8/5/24: Trump backs out of debate, RFK bizarre bear cub story

This episode explores Donald Trump's decision to back out of a scheduled debate with Kamala Harris, favoring a debate on Fox News under specific conditions, and a bizarre story involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a bear cub.

1. Trump seeks to control debate narratives by setting specific conditions for his participation.
2. Trump’s tactics are seen as a way to avoid direct confrontation with Kamala Harris on a neutral platform.
3. The RFK Jr. story highlights bizarre and unconventional behavior by public figures that captivates media attention.
4. These incidents reflect broader strategies of distraction and manipulation in political communication.
5. The episode underscores the importance of critical media consumption and the need to scrutinize the motivations behind political maneuvers.

1. Debate Dodging

Trump's strategic withdrawal from the debate is examined, focusing on his demands for specific moderators and conditions that favor his narrative. David Pakman: "Trump is running scared from a debate with Harris, setting conditions he knows she won't accept."

2. Bizarre Bear Tale

RFK Jr.'s strange story about a bear cub staged as a biking accident in Central Park is explored, highlighting the surreal intersections of politics and personal eccentricity. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: "I put the bear in Central Park to make it look like a biking accident, which was amusing to us at the time."

1. Critical Analysis of Political News: Develop skills to critically analyze news sources, especially regarding political content, to discern bias and manipulation.
2. Engagement in Political Processes: Stay engaged in political discussions and debates to better understand candidate policies and strategies.
3. Media Literacy Education: Educate yourself and others about media literacy to recognize and combat misinformation.
4. Participation in Debates and Forums: Participate in local debates and forums to foster a community understanding of political maneuvers.
5. Voting Based on Informed Decisions: Make informed decisions in elections based on a thorough understanding of all candidates’ positions and past actions.

-- On the Show:

-- If there is to be a debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it increasingly appears it would have to be on Fox News since Trump is saying he will only do it under those circumstances

-- Robert F. Kennedy Jr admits to dumping a dead bear cub in New York City's Central Park and staging it to look like a bicycle accident

-- A wildly glitching Donald Trump holds a rally in Atlanta, Georgia so absurd that his audience started to leave, and fellow Republicans said the rally may have lost Georgia for them

-- JD Vance delivers an introduction to Donald Trump at his Atlanta, Georgia rally that seems like it could only hurt Trump, not help him

-- Various Republican leaders and officials are furious with Donald Trump over what they describe as a "batsh*t crazy" rally in Atlanta, Georgia

-- MAGA, Republicans, and Donald Trump himself seem to have been tricked by disinformation into thinking that Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is transgender, or was born a man, despite no such evidence

-- Fox News hosts start to abandon Donald Trump, including Stuart Varney and Neil Cavuto

-- Fox News propagandist Maria Bartiromo interviews Donald Trump about cryptocurrency, and it becomes clear Trump has no idea what is going on

-- Kamala Harris sets the all-time single-month fundraising record, shocking and panicking MAGA and Donald Trump

-- Voicemail caller wants to talk about the latest supposed scandal about Kamala Harris, which is that her husband Doug Emhoff had an affair with his previous wife, before ever meeting Kamala Harris

-- On the Bonus Show: Nicolas Maduro vows to "pulverize" challenges to his rule after disputed election, stock market way down as recession odds climb to 25%, growing concerns about GLP-1 weight loss drugs, much more...

People

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

Companies

Fox News

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

David Pakman
We've been wondering whether we are going to get any more presidential debates this election. We, of course, had this now infamous June 27 debate, which in some sense was the beginning of the end for Joe Biden's reelection campaign. Joe Biden has now stepped aside, and Kamala Harris is the presumptive democratic nominee, having secured the at least verbal support of enough delegates from the Democratic Party to become the nominee, uh, at next week's convention. I believe it's next week, next, next week, or the week after. Within ten days or so, she will officially be the nominee. And so now the question is, are we going to see the two people that are running for president, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debate? This has gone back and forth. Kamala Harris has essentially said, I plan on sticking to the original debates that Joe Biden had agreed to. I'll debate Donald Trump wherever. Let's just do it. On the other hand, Donald Trump increasingly putting up barriers and making excuses, and it is increasingly looking like if there is going to be any debate between these two, per Trump, it will have to be on Fox News with debate moderators that he selects, with rules that he establishes with regard to fact checking or whatever else. Let's dive into it. Media. It reports this is now. So we're going to build up the story. Two days ago we start. Trump rages. If he doesn't see Kamala Harris in Fox debate, he won't see her at all. Donald Trump posting to troth Central. Quote, I have agreed with Fox News to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4.

The debate was previously scheduled against sleepy Joe Biden on NBC, but has been terminated, and that Biden will no longer be a participant. And I am Litig in litigation against ABC News and George Slopadopolis, thereby creating a conflict of interest. The Fox News debate will be held in the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania at a site in an area to be determined. Wow. The moderators of the debate will be Brett Baier and Martha McCallum. And the rules will be similar to the rules of my debate with sleepy Joe, who has been treated horribly by his party, but with a full arena audience.

