8/6/24: Kamala takes her first lead, Adin Ross stream goes horribly wrong

Speaker A
Welcome to the show. Vice President Kamala Harris has selected her vice presidential running mate for the 2024 presidential campaign.

It is governor from Minnesota, Tim Waltz. And this is an excellent, excellent choice. It was reportedly down to Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, and Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota. Over the last few days, we heard from Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, believed to be one of the top choices a couple of days ago that he will be staying to do the work in Arizona. There were back and forths and speculation, including the fact that Kamala Harris will be holding an event tonight in Philadelphia, sort of pointing to Josh Shapiro. But no, it is indeed Tim Waltz. And I think that this is an excellent, excellent choice for a number of reasons. First of all, he's done a good job in Minnesota, one of the top states in terms of protecting the environment and fiscal stability.

Minnesota ranks well in education and infrastructure. But does that even matter in the sense that this race is really a referendum on being able to engage not only with voters in a way that's appealing, but also to engage with a lunatic opposition at the end of the day. And that's one of the things that Tim Waltz can really do. Well. Remember, this is from a couple of weeks ago on Fox News. Tim Waltz appearing after Joe Biden decided he would not seek reelection. And really annoying Fox News hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino when he called them out for their b's live on air. This is what he can do. And you may recall, if you go back to, I believe it was July 26 that we last looked at this clip, I said, this is exactly what makes this guy potentially a good candidate. Let's remind ourselves there a certain irony.

Speaker B
To saying that Donald Trump is bad for democracy when it looks pretty obvious that the Democratic Party leapfrogged the entire democratic system and they did it in about 24 hours publicly.

Speaker C
Look, the process has always been there. I welcome, if Sean or anybody wants to become a DNC delegate, you're welcome to. But what I know is Democrats are ready to move when the situation warrants it. Look, it doesn't matter convictions, it doesn't matter failed policies. Republican Party stuck with Donald Trump. He's yours. You've got him. Welcome to it. Democratic Party can make our decisions. We pick our nominee. Look, if you don't like it, don't vote for in November. But I think the american public are going to see, they knew that this administration was delivering. We knew that as far as economic numbers faced against global numbers, America's in a far better shape. And we also know that a foreign policy that respects our alliances, not cozying up to dictators like Putin and Orban, is not the way to go.

Speaker B
How about this one, governor?

Speaker C
You know, JD Vance, mind your own, mind your own business is what I would tell them.

Speaker A
Why I think he would do very, very well in a debate against JD Vance, if they even do it, because the one that Trump and Vance and MAGA are now pulling, as these are not even democratically selected nominees. And therefore, why would be we debate them? Of course, if they believe debates would help them win, they would do it and they're terrified that they won't. Now, as far as Minnesota versus Pennsylvania, Arizona or some other part of the country, it's generally considered, and, you know, in this environment, anytime you say general conventional wisdom, this is an n of one that we're dealing with. But it's generally considered that running mates don't help you win. States certainly, at least as a possibility.

Tim Waltz, in an area where winning Michigan and Wisconsin, which neighbor Minnesota, would be very useful to Kamala Harris's path to 270 electoral votes. It's not a terrible idea, even if historically it doesn't help you win. And what I love about Tim Waltz is he embodies so much, you know, identity aside. Right. I get that some people are kind of like, oh, man, he's even bald. It's the bald, middle aged white guy. Well, but hold on a second, former teacher, when, when they attack him as far left, what they're talking about is providing all school children with food, twelve weeks paid family and medical leave, legal cannabis, expanding the child tax credit, going in the direction of making college more affordable. I mean, we're what they will always say, far, far left. If you really look at Tim Waltz placement on the political spectrum, you will see that he is obviously a left of center guy, but by no means. By no means extremely. And what they're probably going to come up with is not only far left, but they're going to bring up this 1995 DUI arrest that Waltz had driving under the influence, and it will become a focus of the attacks. They will likely argue he misled the public about the circumstances.

He can't be trusted because 29 years ago this happened. That's probably all they will have. And whether it lands sort of remains to be seen, but a good selection. Kamala Harris will rally tonight in Philadelphia with her new vice presidential running mate, and we will have more time to talk about him in shows forthcoming. We are seeing something that we have never seen before in this presidential campaign.

Kamala Harris has taken her first lead in an average of national polls. And Trump's campaign seemingly collapsing, just crumbling, crumbling here. Here is the real clear politics average of recent polls. And you will see that Kamala Harris now leads. It's not a large lead, but it's her first lead.

Harris leading Trump by 0.2 percentage points. The critical thing is the trend. And if you look at the trendline, what you see since the withdrawal of President Joe Biden from this reelection campaign is Trump down. Right? This is, this doesn't require advanced statistical knowledge.

Trump red line go down.

HarrIs blue line go up. That's what we are seeing here. And this is notable not because a 0.2% lead wins you the election, but because this is a change. This is the first lead that she has had. Recent polling has Harris plus three. Harris plus four. Harris plus one. And then we have Trump plus five from the right leaning Rasmussen reports. And then, of course, that Harris plus four poll, the daily Cos Civics poll.

Ok? And then you see it. These are the underlying data. Also notable is that Nate Silver's silver bulletin has Harris now leading in some critical states. Actually, before we get to the forecast, if you look at polling averages and how they have changed, you see that in New Hampshire and Minnesota and Wisconsin, Kamala Harris has gained about a point since this announcement was made of in Virginia. And Pennsylvania gained a little more than a point in Michigan, she's gained four points since the decision was made for Joe Biden to step down, up almost three points in Georgia, up almost two points in North Carolina, up more than three points in Arizona. So the point here is the momentum. The momentum has shifted significantly.

