junior himself explained it in a tweet where he said, quote, victory in North Carolina.

The Democratic Party's lawsuit trying to knock us off the ballot was defeated. The judge, a Democrat, said it would be unconscionable to claim we used subterfuge when in fact the campaign complied with the requirements. What is it that is going on here? Well, the Associated Press has a write up. Robert F. Kennedy junior can remain on the North Carolina presidential ballot, judge says, explaining that Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory rejected the preliminary injunction request by the Democratic Party to keep Robert F. Kennedy Junior s name off of the ballot. And in addition to that, a federal judge halted the board's rejection of official party status for justice for all. That's the group under whose umbrella Cornel west was running. So why is it that this is bad news for Donald Trump right now?

It seems much more likely than not that with the excitement that Kamala Harris and Tim Walls have brought to the Democratic Party, that democratic support has really consolidated around Kamala Harris. And we have polling to this effect. On the other hand, Trump's continued glitches, confusion, slurring, autocratic and authoritarian leading tendencies have some voters concerned. Not all, but some.

And rather than stay home, some of them might say, I kind of like the idea of RFK. Rather than acquiescing and voting for Trump, some would say I kind of like the idea of RFK. And North Carolina is a particularly interesting state where this may be going on. If we look at the latest polling out of North Carolina, Trump is winning by an average of 744 to 37, with Robert F. Kennedy junior at 6.8, Cornel west at 1.6 and Jill Stein at 1.2. We have anecdotal polling. I told you about a poll earlier this week which has North Carolina tied between Harris and Trump.

Realistically, even if Kamala Harris has one poll in which it's tied realistically, especially looking historically, over the last few elections, North Carolina is likely to go to Trump in a head to head matchup. And if you were able to get Robert F. Kennedy junior out of the way, it probably helps Trump by a couple of points.

Kennedy's 7% maybe comes five to two from Trump supporters, would be Trump supporters, or maybe four and a half to two and a half or something along those lines. RFK staying in as an option is disproportionately not good for Trump in that state. And it's not that now. It's a question of will Trump win or lose North Carolina? But it's if Trump has to fight for North Carolina, that is some amount of resource that cannot be placed elsewhere. So if you're RFK, you're happy. If you're a supporter of RFK, you're happy. If you're a Trump supporter, this is not particularly good news for you. And also not good news if you're Donald Trump is the broader discussion about his speech issues, which I want to talk about next. You know, there often is a story that is building, building, building in independent media.

And then we wonder, why is there this invisible wall of resistance from it making its way over to corporate media? And then suddenly the wall falls and the story makes it into corporate media. Even though we've seen sprinklings of this over the last several months.

There was something about Donald Trump's ridiculous spaces interview with Elon Musk on Monday night that has now pushed Trump's speech issues into the mainstream. And this is a good thing to see, particularly if you're just looking at this from strategy. I mean, listen, I don't want Trump to be president again. I think that would be very bad for the country. And so with Joe Biden now stepping aside, Kamala Harris, the democratic nominee, democratic support, as well as political donations and polling consolidating behind Kamala Harris, we need to use whatever tools we have to defeat Donald Trump. One of those tools is accurately pointing out Trump is the oldest major party political nominee ever of all time. Ever, of course, because Joe Biden decided to step aside. In addition to this, the slurring from Monday night was jarring.

Absolutely jarring. Let me see if I have the God bless here.

I don't, I guess I don't have it here. Oh, wait, no. Do I have it? Where is my God? Yeah. Speaker one.

Donald Trump
And God blessed the United States.

David Pakman
We remember God bless the United States from when Trump was president. But it's gotten really bad now and everybody's noticing. We start with MSNBC. Here is MSNBC reporting on the Trump slurring. And they very obvious to them, but.

CNBC Anchor
The former president's words were extremely slurred as he fought in from Mar a Lago in front of a flattering painting of himself.

Here's some of what Trump had to say.

Donald Trump
I know Putin very well. I got along with him very well. He respected me. And it's just one of those things. And he would, we would talk a lot about Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye. But I said, don't ever do it. Don't ever do it. You can't do it, Vladimir. You do it. It's going to be a bad day. You cannot do it. And I told him things that what I do, and he said, no way. And I said, way.

David Pakman
All right. So both confused and slurring. And there was more coverage of this on MSNBC throughout the week. Here's John le Meyer.

CNBC Anchor
But I think you hit on something important.

Vibes do matter right now. I mean, and that might not be enough to carry one side or the other until election day, but right now it is, it is a stark difference. Gene ROBINSON where night after, we're seeing footage night after night of the vice president and her running mate having these raucous, joyful rallies. People are laughing, people are smiling. They're dancing to Beyonce before she takes the stage.