So Trump says he very much agrees to the terms he unilaterally established. The debate will be on Fox News in Pennsylvania with his choice of Fox moderators. His rules says that he can't do the ABC debate because of litigation. Now, he was already litigating against ABC when he originally agreed to that debate. So that explanation doesn't pass the sniff test at all. And he wants the audience to be filled with sycophants who will cheer for him rather than quiet, which would make it much more obvious that Kamala Harris knows a few things and that Donald Trump doesn't know anything. Subsequently, just hours later on the same day, Donald Trump going back to truth social and saying, quote, Kamala Harris doesn't have the mental capacity to do a real debate against me, scheduled for September 4 in Pennsylvania. She's afraid to do it because there is no way she can justify her corrupt and open borders, the environmental destruction of our capital c country, the Afghanistan embarrassment, runaway inflation, terrible economy, high interest rates and taxes, and her years long fight to stop the words merry Christmas. When they bring up the war on Christmas, you know they are losing. I'll see her on September 4, Trump says, or I won't see her at all. She is acknowledged to be the worst vice president in history, which works very nicely against the worst president, crooked Joe Biden. The combination of these two low iq individuals have destroyed our country. But we will again. We will make America great again.

We will make America great again. And then finally, the Harris campaign putting out a statement about what is effectively Donald Trump backing out of the debate that was organized and saying, well, I will do it under these very specific conditions. I've dreamed up the Harris for president campaign saying, quote, Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out. He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on September 10. The vice president will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a primetime national audience. We're happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to. Mister, anytime, anywhere, any place should have no problem with that unless he's too scared to show up on the 10th. Now, you can say whatever you want about the format of the debate that was scheduled to happen on ABC. I mean, in general, the formats of these things don't lend themselves to deep discussion. In fact, the deeper the format discussion is allowed, let me put it a different way, the deeper the discussion that a format allows, the worse it is for Trump. Because on most issues, Trump has zero talking points. On some issues, Trump has a talking point or two. So if you actually spend 1520 minutes on one issue, it would be a disaster for Trump. Now, his audience would probably tune out because they'd be bored. That's another story.

But what is happening here is that Trump realizes there isn't much of an upside here. There is he's not going to get what he got from the June 27 debate against Joe Biden, which, even though Trump claimed to be hesitant to do it, he did benefit from it. Even Trump, even though Trump lied his way through the debate, Joe Biden's performance was so notably bad on the optics that Trump did benefit from that campaign, and it was the beginning of the end of Joe Biden's candidacy. There's no way that's going to happen against Kamala Harris. There's just it. Trump is, for once, accurately recognizing this is probably a bad idea.

My age relative to her comparative vigor at 59 or 60 years old, however she is, is going to become apparent. My brain glitches probably won't function as well when I don't have Joe Biden next to me glitching just as badly. So he recognizes this isn't a good idea. Is it the right call with regard to how the country will perceive him choosing not to debate? I believe there is risk to it. There is no doubt that his base doesn't care. Trump's base doesn't need to see him debate. Even if he did debate and flopped, they still wouldn't care. That's not the issue here. The issue is that if he doesn't debate, there is some group of voters, I don't know how big it is, but there is some group of voters who might say, you know, I can't vote for him after he's very clearly running scared. You've got to go and meet Kamala Harris and have a debate. Even if the debate would tell us very little on policy, I think there's a possibility here, possibility that Trump's calculation unveiling the debate doesn't hurt him with his base, but does hurt him with the admittedly very slim remaining swayable voters. Let me know what you think. This is a wild story. Robert F. Kennedy junior had, I guess, lunch with cuckoo for Cocoa puffs Roseanne Barr, and described dumping a dead bear cub in Central park years ago and staging it to look like a biking accident. This is such a strange story. We don't yet know whether any crimes were committed here. I'm not claiming there were. It's just, it's, it's not obvious one way or the other.

I haven't been able to get a straight answer. Listen to RFK explaining this to Roseanne in what a bizarre video.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I was taking a group of people falconing up in Goshen, New York, up knives and valley, and I was supposed to meet them there at like maybe eight or nine. I was driving up maybe, you know, really early, like, seven, and that woman in a van in front of me hit a bear and killed it, a young bear.

So I pulled over, and I picked.

David Pakman
Up the bear and put him in.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The back of my van because I was going to skin the bear, and it was very good condition, and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York City. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear.

David Pakman
And so he was gonna eat roadkill. But then things went a little awry.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And we went hawking, and I had the bear in my car, and then we had a really good day, and we went late. We were catching a lot of game, and the people really loved it, so we stayed late. And instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner.

I had Peter Luger steakhouse, and at.

David Pakman
The end, I love the detail of Peter Luger at dinner.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It went late, and I realized I couldn't go home. I had to go to the airport, and the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car.

David Pakman
By the way, as some of you know, I have some. You know, I once had dinner with Bobby Kennedy junior in a small group, so a lot of people would hear, how is this so chaotic? Like, wait, you. You ended up falconing later than you expected, and so then you had to go straight to a dinner. And while at the dinner, you realize that you actually then have to go straight to the airport. It sounds very chaotic. This is how chaotic his life is. I can personally attest that this is a normal level of chaos for his life. Oh, you know what? I've actually got to stay up all night and go right to the airport. Just remembered that that would have been bad.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
So then I thought, you know, at that time, this was a little bit of the redneck at me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes and saw people. A couple of people had gotten killed, and it was every day, and people had gotten badly injured every day. It was in the press.

And so I thought, I wasn't drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea.

And I said, I had an old bike in my car that somebody asked me to get rid of. And I said, let's go put the bear in Central park, and we'll make it look like a guy.