And indeed, here is the silver bulletin from Nate Silver. Again, you don't have to put all of the weight into any one of these things. These are just data points. But in the Nate silver analysis of who is ahead puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump by 1.9 points on average. And some very, very important changes here. So if we zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom out, the overall change that we've seen is that Trump was plus 3.1 when Joe Biden decided to get out of this race. And now Kamala Harris is plus 0.2. That's a swing of 3.3 percentage points. Donald Trump and MAGA are absolutely furious. And so what are they saying now? While I'm sure you can guess it, they are now saying that the polls are rigged.

Four weeks ago, Donald Trump was saying daily, I'm winning all the polls. And while he wasn't winning all the polls, he was met winning many of them, and he was leading in the national average of recent polls that has now reversed. And as we've already discussed, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken her first lead. This happened in the last 24 hours. Harris leading Trump in an average of recent polls by 0.2 percentage points. What is Trump's new perspective? Well, the new perspective is the polls are now rigged.

Our friends over at the Midas Touch network reporting on this. In response to the unfavorable data, the Trump campaign released a statement from senior adviser Brian Hughes accusing the media of bias and manipulation. All of a sudden, the polls can't be trusted. The statement says, quote, the fake news media continue to help dangerously liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failure and soft on crime policies. Now, as this analysis shows, they'll even put a finger on the scale of polling to inflate results for her. This analysis is why the american people are seeing through it and will not allow this national gaslighting campaign to win. Despite this manipulated result from CB's YouGov, it's worth noting that in July and August of 2020, their data showed Biden winning by ten nationally, reflecting a net positive movement of almost, of almost ten to President Trump this election cycle. So the polls are both evidence that Trump is winning, rigged to make it look like Biden is winning, but can also be trusted. And compared to the 2020 polls to remind us that actually Donald Trump is doing fine. My suggestion, and this, we've done polling at the top of the show here, and then we're going to get away from it. We're, we're moving from. This is a quantitative discussion of where the races.

After we take our first break, we will move to a qualitative discussion of the race and the rhetoric and the talking points. But as far as the quantitative story, if you want to live in reality, which is where I prefer to live, we have seen a reversal of polling, swing state polling shifting in the direction of Kamala Harris. National polling shifting in the direction of Kamala Harris, with no evidence whatsoever that all of a sudden the polls can't be trusted, even though three weeks ago you could trust them. That's where we are in a quantitative, empirical environment.

On the other hand, Maga world is in a different environment, which is the very same polls that we could rely on to tell us that Trump was winning four weeks ago can no longer be trusted. But if you know how to read them, they tell you that everything is actually fine for Donald Trump. Fine. That's where the quantitative analysis rests. You can either agree or trust one side of that argument or the Trump side of that argument. I will let you be the judge. Let's take a very quick break, and then we will get into what is happening qualitatively here. We're going to see, ooh, Vance's first interview looks like a hostage video. I was expecting her to blink Morse code for torture, but we'll get to that in a moment. Very quick break. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel@YouTube.com. slash, the David Pakman show.

Donald Trump was interviewed yesterday by streamer Aidan Ross. If you have not heard of Aidan Ross, that's okay. I'll tell you a little bit about him. We'll learn a little bit about him and figuring out what's going on here. This interview was staged at Trump's Mar a Lago. Everything from the microphone settings to the camera angles was just weird. And that seems to be the, the word of the day when it comes to Trump and MAGA these days. A very interesting moment during this interview was Trump complaining that the interview with the National association of Black Journalists where he said, Kamala used to be Indiana, but she became black. He says the interview was a booby trap.

I'm not even going to try to interpret that, but here's what Trump had to say about it.

Speaker D
But, you know, you have journalists today, like that one that intercepted me, literally, that was like a, that was like a booby trap. I walk in and she starts saying, we got to start.

She didn't say, oh, thank you very much for being here. Just like the worst. And frankly, if I owned that network, I would fire her so fast. It was so inappropriate. And I actually.

Speaker A
You always cheer when the suggestion of firing a journalist is made that you can count on. They love that.

Speaker D
I actually, you know, once, once you sort of walk out, then you put the guard up and you actually give less information than what you would have. They did it with sugar, right? But she doesn't know about sugar. That one that was sort of terrible became viral, number one. Viral.

Speaker B
Yeah.

Speaker E
Yeah.

Speaker D
And it was the question. It was viral. I think my answers were sort of good.

Speaker E
They were really good.

Speaker D
I think they were.

Speaker A
And if you're wondering why Trump's audio is going in and out, this just, you know, I mean, I guess he's just a streamer, you know, but what's happening there is, there seems to be some kind of noise gate. That is when Trump talks relatively quietly and he's a little bit further from the mic. The microphone is just. It's gating him out, which is really a shame.

Speaker D
Considered to be.

I can't brag, but they were considered to be very good. But the level of hatred and craziness and you don't know. Is that from the head of the network or is that from her?

Speaker E
Okay.

Speaker A
If you're wondering about this Aiden Ross guy, one of the things he's known for is smelling. Excuse. Excuse me. Okay, I apologize. He's known for smelling people's farts. And here he is interviewing manosphere hero Andrew Taint. And when Taint gets up, Aidan Ross smells his chair. I'm so sorry. I.

The.

The official candidate for the Republican Party for the presidency is interviewing with this guy. So I have to do my duty and explain to you who this guy is.

Speaker E
You know this. And I have work to do. I'm done.

Speaker A
I fixed you.

Speaker E
Where you going?

I'm ready, bro. I'm really gonna do this shit. Y'all don't understand, bro. I'm really.

And I just wanna say, bro.

Speaker A
So there you go, smelling where Andrew Taint was sitting. They did go back to the topic of the NABJ interview, and Trump just argues he was treated so poorly and he was there out of respect to the black community in the first place.