Trump, on the other hand, is this, it was a 2 hours. I mean, he was a little more controlled in his rhetoric last night than he has been on the rally stage. At times. He seemed to sort of slur his words a little bit. But he, you know, you can see here, there with the portrait behind him.

David Pakman
So slurring his words. Our friend Ben, my sellers from Midas touch, immediately noticing the exact same thing.

CNBC Anchor
Dentures started trending. Daffy Duck started trending. Donald Trump appeared to be in steep cognitive decline. Let me just show you the lowlights of what went down. I listened to this whole ridiculous thing so you didn't have to. Donald Trump talked about how we saw the Time magazine cover that just came out with Vice President Kamala Harris. And he remarked that it looked a lot like his third wife, Melania, and said that that doesn't really look like Kamala, but it looks like Melania. Here, listen to what Donald Trump said. Play this clip.

Donald Trump
She's terrible, but she's getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on Time magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing.

And actually, she looked very much like our great first lady, Melania.

She didn't look like Camilla. That's right. But of course, she's a beautiful woman. So we'll leave it at that.

David Pakman
Right.

CNBC Anchor
Now, take a listen to Donald Trump, speaker one.

David Pakman
All right, you get it? So then it went on and on and on with Ben Mysellis also talking about the slurring. And then a number of other articles about this. Newsweek Donald Trump's Lisp, quote, Lisp during Elon Musk interview raises questions, explaining that it certainly doesn't sound like Trump normally speaks. And then also a USA Today piece, Trump rambles and slurs his way through an Elon Musk interview. It was an unmitigated, unmitigated disaster.

Listen, I always advocate on all of the above approach.

Is the story accurate? Is it accurate that Donald Trump shockingly slurred his way through hours of conversation with Elon Musk? Yes. Is it plausible that it was some kind of audio processing software? No. Because the clips recorded in the room with Trump contain the exact same slurring. Does Trump historically speak with a lisp? No, he does not. So it's a real story. And so when I say we take in all of the above approach, I say we explore all avenues that will defeat this guy. Do we point out the very stark contrast between the positive vision for America laid out by Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, in contrast to Donald Trump's apocalyptic and dystopian vision? Yes, we do point that out. Do we remind the audiences and voters that Trump is uniquely and singularly disqualified from the presidency, not in a legal sense, but in the eyes of voters, based on any number of a dozen different things that he did, inciting the riot, being a convicted felon. Right. We could, we could take any one of these things and say, this alone would be enough to say, this guy never steps foot in the Oval Office again. Yes, we do that. Do we also remind people that this is now the oldest presidential nominee in american history who is increasingly having cognitive glitches, while he does rallies, increasingly slurring for unexplained reasons, increasingly seeming disoriented and unable to identify people that he presumably knows? Yes. We do that as well. And then do we say, hey, these guys are weird and creepy.

It's weird and creepy to want to be in there when you're having a conversation with your doctor. That's weird and creepy. Yes, we do. We do that as well. These are all real stories. They're all accurate stories. Nobody has to make anything up about these folks. But different aspects of this may motivate or appeal to different voters. There are folks for whom hearing Trump say Kamala Harris is dumb and a DeI hire will get them to say, hey, that's racist and misogynistic. And I'm not voting for this guy. I mean either staying home or voting for Harris. Well, then that's great. There are others where we remind them, hey, you know, they say they're for law and order, but this guy's got 34 criminal convictions and other, other indictments against them. Oh, yeah, you know what? I'm actually for law and order. I'm not going to vote for that. We take an all of the above approach and then we see where we land in November. So the slurring story going mainstream. And it is a good thing that it is data brokers are constantly gathering vast amounts of information about your online activities, address, phone number, email, financial details, even political affiliations. Anyone, including your ex or your boss, can easily find your personal information on public data search sites. They sell this data to other companies. The FBI and NSA even buy this data in bulk to monitor Americans without a warrant. These data set lists are also where scammers and spammers get your information to send, call, text, and email you.

But you can stop them. Our sponsor, incogni, sends data removal requests to data brokers who are legally required to comply. If any information stays online, Incogni will follow up and make sure that it's removed, and they keep you updated every step of the way so you will know when your data has been removed. Saves you hundreds of hours of work. Almost no one could do this on their own. If you have any other responsibilities in your life, I use incogni myself and what they're able to accomplish, and quickly, quickly is impressive. Go to incogni.com pacman and use the code PacmAN for 60% off. That's Inc. Ogni.com pacman for a huge 60% discount. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, it is time for Friday feedback, and we're starting to get some of our most incisive and aggressive criticism of the presumptive democratic knee, democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, who will soon be made the official democratic nominee at the DNC.