Funny for people.

So everybody thought that's a great idea. So we went and did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something.

The next day, it was like it was on every television station. It was the front page of every paper.

David Pakman
So anyway, it's actually true that that made the news. Here is John Berman from October of 2014 on CNN, noting that bears have not been in Central park as a natural occurrence for a while. So the bear must have been dropped. No bears in the park for a long, long time. It seems as if someone brought the thing there, which is really sad. Yep. So a very strange story. I will tell you. This is not going to affect who I vote for in November. I'm declaring that at this time that this is a story that I will not be considering in my evaluation as to whether to vote for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Junior or anybody else. If you know, it's. I'm not now considering Jill Stein, Putin's buddy, as a result of the RFK bear story, lest anyone be scared. That is not going to sway me. Really weird. And like I said, unclear if there are any crimes here with regard to not getting the bear tag or who the hell knows. Not really the deciding factor for me, but an unusual and colorful story nonetheless. And by the way, interesting imagery is Roseanne standing there with her coffee mug, sort of looking like out of Pleasantville in some way.

Everything about this is fascinating and what a video. And it should be part of a forthcoming Saturday Night Live skit or something. I don't know what to tell you. All right, let's take a very quick break. A very controversial and impactful weekend in american political news, all of which we will get to momentarily.

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Donald Trump did a rally speech in Atlanta, Georgia, that was so bad that Fox News cut away that the crowd started filing out while Trump entered the second hour of the speech. And so bad that some Georgia Republicans believe it may have lost the state for them, referring to the speech as batshit crazy, which we will get to a little bit later. First and foremost, Trump glitching more and more frequently, to the point where I get why he's scared to debate Kamala Harris, because very few people watch these stupid rallies outside of the sycophants and analysts who are just curious as to what's going on. But if Trump starts doing this on a national stage against Kamala Harris, it's going to be very bad here. Trump unable to say place, unable to say mobs, should not stop.

Donald Trump
She said she was endorsing defund the place and the police. And she said violent mobs.

Let the violent mobs keep going.

David Pakman
Not good. This guy is really not. Well, another terrible glitch.

Donald Trump
Together, we will stop Kamala Harris's nation wrecked. I tell you what, when you see.

David Pakman
And there is that shoulder, when the glitch happens and Trump bails out, I'll tell you what. And then it's, it's just happening. That was within minutes of each other. These are happening more and more and more frequently. Trump on electric vehicles, seeming to lose his train of thought altogether.

Donald Trump
No, I am for my, for a small slice, as a slice, you want to have gas propelled cars, you want to have hybrids, you want to have every kind of a car.

David Pakman
I'm forum for a small slice is a slice, and you want high breads. That's not sounding like the green tech that I've been reading so much about. Now, maybe the most depraved moment of this speech was when Donald Trump congratulated, not Joe Biden for the prisoner exchange that freed the american prisoners in Russia, but congratulating Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump
That was terrible. You know, by the way, I'd like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal.

Did you see the deal we made? Now, look, we want to get people in. You know, we got 59 hostages. I never paid anything.

David Pakman
Now, by the way, that's a lie. Trump is lying about his own record of hostage exchanges. He has exchanged prisoners for american hostages. Did it multiple times while he was president. So obviously, you start with a lie. Then you start with the gushing about dictators.

Donald Trump
He released some of the greatest killers anywhere in the world, some of the most evil killers they got, and we got our people back. But, boy, we make some horrible, horrible deals. And it's nice to say we got them back. But does that set a bad precedent, Bert? Right.

David Pakman
Does that, arguably Trump set the precedent. Arguably Trump said it when, during his presidency he exchanged prisoners for american hostages. And, of course, it's always Putin, what a great deal. Putin's so smart. PUTIN so good. They are also, as a sign of how poorly things are going, they have brought back from the dead like a. Anyway, they have brought back the war on Christmas. The war on Christmas. That's how you know things aren't going well.

Donald Trump
Ready? The two words are, Merry Christmas. She doesn't want anybody saying Merry Christmas.

David Pakman
And, of course, Kamala Harris has not said she doesn't want anybody saying Merry Christmas.

Scary for school children, but exciting for measles and polio. Trump says he will not give a penny to any school with a vaccine.

Donald Trump
Mandate, and I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.

David Pakman
And, of course, every single public school has a list of vaccines that are required if you want to attend. But Mister Trump, sir, wouldn't that destroy public education? Well, yes, it would. That happens to be a feature of his harebrained idea rather than a bug. Trump continuing the very same sort of apocalyptic musings that we heard from him before Joe Biden became president about Kamala Harris. Everything will be so bad if Kamala Harris becomes president.

Donald Trump
If Kamala Harris gets in, the travesty that is taking place at the Paris Olympics will come to America when we host the Los Angeles Olympics. And by the way, which I was president, we happen to get it. I was the president. I also got you a thing called the World cup, which is coming very soon.

I might as well say it myself because nobody else will say it, but I got them both. And you're going to have a lot of fun with it, I hope. Harris is a radical trans activist, and she is the candidate of letting men beat up women in the name of tolerance. But you look at what's happening over in Paris. It will never happen here. I will never let it happen.

David Pakman
So, first of all, there's a couple of things here. We're going to get to what Trump's talking about, because there is an insane disinformation story about a supposedly trans boxer who is not trans at the Paris Olympics, that the right wingers are foaming at the mouth about total apoplexy over it.