Speaker D
Walk in and this woman starts talking about.

She talked about, we have, let's get rid of the elephant in the room. And she starts talking about racism and every racism. I said, you didn't even say hello to me. And I'm doing them a favor by doing this. I'm doing this out of respect to the black community. And we're getting record numbers, as you know, in the black community. And she came across, you know, she's with ABC fake News, which is one of the worst. ABC is one of the worst.

Speaker E
Right.

Speaker D
And she is horrible. So she was very walk.

Speaker A
Speaker one. Yeah. You know, I think this whole, like, I'm here to save the black people savior complex that Trump has developed about his relationship with black Americans, I don't think it's working. And the fact that he pulled zero among black voters in Michigan is a sign of that. As I mentioned yesterday, if you want to read the tea leaves about how poorly this campaign is going, one sign is that Trump is going back to the war on Christmas nonsense. And he's again talking about how Kamala Harris doesn't want anybody saying Merry Christmas.

Speaker D
Most like eight years ago, I talked about Merry Christmas. We should have Merry Christmas again. Let's bring back Merry Christmas. You weren't allowed to say Merry Christmas. I got it back.

Speaker A
And again, a predictable crowd. A predictable crowd. They will, they love cheering for merry Christmas.

Speaker B
Wow.

Speaker E
It's a nice crowd, huh?

Speaker D
Even if you're jewish. They like to say merry Christmas, everyone.

Speaker A
That is very much not true.

Speaker D
My jewish friends say we love merry Christmas.

Speaker E
I'm jewish. I love merry Christmas.

Speaker B
Good.

Speaker D
And, you know, Kamala doesn't, though.

Speaker E
She doesn't like it.

Speaker D
She doesn't want, she doesn't want you to use merry Christmas.

Speaker A
Yeah. And so now a new mispronunciation. Kamala, maybe the most shocking video during this stream other than the crimes that, that were committed, which, let me not get ahead of myself, we're going to get to that is once again, dictator love.

Aidan Ross asked Trump, what do you make of what's happening in Venezuela? And Trump says, it's a very safe country thanks to being run by dictator Nicolas Maduro.

Speaker E
Do you, what do you, what do you think about what's going on in Venezuela, the whole situation out there?

Speaker D
Well, I know it very well. And Venezuela is right now being run by a dictator where we were enemies with Venezuela, Venezuela was going to collapse and people could have gone back to Venezuela.

Speaker A
I think somehow Antifa got in and is controlling the mics.

Speaker D
They're in our country now. They've released tremendous numbers of criminals into our country. If you look at Caracas, it was known for being a very dangerous city and now it's very safe. In fact, the next interview we'll do, we'll do it in Caracas, Venezuela, because it's safer than many of our cities.

Speaker A
It's, isn't it just great what they've done in Venezuela now? It's always kind of hard to tell with Trump. Is he criticizing that it's run by a dictator or is he praising that things are really safe because it's run by a dictator? You kind of can't tell. Or is the argument Trump is making that because they supposedly emptied out their prisons into our country, I guess through a number of central american countries, I don't know the geography of it, that they got rid of their criminals and that's why it's safe there and we have crime here. You can never tell, but there's always some kind of analogy to how great it is at the end of the day to have a dictator in charge. Now when it comes to foreign policy, you may be shocked to know that Aidan Ross attempted to inform himself about what fascist means. And what I learned about Aidan Ross during this clip is he seems functionally illiterate like, he looks up on the computer. What is fascism? Fascism, I guess, or fascist. And he. I guess he can barely read.

Speaker E
What does a fascist mean?

It means you are a far right authorization on you.

Speaker A
On authoritarian, I assume it means alternative, ultra.

Speaker E
Ultra knowledge.

Speaker B
It.

Speaker E
Oh, my God. Ultra anal artist analyst. Political ideology movement characterized by dictator leadership, centralized autocratic militarism for forcible suppression. Suppression of opposition. So I don't know what that means. I swear to God, I don't know what the fuck a fascism is. I don't know what the fuck that is.

Benito Missouli and Giviantier.

Speaker A
Benito Missouli, the. The much less authoritarian alternative to Benito Mussolini. Of course.

Speaker E
Genital and Jason Stanley. Like, who the fuck are these people, bro? Never heard of my fucking life.

Speaker A
All right, this is who Trump was interviewed by.

Speaker E
What is an example of a fastest.

Yo.

All right, bro. See what I'm saying? Chat. Like, this is why I don't fuck with y'all, bro. Like, dude, like, this is what.

Speaker A
Okay, and I'm sorry for the language, but we're allowed to do the language now and then. Finally, if you want to just see the epitome of confusion, Aiden Ross says that he supports Trump because he wrongly believes Biden banned abortion and he's for abortion, even though, as many of you know, it's actually Trump who now has taken the position that he's against abortion.

Speaker E
Speaker one, tell me. Give me three reasons why Trump is better than Biden. I'm not saying you're wrong. I just want to know if you actually. If you're actually talking and you're not just a botanical by.

Speaker C
First of all.

Speaker E
First of all, what happened with abortion is ridiculous. You should not be able to tell woman what to do with her body.

Speaker B
That's.

Speaker E
First of all, that's a woman's body. Wait, you think? Wait, you think.

Speaker A
You think?

Speaker E
Yeah. Why are we doing this right now?

All right, Josh, Josh, you have a sister?

Speaker A
Give.

Speaker E
A sister. Yeah, I have a sister, bro. Okay, wait, you think Biden was the one that wanted abortion to be?

Speaker C
That's.

Speaker A
That's what you think?

Speaker E
I. He's a president. He can. You know, I'm saying you can not ban it. What do you mean?