Let's start with you probably know what's coming. Let's start with a message from skiller 189 x four on YouTube who says a far left progressive San Francisco Da who's soft on crime policies have destroyed that city. Then, as California state ag okayed decriminalizing illegal border crossings and in the Senate was voted as the most liberal senator even more than the socialist Bernie Sanders got her ass kicked in the 2020 democratic primaries, and she dropped out early, picked as a DEI selection for VP, something Jill Biden was reportedly furious about because she knew Harris was a detriment. Complete failure as VP and so called borders are 20 million illegals coming in under her watch, guilty of hiding Biden's cognitive status for four years. A dangerous far left progressive Democrat, not who the people in middle american want to vote for. Her first failure as presidential candidate was to snub our closest democratic ally in the Middle east by not attending Netanyahu's address in Congress, Kamala Harris is never going to win over the american people. The polls and fundraising suggest otherwise, but we could spend an hour on this message. We're not going to do that. But the one thing I want to mention is the idea that Kamala Harris snubbed Israel by not attending Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in Congress.

JD Vance did the same thing.

And yet none of these right wingers are willing to say, well, it was a snub only when Kamala did it, but not when JD did it. They just ignore or don't know about the fact that JD Vance also didn't go to the speech. These are not serious people. These are very much not serious people. And if this is the best they can do against Kamala Harris, it explains why her poll numbers look the way they do and why her fundraising looks the way it does, and why her rally crowds look the way that they do. Skate, Cloud wrote on the subreddit. Anyone find the branding of MAGA as weird to be an interesting strategy? Was reading another subreddit talking about it? Calling Trump and his goons weird disarms them and it turns them into a joke rather than giving them importance by branding them as threats to democracy. With a bully like Trump, I'm guessing this kind of branding could get under his skin. Also. Somehow it resonates, whereas back in 2016, deplorable seemed to backfire with some what do you think about weird? So here's my thought.

There are voters who are motivated by the accurate description of Trump as a threat to democracy. There are voters who are very much motivated by that. On the other hand, there are voters who have become sort of numb to it because we've been aware of this danger Trump for a while now, and although it's regularly confirmed by the fact people might be a little desensitized to it, and there is something about, man, these are weird creeps where it's like you're not even dignifying them with the seriousness that they want while still framing them as I don't want anything to do with you. And it does seem to be getting under, under Donald Trump's skin. So I don't think you can run or win a campaign simply on my opponent is weird, but as a component that goes along with project 2025 is a disaster. Look what they did to reproductive rights. Putting it all together, these guys are weird and creepy as hell.

Also helps in a general sense. I wouldn't make it my only thing, but I would definitely, I definitely understand including it. Anonymous supreme. Anonymous prem says on YouTube. I'm not sure. Before it happened, I would have said no, but now it's looking like she, Kamala has energized the Democrats and independent, and she has thrown the MAGA hats into disarray. She is off to a great start. It's a sad thing where one of the gauges as to how Kamala Harris is doing is how unhinged and disjointed the MAGA people are, because it sort of starts to smell a little bit like our only point is to own the libs, which was what the right did for a while when they abandoned policy. But here's the counter. We have an abandoned policy. We have coherent policy on taxation, foreign policy, trade, economics, reproductive rights, education, environment.

And also, and also we notice that the Maga wing of the republican party has been thrown into complete triggered disarray by the arrival of Kamala Harris as the presumptive democratic nominee. So I don't think there's anything wrong with recognizing it. Uh, just as long as, just as long as we continue to campaign in a serious manner. Now, let's talk about one aspect of that a little bit. Kathy wrote on Facebook's she can't, she being Kamala, she can't even answer a question. She has no plan to fix the price of everything. People can't afford to live its paycheck to paycheck anymore.

And her pick, the Tim Tampon man, you need, you people need to wake up. So grammatically incoherent, no doubt about it but with regard to inflation, I really would love to sit down and talk to one of these folks and say, got it, inflation. Prices are up. I understand prices are up globally since the pandemic. I'm with you. Certain things are hard to afford. Let's work on it together. First, why do you blame Biden, given that of all the western developed, wealthier nations, the US has had the lowest inflation. So inflation everywhere among western developed countries, lowest in the US. Why are we blaming Biden?

Second part, tell me exactly what presidents can do to bring prices down in absolute terms. Because they seem to be saying, and I've gotten emails, until prices go back to what they were in 2020, I won't believe that a president is doing a good job. You're talking about a deflationary situation, very rare and bad for the economy in many ways. Slowing down inflation. Absolutely. Economists agree that's a good thing, causing a deflationary spiral. Not aware of anyone serious who's actually advocating for that. So I'd love to talk to them a little bit to see whether they understand any of this stuff. I don't think they do. That's my instinct. No, no. Sabathia wrote on Reddit clickbait titles, a way to lose credibility.