The story Trump's referring to is totally made up. But more importantly, Trump seems to think that if the Olympics are in the United States, he gets to decide who gets to participate in each event rather than the Olympic Committee and the organizers, which is just wild, wild, wild stuff. As is often the case now, the arena was emptying out as Donald Trump was speaking, as you can see here, uh, Trump still speaking. And I mean, large swaths, forget about the mezzanine, which is more than half empty. But even down lower in the loge, you see the arena emptying out there. So that's not going so well. And then this was so haywire that even Fox News decided to cut away, which when you've lost Fox News, you know something's going wrong under these kinds.

Donald Trump
Of woke radical left policies. Atlanta is like a yemenite killing field and your governor ought to get off his ass and do something about it.

So the Trump rally underway there in.

David Pakman
Atlanta, the former president turning to some.

Donald Trump
Of his familiar themes on the campaign.

David Pakman
Trail to call them familiar themes is pretty funny. So Trump starts attacking other Republicans. By the way, your governor here in Georgia, he's talking about Republican Brian Kemp and Fox News cutting away, putting their audience out of their figurative miseries with the Trump rally. So not a good rally, leading to significant concern from Republicans that Trump's losing Georgia for them. But before we get to that, if you think Trump speech was bad, just wait until you see JD Vance's introduction to him. Many of you have been writing to me saying, David, you haven't addressed the fact that JD Vance wears what is traditionally considered women's makeup. You're right. I haven't talked about that. I'm going to address it a little bit later in the show. But I don't really care about that. I don't care about the fact that JD Vance wears what is traditionally considered women's makeup. I care about the fact that he says horrible and depraved things. And JD Vance got up on the stage in Atlanta, Georgia, meant to introduce Donald Trump, and he is revitalizing such stupid, debunked talking points that they can't possibly be to win over any new voters because no new voter would fall for this stupid stuff. Stuff. He's bringing up talking points that are really red meat for the base, including that Kamala Harris wants to take away your gas stoves and your beef, your red meat.

JD Vance
Harris wants to ban fracking, ban offshore drilling, take away your gas cars. And by the way, I think in America, you ought to be able to drive whatever the hell you want to because this is America and we believe in freedom.

She wants to take away your gas stoves. She even wants to take away your ability to eat red meat.

That's how out there she is.

That's real. The fake news will fact check it. They'll fact check it.

David Pakman
True.

JD Vance
She actually said that, in other words, she thinks that she's better than us. She thinks she's better than you.

David Pakman
Who needs, who needs enemies when these are your friends? This is your running mate supposedly trying to get you elected. And the message about the gas stoves and the red meat is entirely for the base. You're not going to convince independent voters with that. These are not the sorts of lies that corporate media will report on and say JD Vance and the Trump Vance campaign strongly hitting Kamala Harris over her desire to eliminate and ban gas stoves and red meat. These are not going to be persuasive lies to anyone other than your base. And you don't need to persuade your base because they're already, already there cheering like the brown nose and cultists that they are. So this really doesn't help them. In the same way that we talked with Republican Tim Miller last week about the fact that JD Vance as a candidate does not expand the electorate for Trump whatsoever.

Talking about this crap also does not help bring any new voters in JD Vance talking about loyalty. And anytime Trumpism talks about loyalty, it's always this caricature of loyalty that effectively means I become a doormat for you to walk all over, suspend all critical thinking and values, and do whatever the hell you tell.

JD Vance
Loyalty is taking a bullet for this country, something Donald J. Trump did.

Kamala Harris, if you want to see the face of disloyalty, look in the damn mirror, right?

David Pakman
So the crowd is very excited by it, but I don't think this stuff wins them a single vote. And then finally JD pulling out the they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him.

JD Vance
That so they tried to impeach him. They failed at that. So they tried to put him in prison. They even had tried to kill him.

David Pakman
They tried to kill him. But as a reminder, they is a single Republican whose republican gun owning dad had Trump signs in his front lawn and who the FBI found a social media account connected to which is espoused xenophobic and anti semitic rhetoric. What a big surprise. They seems to be one of their own. So JD Vance not helping Trump. Trump, not helping Trump. Let's now talk about the Georgia Republican reaction to this ridiculous rally. Republican leaders in Georgia are saying that Trump may have lost Georgia for them with what they describe as a batshit crazy maga rally over the weekend. We looked at the video of Trump speaking.

We looked at the video of JD Vance speaking. It was crazy.

Media sites. A couple of different Republicans, former Brian Kemp, campaign manager Bobby Sparrow said in an interview with Politico I'm sitting here scratching my head. Attacking the popular governor of a pivotal swing state makes zero sense. If we want to actually unite, ask for the support of the guy who beat your endorsed primary opponent by 52 points and handily defeated Stacey Abrams. Not an unreasonable suggestion. Cole Musio, another Kemp ally in an interview, said, quote, attacking a successful and popular governor is not only wrong, it's politically stupid. The stakes are too high for pettiness and for the candidate to actively undermine his own chances.

And then finally, former republican legislator Alan Peak said, a lot of Republicans like me might just decide not to vote at all in the presidential election because of stupid antics like tonight.