Speaker A
Yeah, so anyway, one of the reasons Aidan Ross supports Trump is because Biden, I guess, he thinks, banned abortion. So this is what's going on with Trump. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has seven campaign events this week. Trump is being interviewed by fart sniffing streamers and has one campaign event. And that's where the divide is right now as far as the campaign goes. So the interview was absolutely absurd. Let's now get to the criminality during this live stream involving Aidan Ross and Donald Trump, which they're claiming was the number one live stream of all time because it had half a million live concurrent viewers. There have been many, many, many live streams with more concurrent viewers. I don't know why they're saying it was the number one live stream ever. Let's not even worry about that.

There appears to have been a number, there appear to have been a number of crimes committed, and it all relates to gifts that Aiden Ross gave Trump, starting with an expensive watch. Take a listen to this.

Speaker E
I got you a gift. Well, a couple gifts.

Speaker D
Oh, good. That's good.

Speaker E
I'll show, you know, another gift. I'll show you, sorry, the second gift a little bit later.

But I did get you a gift, and I got you this gift because, look, you are, I feel like you constantly get beat on, but you're so strong and you just, like I said, you live for the people and you're, you're here. I want to, I want to present to you this gift right here.

I hope you like watches.

Speaker D
Robots. Oh, that's a beautiful watch.

Speaker B
Yeah.

Speaker D
Should I open it?

Speaker E
You should open it and then show.

Speaker A
The camera Trump has it says, it's a beautiful watch, but the box is not open yet, so he doesn't.

Speaker D
That's a great watch, actually. Good company.

Speaker B
There's good company like Rolex.

Speaker D
They like Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player and Arnold Palmer and all the golf guys and all the other guys, too. I do. This is beautiful. Wow. Thank you. Don't they have nice packaging?

Speaker E
They do. Really, really nice.

Speaker D
Wow, that's so nice.

Speaker A
This is cringe.

Speaker D
Oh, should I show that to the audience?

Speaker A
Yeah, they can see it.

Speaker B
Now. I know.

Speaker A
It's all right. So a very expensive Rolex watch. And then also Aidan Ross, during this complete gong show live stream gifting Trump a Tesla Cybertruck.

Speaker E
All right, well, you could already see the gift.

Speaker D
Yeah, I can.

Speaker A
Wow.

Speaker E
You can't miss it.

Speaker D
That's an Elon.

Speaker E
It is an elon.

Speaker D
Wow.

Speaker E
Shout out to Mister Musk.

Speaker D
Beautiful.

Speaker E
Am I gonna close the door really quick? Just, I wanna show him the rap.

Check out this rap and let me know your honest thoughts.

Speaker D
I think it's incredible.

I think it's incredible.

Speaker A
Go to the front. The car is wrapped in with Trump's picture.

Speaker D
You know what they did, AI, what Google did is they took or they let it happen. See, the secret service agency.

Speaker E
Yeah.

Speaker D
They're angry in there. They put smiles on their face.

Speaker E
Right?

Speaker D
You heard about that?

Speaker E
Yeah.

Speaker D
No, no, that's just terrible.

Speaker E
Yeah, I know. But that's how easy it is to manipulate.

Yeah, it is.

Speaker A
All right, so a second gift for Donald Trump. Now, this all appears to be against the law.

Brendan Fisher, deputy executive director of documented, which is a watchdog group tracking money in politics, says the gifts appear to have been provided to Trump in his capacity as a candidate and because he's running for office. Therefore, these are campaign contributions. And there is no history of exchange of gifts between Aidan Ross and Trump, which also bolsters the case that these are campaign contributions. Campaign contributions are, of course, subject to FEC commission rules. $3,300 per election per individual. And these are gifts in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cybertruck, at least at one point, was worth about $100,000. I think the value does seem to be collapsing relatively quickly. But regardless, the most likely. So. So this is against the law, period. It's just, it's against the law. How will Trump get out of it? The expectation is that the Trump campaign will say that Trump formally rejected the gifts. Yes, it was filmed. Aidan Ross presented Trump with them. But Aidan Ross will plead ignorance. He'll go, oh, I had no idea. I didn't mean to do anything that violates campaign law, campaign finance law. And then the Trump campaign will put out a statement saying that while we very much appreciate, we reject the gifts and that's how they will get out of it. But functionally speaking, criminality. During the live stream involving Aidan Ross and Donald Trump. Let's take a break. Make sure that you are subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube.com, the David Pakman show.

Also, you can pre order my book, the Echo Machine right now@davidpakman.com.

echo well, it's been a while, but he's back. Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director for about ten days under Donald Trump. Trump also founder of Skybridge. So great to have you back on.

Speaker B
You, jim me out of that last day, David. I mean, it was, you know, that was a big day for me. That's the day I got fired, you.

Speaker A
Know, the 11th day.

Speaker B
Even Trump says eleven days when he's, like, attacking me on Twitter or true social. He does say eleven.

Speaker A
He does that.

Speaker B
Good to see you. Congratulations on your work and your podcast. And thank you. I think the last time I saw you was the last election cycle. So here we are again, and Donald Trump is back in our midst. And so this is an existential danger that hopefully the society will wake up to. It's gonna be a very close election.

Speaker A
Yeah. So, I mean, listen, are you still a Republican? Are you a conservative guy?

Speaker B
Well, I've been a lifelong conservative and, you know, but I'm a New Yorker, so, I mean, when you say conservative, it's different definitionally to so many different people.

I'm a liberal. When it comes to policy of choice, it's almost like libertarianism. I don't care what your sexual orientation is. I don't care what you decide to do in your private life. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom. It's their body. They should make a choice for themselves. It could be different from my choice, but it's their choice. That's libertarianism.