I like this topic. Let's discuss it. So I know it's a common YouTube tactic, but I've noticed David Pakman doing it a lot, and I think it's a mistake. It will be like Donald Trump off the rails and loses it or something, and then the video will be Trump making a little misspeak and Pacman overreacting about it. This is a way to lose legitimately legitimacy. There are plenty of ways to get views and promote your politics without doing it. I suggest to title things accurately and not to overreact to small things. Anyway, just throwing it out into the world of Reddit. Yeah, I've addressed this many times before.

Titles have evolved over time.

You've got to play the game that's happening on the platform to succeed.

I would encourage you to give me some examples of people who do what I do that use deliberately, sort of like boring and Milquetoast titles and do well. I just don't think that there is anybody. Now, my big things here are let's do what is appropriate on each platform to build an audience so that then they consume the content, hear the message, and hopefully vote in a way that makes the country better. Are we guilty of playing the games on the platforms? Yes, when we've tried not playing them.

Nobody watches the content nobody listens to the content. So my suggestion to this particular person would be, if you like more of a button down approach to how we characterize the content, just listen to the audio podcast. The audio podcast does not have editorialized titles. It doesn't have five minute clips that are pulled out for this viewer. The 1 hour audio podcast may be a better fit constitutionally and ethically and morally and and all of that. So we're offering different things on different platforms. We're doing the best we can. And as far as losing credibility, I don't think we are in the sense that the YouTube audience is as big as ever.

The podcast audience is as big as ever. I've written a book and the pre order, the pre pre order campaign is off to an incredible start. I'm getting more speaking gig invitations than ever, invitations to other shows. Like anything we could look at seems to be going really well. So at least for now, I think we're okay. I think we're okay. On the topic of JD Vance, is makeup that he wears?

Gavin Ray asks, is JD's makeup an issue to this community? David mentioned he received many messages about JD Vance's makeup. Is this really something that's of concern to this community, or are people simply mentioning it because it's surprising to see it on someone who espouses anti trans rhetoric? For me, it's a non issue, says Gavin. In fact, as someone who acted in my youth, I'm comfortable seeing a performer wearing stage makeup, regardless of gender identity, at least when doing press and interviews politicians, or perform our performers under bright lights. However, I would like to mention I am not totally on board with David's characterization of his makeup as women's or ladies makeup. Because JD is a man. It would be man's makeup by definition. In my opinion, it should be called stage makeup or simply makeup. Does it sound right? I actually agree completely with Gavin Ray. This is one of those examples where we are playing into what the right believes about makeup.

The anti trans enforce, heteronormal. See, right wing characterizes the makeup that JD Vance wears as women's makeup. So we use it only in the context of showing the irony of what they call it. I don't care who wears makeup. To me it's just makeup, men's makeup, women's makeup. It's eyeliner, it's mascara. It's what it is.

And I have no problem with it one way or the other other than JD Vance's total hypocrisy on the issue. Suzetski hope says Trump didn't make any demands in the first debate, so he can make some this time. Well, that's not true. Suzetski. Trump made a number of demands in the first debate. They weren't all accepted. For example, Trump wanted no on screen fact checking in the debate against Joe Biden. That was granted.

Trump also wanted a crowd that was not granted. So the point here is it's not true that because Trump made no demands previously, now he can make whatever demands he wants. And even if it were the case that Trump previously did not make demands, it doesn't mean that he's now entitled to get final say over how the debates are organized. It's up to the two candidates to come to an agreement with the organizers of the debates.

Eddie, I'm sorry. Edie wrote in on Facebook about polling.

And Edie says, the only thing that worries me about the polls is looking back at 2016. Hillary was winning all the polls. She even won the popular vote. But because of the electoral college, we were stuck with the disaster of four years of Trump. We can't let that happen again. Yeah. So you are absolutely correct. We don't know by November what the polls will look like. Will they look better? Will they look worse than they did in November of 2016? I don't know. But the most important takeaway is that no matter what they look like, we should assume that it's close.

We should assume it will come down only to a few states, and we should assume that the closer it is, the more potential there is for Trump to try to steal it. So when I see what Edie says, I go, I absolutely agree.

Let's do everything we can to make it a blowout, which will make these scary scenarios less likely. So on that note, make sure you're registered to vote.

Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. Make sure you've preordered my book, the Echo machine@davidpakman.com.

echo and I hope you'll stick around for today's bonus show, which will be a very, very good one.

8/16/24: Pollster stunned by new numbers, Megyn Kelly slowly turning on Trump

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1: Introduction

2: Poll Analysis

3: Megyn Kelly's Perspective

4: Broader Political Implications

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