Trump may have just lost Georgia, and if that's true, it really couldn't happen to a nicer guy. We are starting to see a growing list of Republicans endorsing Kamala Harris. Now. They are mostly never Trump Republicans. I gladly will admit that, but they don't all go and endorse Democrats. Chris Christie, for example, recently said, I'm not voting for a Democrat. Now, whether he's telling the truth or not, we don't know. But at least publicly, Christie is saying, I'm not voting for a Democrat. I'm still a Republican. There's a growing list of Republicans saying I am going to be voting for a Democrat. Republicans in Georgia are worried Trump is losing it for them. We will discuss that in more detail, but if they're this worried about Georgia, Michigan certainly is not looking good. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube.com comma Slash the David Pakman show. We'll take a very quick break and be right back.

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So let's take a couple of steps back. The most accurate headline, interestingly, is from the independent, which says Olympic boxer Imani Khalif is a woman and has always been a woman no matter what, J. K. Rowling says.

Donald Trump at his Atlanta rally over the weekend, talked about this story, and everything he said about it was wrong. Speaker one.

Donald Trump
I used to use the barbells. I said, now all you have to do is look at the boxers. This young girl from Italy, a very a champion boxer, she got hit so hard, she didn't know what the hell hit her.

It's a person that transitioned.

He was a good. He was a good mailboxer.

He was a good mailboxer.

And she didn't even go down.

He hit her with two jabs. And she said, I'm out.

How crazy is it? The weightlifters are great, though, because, yeah.

David Pakman
Those are just lies. Imani Khalif was never a good male boxer. Imani Kalief never transitioned. Imani Khalif is not transgender.

Following Kalief's victory over Italy's Angela Carini, that's what Trump is referring to.

Rumors started to surface about her gender, and to a great degree, these were fueled by something that happened last year in the women's world boxing championships, which were organized by the Russian led International Boxing association. And there was some unspecified gender eligibility test that Imani Khalif supposedly failed. And that disqualification happened just days after Kalief defeated a previously unbeaten russian prospect. And lo and behold, having failed an unspecified test in an unspecified way, governed in a league, in a league governed by Russia, restored a russian boxer's undefeated record that had been destroyed by Imani Khalif. Hmm. That sounds a little bit suspicious. But what we know is that there's no medical evidence that Kalief has xy chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone or at any point was male. Everything we know is Imani Khalif was born female, identifies as female. There's pictures of her as a little girl.

That's all we have. These are not trans athletes. Nobody transitioned. There is no trans controversy here whatsoever. And by the way, both, both boxers that we're talking about here, Amani Khalif and Angela Carini, they both competed in Tokyo and neither won medals. So the idea that Kalief is this just unbelievable, constantly dominant biological male, it's not even supported by what happened in Tokyo. I also want to mention, Algeria does not allow people to change their legal sex. In a sense, you can say transgender is illegal in Algeria.

Why on earth would Algeria, of all countries, send a trans person to represent them on the global stage in the Olympics when that's not even legal in their country?

It doesn't make any sense. And it's gone all the way up to Donald Trump. The Boston Globe put out a note after a headline referring to transgender boxer. Okay. The Boston Globe wrote, a significant error was made in a headline on a story in Friday's print sports section about algerian boxer Imani Khalif incorrectly describing her as transgender. She is nothing. Additionally, our initial correction of this error neglected to note she was born female. We recognize the magnitude of this mistake and have corrected it in the paper, the electronic version of the printed globe, the e paper, the electronic version. This editing lapse is regretful and unacceptable. And we apologize to Kalief, to Associated Press writer Greg Beacham, and to you, our readers.

Brain rot got to them. Brain rot is in there, and it completely destroyed every semblance of reality when it comes to this story. And just imagine what they're doing to Imani Khalif and her family and loved ones with this global anti trans insanity about something that's completely fabricated. So Trump talked about it. It riled up the crowd. It was completely fake. There is one thing that is backfiring in terms of the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, and that seems to be the attacks on her intelligence and anything approximated approximating the sexist and misogynistic attacks and evidence of that is that it even seems to have reached Fox News. Even Fox News is saying, you know, I'm not sure that some of this stuff is working. This is very interesting. In this first clip, Fox businesses Stuart Varney says it doesn't really make sense for Trump to go after Harris as dumb. It just doesn't make any sense.

And I have to tell you, Stuart Varney is making a lot of sense.

Stuart Varney
Look, this is anecdotal, but I've been hearing a lot from women. They are not happy with what Trump has been saying and some of the language that he's using about Kamala Harris, it's insulting. Should he tone down his language?

Donald Trump
I think what we should do is let's look at the message.

Are we trying to get our country back on course? Are we trying to stop what's going on at the border? Are we trying to stop the raping and the killing of Americans across the country? Are we tired?

Stuart Varney
But hold on a second, congressman. I mean, I've been out and about over the weekend, and when Donald Trump called Kamala Harris dumb, that was a profound mistake, in my opinion. Women react to that kind of thing. And so they should. I mean, don't you think he should tone down the language and, okay, get through to the central message, by all means, but tone the language down? He said he was going to be nice and then he says, oh, I'm not going to be nice. I think that's a mistake.

Donald Trump
Well, what you see with Donald Trump, he is who he is. He's a fighter.