But as a person, when you say conservative, I'm not a right christian conservative. I don't believe in that level of orthodoxy. And I certainly don't want to impose my life on anyone else's life. But if you said to me, do I want there to be more fiscal conservativism? I do. I think we're out of control with the way we're spending our money. I think we're leaving too much debt to our children. Even liberals, I would imagine, are starting to think that now. And by the way, both parties should be indicted for this because under Donald Trump, we spent $8 trillion in deficit spending. So this is no longer, either party is in the wrong on this, in my opinion. But yes, if you ticked off 25 issues, I would imagine you and I probably agree on a lot of them.

Speaker A
I was reviewing our conversation previously, and I think you can speak to something I'm very curious about with regard to JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, which is in our last interview, you talked about how when you start to get a taste for being adjacent to power, and certainly the president of the United States is one of those emblems of power, sometimes you start to either change your views or convince yourself that maybe you're not so far apart from where the boss is, or I think you know where I'm going with this, which is that JD Vance and his.

Speaker B
Wife, you said, you said sometimes. And that's a little bit of a euphemism. And so it's not sometimes. It's always, always, it's a rare person that doesn't do that. And I think in our conversation last time, if I remember correctly, what I said to you is I allowed my ego to take control of my decision making. And I allowed my pride.

And so, yeah, I wanted to work in the Oval Office. I wanted to fly on Air Force one.

Obviously, I wanted to be.

And you delude yourself, too. Your self delusion says, well, I'm here to serve the people.

I'm here to do a good job for the people. But ultimately, if you're with the wrong type of leaders, you get sucked in, and then the goalposts get moved on you. And then if you're not strong enough, and frankly, most people are not, they. They will also move alongside of the goalposts. And so I think the good news for me is the universe probably saved me.

My firing after eleven short days was a big wake up call for me. Intellectually, I think it made me more humble and more psychologically minded.

But I'll say something that you'll probably think doesn't reflect well on me, but this is the truth. I was stood as a supporter to Donald Trump after my firing. I didn't want to be that baby, that whining baby. Oh, he got fired. Now he's a sore loser. So I stood before the president. I tried to support him.

It took two years before I renounced my support.

It just became every bridge was another bridge too far. Every goalpost was a movement outside of the stadium. And so finally, in August of 2019, two years after my firing, I said, geez, I'm really very sorry. This just doesn't work.

It's not common sense anymore. This is very damaging to the society. And then, of course, he goes on to lose that election. He mishandles the COVID crisis, goes on to lose the election, but then he foments an insurrection. I think it's very important for people to understand that there's been a lot of gaslighting on this issue.

The courts now have decided that they're very partisan, at least the many of these judges, and so they're going to side with Mister Trump, even though he hasn't done the right thing and isn't really representing America the way I think America should be represented. He's probably the most anti american presidential candidate in our history. He's talking. He has an enemies list. I'm just disappointed, David. I'm not higher up on the list. I had lunch with Mark Esper and Mark Milley, two of my very close friends, and said, geez, how are you guys in the top ten? I'm only, like, 48. I got to work harder at this. Just imagine that I'm saying that to you. We're living in America, the longest republic, the longest representative democracy attached to a republic. And yet we have one of the presidential candidates.

And by the way, the poly market, the predictive market, hasn't met a 60% chance of regaining the presidency. Well, he's got an enemies list, and he's currying favor with dictators, and he wants to renounce the post world war two order, and he threatens our allies, and he congratulates Vladimir Putin. This is the guy that we're putting up to represent America.

So, listen, I have to speak out about that. I'm a patriot first, partisan second.

It costs me. It hurts my business.

I get lit up by haters. I get death threats. There's a whole series of different things that go on for me and my family as a result of my outspokenness. But I made a mistake in 2016. I have to own that mistake. If you haven't made one and you're listening to David's podcast, you can throw a stone at me. But if you have made one, hopefully you're honest about it and you can reconcile the mistakes that you've made, try to make the things right that you got wrong.

Speaker A
So on, on Vance and his wife, I struggle to believe they've really changed their views from what was documented.

America's Hitler terrible.

Don't like them. All of those different things. Is your opinion that they are suffering from the same thing you suffered from?

Speaker B
Yeah, worse. Worse. They're. They're in way deeper. He's in a way higher profile position.

They have to be aghast at what Donald Trump represents.

The one problem with him is that he's tied to chuck Yorvin. And I don't know if you know who that is, but, yeah, you should look him up, and you should have your viewers and listeners look him up. So he is a philosopher that the Silicon Valley billionaires follow. So he has several acolytes, including JD Vance and people like Peter Thiel. And you can see interviews of Peter Thiel saying that the democracy has outlived its usefulness. And so what Yarvin is basically suggesting is that we can no longer govern as a democracy. It's too messy. So we need these brilliant aristocrats to take over the government and to govern on behalf of the people. This is right out of the remains of the day. If you remember the scene with Anthony Hopkins, he's there as a dutiful butler, the aristocrats asking him technical questions about the government. He says he doesn't know the answer. And then, very huffily and arrogantly, the aristocrat says, see the common man has no ability to help us govern. And so this is the whole Yarvan JD Vance Peter Thiel thing. So the weird thing about all this is Donald Trump is a useful idiot for these people. He's an orange wrecking ball. Hes a great messenger. But theyre coming in underneath him. Very well organized. Theres Anarcho, right christian group organizing around Project 2025. Theres the JD Vance Silicon Valley group that really would like to liquidate the checks and balances in the system, strengthen the executive branch, and frankly end the democracy. They talk as follows.