David Pakman
He is who he is. And that's the catch all that they use just to get out from under this stone stuff. Well, he just kind of is who he is. And that's all it is. Well, what Stuart Varney is pointing out is that there are growing swaths of women that Trump needs in order to win who are saying, I don't like this at all. She became black. She's dumb. She didn't pass her bar exam on the first try. And it's not just Stuart Varney. Neil Cavuto was interviewing republican Senator John Kennedy, uh, has nothing to do with the democratic Kennedy family. And Neil Cavuto started pointing out, you know, some of these attacks, they're seeming a little bit unfair. I don't know that, that they make sense. Even you, Senator Kennedy, have been doing some of this stuff, and Kennedy doesn't like it. But I think Neil Cavuto is completely correct.

Neil Cavuto
I'm just wondering, do you worry how that comes across? And maybe you draw no distinction between a female canon male, and that's fair game, but that this could, could hurt you with female voters with these type of comments?

John Kennedy
Well, let me, let me say it again.

The vice president is a candidate for president of the United States.

I don't care about her gender, Neil. Maybe you do, but I don't, I don't care about her race. I care about her.

Neil Cavuto
Then why call her a ding dong?

John Kennedy
Then why call her, I'm telling you what the polling shows. I'm telling you what the polling shows, and it does. And I'll be glad to sit down with you and walk you through.

Neil Cavuto
Please, please do, because I never know when it's constructed to call people names. You know, senator, I just, on the left or the right?

John Kennedy
I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but, but let me say it again.

Neil Cavuto
Senator, you keep bringing it back to my feelings. My feelings matter a little. All I'm telling you is if you think you can gain this November calling people names, I don't know how far that goes, left or right, but we'll see. It's still early to your point.

John Kennedy
Your feelings seem to me like they matter to you a lot, Neil, and I'm trying to be objective here. Let me.

David Pakman
Speaker one. So this is now Kennedy going ad hominem and going, you're just a little sissy, Neil. It's all about your feelings. Well, he's pointing out a lot of voters don't seem to like this stuff.

John Kennedy
Hey, the gang.

Neil Cavuto
Are you really being objective? Senator, I just think you've got a bashathon, a name calling at her, if you call that being objective. I don't know. But, senator, I do want to thank you for coming.

John Kennedy
Well, thank you for having me, Neal. I hope you have a better day.

Neil Cavuto
Yeah, so do I hope you have a better day.

David Pakman
Even that I hope you have a better day is an insanely condescending way of Kennedy saying to Neil, you're just too sensitive and you're attacking me because you're having a bad day. But when even Fox hosts like Stuart Varney and Neil Cavuto certainly know, standard bearers of progressivism, certainly no language policers when it comes to attacks on women, sexism or misogyny, these are not the people who are out there going, this is sexist and that's misogynistic. They're simply pointing out a lot of this name calling, dei, dumb, stupid, a fool about Kamala Harris.

Who is it helping? Is that going to help convince the few, the people in the swing states who are likely to determine the outcome of this election? Neal Cavuto thinks the answer is no. And Stuart Varney thinks that the answer is no. So I think that they're right. Trump, as you know, flipped out when Fox News merely interviewed democratic Minnesota governor Tim waltz a couple weeks ago. And I'm going to keep an eye out for truth central posts attacking Stuart Varney or Neel Cavuto. But understand, Fox's interest here is in Trump not losing. So the fact that they're bringing this up is a red alert where they're saying, even we recognize this is not going to help Trump get another four years in office. And I hope that they're right, because it would actually be a pretty sad commentary if, again, Trump can get away with all that crap and still win. And it's up to us to make sure that it doesn't happen. Let's take a very quick break. I'm going to give you an update about the pre orders for my book and so many other things. Stay with me. Right now, we are seeing candidates do whatever it takes to win your vote and how the media chooses to cover certain stories, if at all, can completely shape your perspective of those candidates. But our sponsor, ground news, is an awesome resource at a time like this. With their vantage plan, I get access to what's called their blind spot feed that shows me stories that can be easily missed. For instance, I'm looking here at Ground news summary about Trump distancing himself from Project 2025 amid its rising controversy, something we've been talking about.

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Last week, we got a little bit of a taste of what happens when Donald Trump tries to talk about books he hasn't read, JD Vance's hillbilly elegy, and what happens when Trump tries to talk about technologies he doesn't understand? That being bitcoin and cryptocurrency, this has gotten even worse. Over the weekend, Trump appeared on Fox News brown noser Maria Bartiromo's program always a good time. And even though Maria Bartiromo tries to give Trump the easiest possible questions and set him up to look as good as possible.

Trump still, still manages to put together an impenetrable word salad about cryptocurrency, saying, it's interesting and it's intellectually high level, but maybe we'll use it to pay off our national debt. And just, again, reminding us he doesn't know or understand anything. And Maria Bertiromo just kind of sits there confused.

Listen to this.

Donald Trump
What about crypto? You spoke with that crypto conference last weekend, and you said that you'd like crypto to have a more prominent space in America. How well you have to understand about crypto. Crypto is a very interesting thing. Very high level in certain ways, intellectually very high level. But if we don't do it, China is going to do it. China is going to do it anyway. But if we.

David Pakman
So first question is, what on earth is he talking about?

Donald Trump
Don't do what China is doing. And China's already doing it. And if we don't do it, other countries are going to do it. So we might as well be at the forefront.