I am looking forward to a post constitutional America. And so if you're not close enough to this thing and you don't know who these people are, you'll miss this. So you got to get close to it, because Trump, yeah, he's not really that ideological. He's about attention and money and fame and notoriety. He doesn't really care about governing. He just wants to win, to give a big f you to his haters. But these people are serious. You know, they're coming in. They want to transform the court. They want to liquidate the different branches of the government, strengthen the executive branch.

They want to make your democracy obsolete.

They don't like black and brown people. I mean, there's just, you know, the messaging is this, wait a minute. Whites are running things? Yes, they are. Okay, we'll have a democracy.

Hold on a second. There are black and brown people that may, from a demographic, eclipse the whites? Yes, that could happen. Does that mean black and brown people could run the country? Yes, it does. Okay. Well, we don't want a democracy then anymore. We would like to switch the rules.

And so that is so far away from what Abraham Lincoln said about our society. And if you go back to the Lincoln Douglas debates, one of the more famous things that Lincoln said, not the Gettysburg address, but he was talking about governing and self governing, and he said there's no man in the world. And he did use the word man. So we're going to stay with that pronoun. But there's no man in the world that is worthy of governing another man without his permission. Okay. Now we can say there's no man or woman that's not worthy of governing another without his permission. And the point was that whether you like the democracy or don't like the democracy, that is the best that we can do on earth. It's what Churchill said. It's a terrible system of government until you compare it to all the other systems.

And Lincoln said something else, which I hope comes true.

On November 5, 2024, Lincoln said, the american people are not dumb. Peter Thiel thinks that. Obviously, JD Vance thinks that. But what the american people are, Lincoln said, they have a very good nose. They can smell a rotting cadaver in their basement, was the exact quote that he used in that debate. And so they know when something bad is happening.

Hopefully now the majority of us, and hopefully the majority of us in certain swing states will say, you know what? Trump and the return to Trumpism is a bridge too far. Let's defeat Trumpism and give this opportunity for a center right movement, formerly known as the Republican Party, to rebuild. If Trump wins, I will be catastrophic because they'll start using the Project 2025 playbook to change the system and to make it very, very difficult for people, particularly people who may have alternative lifestyles or people that you and I want them to live peacefully and happily in America. But these anarcho christians don't. They want to force or impose their lifestyle on them.

Speaker A
Thinking a little more tactically about what's going on, I've heard you mention that it would be a disaster for Trump not to debate a vice president. Kamala Harris, I tend to agree in the sense that if he thought it would be, if he thought it would benefit him, I think he would be much more willing to do it. And he seems to be making the calculation that the debate won't go well. But you seem to be making the meta point that not debating more broadly also would be a bad idea.

Speaker B
Tell me about. So let me tell you how the son of a bitch thinks. I'm sorry to curse on your podcast.

Speaker A
But it's allowed now.

Speaker B
Okay? He, he wants attention.

He's in the summer doldrums. She's getting all the attention. She's stealing his thunder.

She needs more media advocates. We could discuss that if you, if you ask me what I think she needs right now. But she's got the media behind her, not Fox, but the general media is really bumming him out. So he wants attention. So the way to get CNN to talk about him, MSNBC to talk about him. And again, negative or positive, doesn't matter, David. It's just, I got to be out there. I'm not going to debate her under any circumstances unless it's on Fox. And so, you know, he's going to debate her. And by the way, she may end up debating him on Fox because she could handle Bret Baird and Martha McCallum. They're decent journalists, and they're going to play it up the middle, the way CNN did on the last debate. They have to. Rupert Murdoch knows that. And so she may end up debating him on Fox, frankly. Because if I were her, I would say anytime, anywhere. Is that where you want to go? Okay, let's go there.

He has to debate her. I just telling you right now, come September, he doesn't debate her. It's a self emasculation than him and his hyper masculine movement. They wouldn't be able to handle. Okay.

Speaker A
In other words, even if he says, I have no reason to because I'm winning, and she wasn't chosen, it was Biden.

Speaker B
It will come off as though he's, oh, my God. A minute. There was a woman. There was a black woman running for president and you didn't have the stomach, you chicken shit coward bastard. And they will run one ad after the next that this chicken shit who had bone spurs didn't go to the wars, derided our veterans, is now up against the first african american woman nominee for the Democratic Party, and he is too chicken shit to debate her. No, that would annihilate him. And by the way, if the Democrats were smart strategically, they could win over a lot of independence with that. Okay? And he's flailing now because he's saying things like, she turned black.

She's. I mean, he was doing everything he could to come as close to using the n word at the NABJ without actually using it. This racist prick, right? So. So he's now realizing, wait a minute, that's not working.

And I explained this on my podcast. The rest is politics. Us. It's not working because 20.2 million baby boomers have died since the 2016 election, where he had some success.

40 million generation x ers have risen into the voting scrolls since 2016.

And so they don't like it. You know. You know what? I don't like it. And by the way, you calling her a da hire? Let me tell you something. She's a black woman from California. She became a DA, a attorney general, a senator, and a vice president. You know how hard that is for a black woman in this society to do those things? It's pretty far from a DEA dei thing. So you keep saying that, no problem.

We're going to get in line and we'll wait 812 hours without water and we're going to vote her in. Okay? So you keep talking like that and you keep acting like that.

You watch the women of this country and suburban women, even conservative suburban women, dropping him like a hot potato. So he's flailing right now. He's got the verbal Rubik's cube out. He's trying to find the right messaging and the right strategy to handle her, and he's blowing a racist dog whistle, which is not going to work. But she's also mishandling certain things as well.

Speaker A
She. So that's the last thing I want.

Speaker B
To get a narrative going on her campaign.

I know you've got a selection, him and her. She's got to explain to people what she wants to do.

Speaker A
I know you've got to run, so I'll make that the last thing. What is the Harris campaign doing right so far, and what are they doing wrong? Speaker one?