There are people in crypto that are very, very smart people who do love our country and they think, they think it's good. Who knows? Maybe we'll pay off our $35 trillion, hand them a little crypto check. Right? We'll hand them a little bitcoin and wipe out our $35 trillion. But how do you want it to be more prominent in America? How will that work? Oh, it's going to work easily. It's already prominent. It's moving along. It's very loosely regulated. That's one of the reasons it's moving along. But it is a different form of a currency, and it's going to end up benefiting the country. But if we shut it down, like, you know, Biden's trying to shut it down.

David Pakman
Did you learn anything from that? If you came into this interview not understanding cryptocurrency, you certainly came out understanding even less about cryptocurrency. And it's very clear Trump understands nothing about cryptocurrency. He probably has people around him ago. Yes, sir. Absolutely. That's exactly how it works. It's a very intellectually high level thing. Yes, we might do it. China might do it. We might pay our, now, our national debt off with a bitcoin check.

He has no clue what's going on. And of course, Maria Bartiromo tries to maybe get him on track by asking a follow up question, and it just doesn't work. And the entire interview was like this. Speaking of the earlier clips, we played of Fox News hosts pointing out, I don't think Trump attacking Kamala Harris as dumb is a good idea.

Here he is saying Kamala Harris is just not a smart person. I don't think this wins the guy any votes.

Donald Trump
Look, she is not a smart person. She's not a smart person. If you look back five weeks ago before this whole thing happened where you, you know, it's a coup of Joe Biden, and all of a sudden the media says, well, we're stuck with this, and now we're going to make her smart.

And these are people that are very pro China. These are people that are pro other countries. These are people that look at a worldview and they think the United States is going to be a dumping ground for the rest of the world. These are people that are not good for our country. But they, China wants to have her so badly. They wanted Joe Biden, too. They wanted anybody but me. I've taken hundreds of billions of dollars away from China. I've taken businesses away from China. China is not doing well right now because of me. You know, Biden cannot get rid of the taxes, the tariffs that I put on China can. You know why? Because they take in so much money. I'm the one that did that. And one thing before me, there was no other president that took $0.10 out of China.

David Pakman
It's sort of ironic in a we should be sobbing uncontrollably kind of way because of what's happening to the country if Trump wins. There's a certain irony to Trump telling Maria Bartiromo, Kamala Harris is not a smart person. And then Trump still, after all these years, reminding us that he doesn't understand how his own tariffs on China even worked. There's an irony there, but it's like a tragic irony that should make us cry rather than laughter. And then finally, in this crypto interview gone wrong, Trump pitches some kind of strange pipeline through the poor parts of New York City as if no one's ever thought before, hey, what if we run a pipeline near poor people's houses and then reap the benefits? As if it's some kind of innovative idea. What Trump is talking about, of course, it's almost impossible to decipher.

Donald Trump
Please explain to us how your economic policies that will impact the lives of american citizens differs from Kamala Harris economic policies. I don't have enough time. You know, you'd have to give me, like, the entire day.

We're going to, number one, base it very strongly on energy. We have more energy. We have more liquid gold, as I call it, under our feet, than Saudi Arabia, than Russia, than anybody. We're going to be energy dominant. We're going to make a fortune. We're going to supply it all over Europe, all over the world. We're going to be double speaker one.

David Pakman
We're going to drink it. We're going to bathe in it. You'll be cooking in it.

Donald Trump
Triple what they're doing. We're going to have tremendous energy and we're going to lower our prices of energy. Do you know, people in New England, they pay some of the highest prices in the world because we don't have a pipeline, because New York won't let a pipeline go through a very poor section of New York where they need the jobs, number one.

David Pakman
Number two, by the way, often there are very few jobs where the pipeline just is kind of like going underground.

Donald Trump
We're going to do a tariff system. We're going to bring back our auto jobs. We're going to say to people, we don't want your cars, we're going to tariff those products, and we're going to have reciprocal tariffs. We're going to take in a fortune, but we're going to tariff those jobs. We want them to build auto plants in the United States.

David Pakman
So right now, and of course, the natural question is, you've been talking about this stuff for a really long time. You didn't do it when you were president before. Why not? Why should anyone believe that you're going to do it next time? The one thing he did do, which are the tariffs on China generated inflation and precipitated a trade war. So those weren't exactly successes. But Maria Bartiromo just looks at him like, this makes sense and like, this guy knows what's going on. Remember, this is the guy who called Michael Flynn at 03:00 a.m. during his presidency and said, hey, is a strong dollar good or bad for the United States? So this is not the guy we go to for economic advice. And yet that's what Maria Bartiromo is pretending. Record fundraising for Kamala Harris in July. I don't mean she raised more than Trump. I don't mean she raised more than other candidates this election cycle. No one has ever raised as much money in a month in the history of the United States as Kamala Harris raised in July.

This is insane. And we care about this not because I celebrate the way that the american political system is built on fundraising and money. I hate it, I decry it, I denounce it, I don't love it. But as a proxy to enthusiasm, particularly when large swaths of these votes, these donations, are coming from people who had not previously been donating to Joe Biden. That is a very interesting detail. NPR reports Harris announces record breaking $310 million July fundraising haul.

This was driven by a record breaking $200 million in the first week after she replaced Biden. This is a number of shattered fundraising records. Fastest time to raise a billion.

The week long outpouring of donations, incredible numbers. And yes, two thirds of the donations made last month came from first time donors.