Speaker B
Well, right so far, no unforced errors. I think the fact she really hasn't met with the media yet is good for her. She's coalescing her delegates, and she's got her nominee. Now, whether you like him or dislike him, I don't think it matters much. This is a Harris Trump, uh, situation.

Uh, waltz does not hurt her, in my opinion. There are people on the right that think he's too progressive. It really doesn't matter. Uh, JD Vance is hurting Trump. He has net negative ratings. He's dragging down Trump. Yeah, Trump would love to replace him. I don't know if he will because it makes him look bad that he made a bad decision, so he probably won't. But he does like some. And trust me, if he wins, he's going to have a terrible relationship with JD Vance. I guarantee that. Okay. But. But what she's doing wrong.

And again, you know, I want her to win, and I have publicly endorsed her, but I'm just tell you what I think she's doing wrong. They don't have a narrative yet. This cannot be a choice election. When, when Senator Kerry made it a choice election, Bush or me, the american public went with Bush. They're going to go with Trump. If you make this a Trump Harris choice, it's a personality choice. Can't be that. She has to have a narrative. Barack Obama had a narrative. It has to be an economic narrative. It has to be. Okay, here's what we're doing when I'm elected. Here are the ten platform points. Okay? And this is what I'm going to do. And this is how I'm contrasted from him. It's not just our personalities, and it's not just that I'm a black woman and he's a white racist cracker, this is actually what I'm going to do. And if it's moderate enough and it's centrist enough. She'll win the independence and she'll win the election. And so that's where we are right now. I think it's even, it's a close election right now. It shouldn't be. You can't have a fascist wannabe be the president of the United States if you want to preserve the United States. But that's where we are right now. We'll see, David. But it's always a pleasure to be on your podcast. It's a very famous podcast.

And congratulations on everything that you're doing.

Speaker A
Anthony Scaramouche, always great having you on. I know you're a busy guy. I appreciate your time.

Speaker B
No, I appreciate being here, and I wish you the best.

Speaker A
JD Vance's wife, Usha Vance, who has not seemed particularly thrilled to be on the campaign trail and does not seem to like Donald Trump. She did her first major interview, and she did it with Fox News, and she was put in the position of having to either defend or denounce JD Vance's statements about childless cat ladies. And she did defend it and sort of writes it off as a quip and says he cares so much about parenting and blah, blah, blah. Now, as, as some of you know, I'm convinced Usher Vance is not happy with any of this. And we know that both she and JD Vance at one point despised Trump. We are put in a position to supposedly be told that JD Vance has done a 180. And now the question is, has Usher Vance done a 180 on Donald Trump? From her demeanor on the campaign plane and at campaign stops, she seems absolutely miserable. But she did to her, for, to her credit, she did put on a sort of happy face here in this Fox News interview and claims everything's great and everything her husband has said is fantastic. Now, I was watching closely to see whether she would blinken hostage or torture in Morse code with her eyes during the interview. My Morse code isn't great, but I don't think she did. But let's take a look at a little bit of this. And here she is defending JD Vance's childless cat ladies. Comment.

Speaker F
There are a few comments that are out there that I have to ask you about. In 2021, JD said, we are effectively run by a bunch of childless cat ladies taking aim at government leaders who don't have children. What was your reaction?

Speaker G
Well, I mean, I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was and all that, which is something that I really wish people would do a little bit more often.

Speaker A
The context folks, it makes it all good.

Speaker G
And the reality is he made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive and it had actual meaning.

And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three word phrase or that three word phrase. Because what he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country.

Speaker A
And was that what he was saying?

Speaker G
And sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder. And we should be asking ourselves, why is that?

Speaker A
Well, you know what's funny? It's funny, she says, sometimes our policies are designed in a way that makes it harder to be a parenthood. It's Republicans who don't want a larger child tax credit. It's Republicans who don't want paid for through taxation, preschool. It's Republicans who don't want paid family leave. It's many Republicans who don't want paternal leave. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, if that were the case, then JD Vance's politics should be completely different.

Speaker G
True. What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it so hard sometimes for parents? And that's the conversation that I really think that we should have.

Speaker A
And you know what's funny about that? She seems to be suggesting that the reason we have policies that aren't that great for parents is that people who aren't parents are making the policies. Number one, it's statistically not true. But number two, the divide among should we have pale paid a family leave leave? Should we have paid paternal leave? Should we have paid for preschool? Should we have paid for, I mean, even free school lunch they've been opposed to since the pandemic has started to wane. The divide is a political divide. It's not a parent versus non parent divide. So listen, you be the judge as to whether she seems sincere here. I continue to believe, and it's just opinion. At the end of the day, I continue to believe that she's miserable with all of this and really resents being put in a position to now have to pretend that Trump is a great thing and that it's great that her husband is running alongside Trump. Here's another portion of this interview where she's kind of asked about her past criticisms of Trump. And again, you evaluate whether she's genuine in explaining the change of mind.

Speaker F
The left is busy attacking both of you now for past comments that you made about Donald Trump. JD said I'm a never Trump guy. Never liked him. Idiot. If you voted for him and might be Americas Hitler. And then later he said he was wrong. He admitted that. And he said he didnt think that Donald Trump would be a good president at the time. But he said he ended up being a great president. How do you feel now about Donald Trump?

Speaker G
Well, you know, ive had it several years since then to kind of understand what it is that he is out to do. And you know, honestly what JDev is out to do. And we have a lot of really good conversations about that.

Speaker A
You know what she figured out? Donald Trump is out to make my husband the vice president. That's the, that's the really good conversation they've had. Listen usha, we both have despised this guy for years. He's a moron, he's an idiot. He could be America's next Hitler. But it would be really good for us personally if I became the vice president. Well, I'm sold, JD. I've done a 180.

Speaker G
And if I didn't feel that the ticket, you know, the Trump Vance ticket was able to do some real good for the country, then I wouldn't be here supporting him and JD wouldn't have done this.

Speaker A
Yeah. And of course that can very much be interpreted to mean the way in which I don't have to believe anything positive about Trump. I just think the country's better off if my husband is the VP rather than my husband is not the VP, regardless of who's at the top of the ticket. So I know I'm projecting my view onto this.

She is wording everything so carefully and combining her attitude at campaign stops. The past comments, JD Vance's past comments.

It seems obvious to me that she hates all of this. And the only kernel of an interest that she has is that her husband becoming vice president puts her husband one heartbeat away from being president of the United States. I want to hear from you. Has she really changed her mind or not? I've heard from dozens of you, David, please address JD Vance wearing women's makeup. And I haven't addressed this because it hasn't felt material, but enough people have written in about it that I'm going to say something about it. I'm going to be very honest with you. I noticed a very long time ago that JD Vance appears to wear women's makeup. And by women's makeup we're talking about eyeliner and potentially mascara and oh, David, isn't that heteronormative or isn't that gender normative that you're talking about. It's women's makeup. Okay. I mean, listen, in american society, I get that there's goth and there's zemo and there's all these different. I get it. Okay. But we're talking about what is traditionally, particularly in right wing circles, which is part of the discussion here. We're talking about what has historically been women's makeup. Okay.

It seems pretty clear. JD Vance wears eyeliner and potentially mascara. There's now growing numbers of articles about this. There's an article in slate about it with pictures and all these different things. And. And you can check it out. The reason I haven't spoken about it until now, one part is didn't seem to be a topic of discussion in the general public. But number two, it really seems immaterial. The reason I don't like JD Vance isn't because he's wearing women's makeup. The reason I don't like JD Vance is he seems completely disingenuous in terms of what his beliefs are doing. A very difficult to believe 180. It's like a Dave Rubin type 180, where it's like, were you really that clueless before that your view changed so much? And if you were that clueless before about your own political views, then that concerns me now as well. So I don't think his 180 on Trump is credible. I think it's just an attempt to get close to power.

I don't like the political positions that he's espousing. I don't like his views on parenting and any of it.

But there is sort of a relevant thing about the women's makeup, which is that he is part of a movement, which is the modern MAGA movement, which now he claims to be behind. Remember, he used to say, Trump is America's next Hitler. Now, Trump's great. He loves Trump. They have a great relationship. They've sorted it all out. He now understands Trump. He's part of a movement that seeks to use and enforce these gender norms in order to make policy, to put people down, to divide people, to discriminate.

And it is, overall, a movement that is extraordinarily transphobic. Now, some people I know are aware of the fact that these emails leaked or texts or emails. I believe they were actually emails between JD Vance and a former classmate, a classmate who is transdivid. And it's one of these things where we kind of step back and we say, you know, deep down, this guy may not really be transphobic. There is also the rumors are now spreading about JD Vance is actually a gay man. And there was someone who claimed that he went on a date with JD Vance at an Applebee's. I don't know whether these allegations are true. And quite frankly, I don't even care about JD Vance, his personal life. What I care about is the fact that they are using all of this, these gender and sexuality norms that the MAGA establishment has attached itself to, to divide, to score political points and to put people down. Now, the eyeliner and the mascara specifically, you know, you look on tick tock, you look at makeup artists saying, we know exactly what he's doing here. You see commentators doing comparisons. Here's where he's wearing the eyeliner. Here's where he's not. It's being done. Speculation is that he's doing it in order to enhance the color of his eyes. I really don't care about it. The thing I care about is the hypocrisy of Vances policies as compared to him trying to enhance his appearance in this way. I don't have any problem with men wearing makeup. What I have a problem with is elected officials who hold these harmful views about gender norms.

They espouse them, they try to use them as cudgel against others. And then meanwhile, they're wearing what is traditionally women's makeup. Now, the campaign has been asked about it. They haven't answered whether JD Vance is wearing makeup or not. It seems obvious he is. I don't care if they answer it at all. And the historical parallel I would draw to zoom out from this just a little bit of, is the general understanding of appearance playing a role in how elected officials are seen. And there is a serious story there. There's a real story there. We can go back to the Nixon debate against John F. Kennedy and Nixon not feeling well in the 05:00 shadow in the sweat. And I'm the first to tell you that physical appearance influences who people vote for. The appearance of height and the appearance of energy and vigor and youth. I'm right there with you on all of this stuff. And I don't criticize JD Vance for doing what he thinks make it makes him look better. You know, we've talked about Trump doing the orange face paint and the hair dye and the hair transplants. Does it make him look better or not? I mean, I guess, you know, compared to that pale, white haired version of Biden, it certainly didn't hurt him. The jury is out on whether any particular modification, the Trump face paint or the JD Vance eyeliner, whether any of any of it in particular helps. But I completely recognize that appearance does matter on, in some generic way. What I can't stand is the disgusting hypocrisy and the way in which these gender norms are being used to make other people feel like crap at the end of the day.

We've got a great bonus show for you today. We've been following the trajectory of MDMA and FDA approval. We're going to talk about where that stands. We also will discuss Trump lawyer, former lawyer Jenna Ellis flipping and now working with Arizona prosecutors on that 2020 election case. It's very interesting what's going on. And then Elon Musk's PAC is already under investigation in Michigan for potential violations. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up@joinpakman.com. i will be joined by producer Pat on the bonus show. And then, of course, we'll be back with another show tomorrow.

8/6/24: Kamala takes her first lead, Adin Ross stream goes horribly wrong

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1: Kamala's New Lead

2: Adin Ross Stream Breakdown

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