Trump's July fundraising numbers are also among the largest he has seen.

He survived the assassination attempt, had a criminal case dismissed, et cetera. $139 million announced by Trump, just under the, what, 141 million that he raised in May. So a couple of different stories here that are important if you want to consider fundraising a proxy to voter enthusiasm, it's hard to see this and say people aren't excited about Kamala Harris. Now, tomorrow we'll look at polling, and the polling is also telling the very same story. That's number one. Number two, even though Kamala Harris is absolutely crushing Donald Trump when it comes to fundraising, there is a steadiness to Trump's fundraising. 141,000,000 in May, 139 million just now, which we should be thinking ahead. If a bunch of these Harris donations are accelerated and pressed together because of the acute excitement over a new candidate with more energy than Joe Biden, et cetera, we do have to wonder what the numbers will look like for August. What will they look like for September? What will they look like in October?

Regardless, even if the numbers slow down for Kamala Harris, even by 50%, she would still be neck and neck with Trump. And those aren't really bad odds. But to the extent that she continues to out fundraise Donald Trump, it has to be seen as none other than, than notable material enthusiasm for her candidacy. Let's now go to the sort of next question here, which is what are the dynamics of the campaign between here and November and how do they support voter enthusiasm? The early Kamala Harris rallies have gotten much more attention than recent Trump rallies because of the novelty. Will every random Kamala Harris rally continue to get that level of attention from now until November? I don't think so. If indeed there are no debates. And at this point, I believe the debates favor Kamala Harris. Donald Trump probably trying to get out of the debates because he realizes there's really very little upside to him. If we don't have debates, what can Harris and her campaign do to generate enthusiasm and interest because everything's interesting for the first seven to ten days. But now we're getting beyond that. And so I'm going to be looking very closely, not only at polling numbers tomorrow, but at August fundraising numbers and media stories. My question to you, what do you think in terms of how to keep the interest level high among the people that Vice President Harris is trying to reach? Let me know what you think. Info at david pakman.com. we have a voicemail number. You can call it any time.

The number is 2192. David P. Here's a caller reminding me they found a Kamala Harris scandal. Here it is. Well, David, they finally did. They found a Kamala Harris scandal. Well, not exactly a Kamala Harris scandal. It's actually her husband cheated on his previous wife, you know, like a decade and a half ago, and he admitted to it, and that's what ended his first marriage. And for some reason, this is a Kamala Harris scandal. This is the same thing they did to Hillary. It's like, yeah, Bill Clinton did stuff that we don't agree with. It has nothing to do with Kamala Harris. It's so crazy. And she's going up against Donald Trump, who's been found liable for sexual assault, rape. It's crazy. Yeah. Not only that, you know, Trump's cheated at least on one, probably all of his wives. This is a funny one. They tried to get this some oxygen over the weekend. And the idea was scandal in Kamala Harris's closet, which is that her husband, Doug Emhoff, had an affair during his previous marriage, has nothing to do with Kamala Harris at all. Doesn't even have to do with Kamala Harris's current marriage.

And of course, if you want to open up that door and go down that road, you have all of Trump's affairs, hush money, porn star, all of this stuff. So it didn't seem to be getting any traction or much oxygen. They're trying. Believe me, they're trying. And they will try to find other things. Is it possible they'll find something major that didn't come up during the 2020 primary when Kamala Harris was running and didn't come up when the Biden administration vetted Kamala Harris for VP? It's possible they'll find something, but I don't find it particularly likely. We have a great bonus show for you today.

Nicolas Maduro is vowing to pulverize the challenge to his rule after a disputed reelection in Venezuela. We'll tell you what's going on. The stock market is way down as recession odds climb to 25%. And there are a growing constellation of concerns about the use of those GLP one weight loss drugs like Ozempic, which we will discuss all of those stories and more on the bonus show. I want to update you. We are in the pre pre order phase for my book, the Echo Machine. You can find it at david pakman.com echo or at any bookstore or audiobook website that you prefer. We have 450 pre orders. Let me contextualize these numbers for you. I was on the phone with my publisher recently. My publisher said if this book sells 5000 copies, it would be a massive success for, for a first time author like myself with a platform like the one I have, most commercially released books do not sell more than 2000 copies. Even more than 2000 copies is like, oh, that's interesting.

Reportedly getting between five and 10,000 pre orders likely puts the book on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list at launch, which is insane.

And the average book average sells 600 copies. So we're seven months out and we have 450 copies. The early plea pre orders will determine how aggressively is the book sold to bookstores by my publisher, how many are printed and available on the big websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. So my ask is, I wrote a book.

It was an insane amount of work.

We can make this a major success with just 5000 pre orders. We are 10% of the way there with seven months to go. Check it out at david pakman.com echo or on any website. The audiobook version is available.

The Kindle version is available for preorder. If you do pre order it, keep a screenshot of the pre order because there will be pre order goodies available. We just, there's going to be three or four different things available. I can't announce them yet, but you will be qualified for them no matter when you pre order. So why not do it now? David pakman.com echo. And send me a screenshot info at david pakman.com if you do pre order so we can keep track of those numbers as well. I'll have more to say as we get closer to the actual launch. But 450 and we're seven months out is sounding like we have the potential here to do something that's very special. So I'll talk to you on the bonus show. We'll be back tomorrow. Anthony Scaramucci will be joining me. It's a great week of programs.