8/9/24: Trump press conference a clinic in brain fail

David Pakman
While struggling and fumbling for anything to get his campaign back on track, failed. Former President Donald Trump announced a major press conference yesterday at his Florida home, Mar a Lago, and it ended up being a press conference at which he rambled incoherently, seemed visibly disoriented, and at one point appeared to shoot a tonsil stone out of his mouth, which we will get to in a moment in this first clip.

I can't believe this. He's asked about Josh Shapiro and he gives such a generic response. If you listen closely, you might notice he has no idea who Josh Shapiro is. Of course, the governor of Pennsylvania who was the final alternative to Tim Walls in Vice President Kamala Harris's choice for running mate. Listen carefully. I don't believe Trump knows who he's being asked about.

Unidentified Speaker
Jewish voters in your home state of New York, with that being said, what do you make of Kamala Harris not picking Josh Shapiro as their vp?

David Pakman
Well, I don't know.

Donald Trump
I know Josh Shapiro. He's a terrible guy and he's not very popular with anybody. I think that this election maybe is better than Josh Shapiro would have been. But I think other than Josh Shapiro, I think she had some good choices, but Josh Shapiro is not one of them.

Caused a lot of damage with a lot of people.

David Pakman
And I don't think, notice he doesn't say Pennsylvania. He doesn't say governor. He doesn't say who was damaged by Josh Shapiro.

I do not believe he knows who Shapiro is.

Donald Trump
He would have been better. I think he would have been maybe the equivalent, maybe not as good. But they had some people that they were looking at that were good, far superior to her. They actually had a story where they had everybody, including, they had like ten people that she was looking at.

David Pakman
All right. So anyway, now he gets off of it. I don't think he knows who Josh Shapiro is. Hey, David, what do you think about the possibility of, you know, King Jumanji being passed over as a candidate? Jumanji is terrible. Has damaged so many people not popular with anyone and just so many better choices than Jumanji. He has no clue who he is being asked about moments later.

I'm sorry. This is so disgusting.

Trump appears to shoot a tonsil stone out of his mouth or some extremely thick white saliva. This is the strangest stuff we're playing. The video zoomed in here.

Foreign matter just coming out of this guy's mouth and potentially the tonsil stone that's been giving him that absolutely terrible breath. Trump struggling to hear the questions throughout the press briefing.

Unidentified Speaker
Press briefings. Who in your White House do date press briefings?

Donald Trump
Would you repeat that, please?

Unidentified Speaker
Your White House.

Donald Trump
No, you. Would you repeat her? What she said? You have to speak up. This room is, sorry.

Unidentified Speaker
Press conferences.

Donald Trump
Do you hear her?

Unidentified Speaker
Well, you commit to doing. Well, you commit to doing daily press briefings if you're elected speaker.

Donald Trump
One daily press briefing. Why would I do that?

David Pakman
Oh, man. I mean, you couldn't script a more deranged press conference than this. The topic of the January 6 riots came up, and Trump took it as an opportunity, I guess, to court black voters by saying he got better crowds at the riot than Martin Luther King got.

Donald Trump
Never see the picture of the crowd. The biggest crowd I've ever spoken. I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me.

If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people. If not, we had more.

And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people. But when you look at the exact same picture and everything's the same, because it was the fountains, the whole thing, all the way back to, from Lincoln to Washington.

David Pakman
And as you can imagine, black voters just flocking to Trump after they heard this. As a historical note, historians say the march on Washington had about 250,000 or more attendees, and the Associated Press estimates that the Trump pre riot rally speech had about 10,000 attendees. We have another one of these examples as we try to deduce what Trump's confusion is about asylum. And I'm increasingly convinced that Trump thinks seeking asylum is the same thing as coming from an insane asylum, also known as a psychiatric hospital.

I've been trying to figure it out for a while, and I think that's the confusion Trump has experienced.

Donald Trump
Why is it that millions of people were allowed to come into our country from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions, insane asylums, even insane as. That's a.

It's a mental institution on steroids. That's what it is. When you see the people that are coming into our, these are institutions that are being emptied out. Not in South America, all over the world, including South America.

David Pakman
So I know that there is a lot of skepticism that Trump is confusing asylum seeking immigrants and insane asylums. And I was skeptical at the beginning, too. But the more he talks about this, the more I think it's a very real possibility.

On the topic of when he said Kamala Harris used to be indian but became black, he was asked to about it. And he said, actually, you have to ask her about it. Mister President, Kamala Harris father is jamaican american, and she went to a historically black college. How is she only recently deciding to be black?

Donald Trump
Well. Well, you'll have to ask her that question because she's the one that said it. I didn't say it. So you'll have to ask her, and I very much appreciate that question, but you'll have to ask her to. But I've known her for a long time. I actually contributed to her campaign a long time ago because I was a developer. I contributed to lots of campaigns of Democrats, Republicans, and some were liberal and some were conservative. But you'll have to ask her about that. But to me, it doesn't matter. But to her, from her standpoint, I think it's very disrespectful to both, really.

David Pakman
Whether the genius, the fact that Kamala Harris is biracial is disrespectful to both races. When she was born, she implicitly disrespected her black half by being half indian, and she disrespected her indian half by being half black. You know, as many of you know, I am hispanic and Jewish, and notoriously Argentinians are furious that I'm jewish, and Jews are furious that I'm. That I'm argentinian. God help this country if he becomes president again. Wow. A Trump asked. Then we went on to anatomy. Trump asked about his recovery from the assassination attempt.

He wrongly, I mean, it appears wrongly, he wrongly says he was hit in the earlobe. He wasn't hit in the earlobe, but he says he was pretty.

Donald Trump
Pretty much recovered. Yeah, I'm a fast healer.

It's a hell of a shot, but I'm a fast healer. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much recovered.

No, it didn't hit that. I got very lucky.

It just. It just hit the lobe, as they call it.

Speaker one. Yeah, a little bit. Not much.

David Pakman
Yeah, he. He's touching, of course, the top of the ear. That that's not the lobe. It's. I mean, it's just not, you know, I know that there's confusion about what sorts of statements or statements of fact and what's opinion. Uh, you know, they have a lot of opinions about climate change and about COVID and the opinions depart from facts. I guess maybe they believe that it's a matter of opinion whether the earlobe is at the top of the ear or at the bottom of the ear. But he was not from everything we saw again, unless they've been lying all along. Uh, there was no indication he got hit in the earlobe. Now, the only real bit of news from this press conference was that Trump claimed that he is tentatively on board with three presidential debates against Kamala Harris, which sounds awesome.

Donald Trump
I think it's very important to have debates. And we've agreed with Fox on a date of September 4. We've agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement, subject to them on September 10, and we've agreed with ABC on September 25.

David Pakman
Wow.

Donald Trump
So we have those three dates and those networks, they're very anxiously awaiting that date and those dates. So we have September 4, September 10, and September 25. We have spoken to the heads of the network and it's all been confirmed, other than some fairly minor details, audience, some location, which, which city would we put it into? But all things that will be settled very easily. Very, I think it'll be very easy.

David Pakman
So that's great. And I say, do the three debates. Let's do the competing cognitive tests between Trump and Kamala Harris. Let's do it all. And then finally, finally, Trump asked about his very light campaign schedule, and he simultaneously answers by saying, I'm not campaigning because I'm winning by so much. And also, I'm campaigning a lot. He's answers. I guess he's. It's sort of like a pick your own adventure. If you want to go with I'm not campaigning, here's why. I'm justified in not campaigning. And also, you're lying and I'm campaigning.

Unidentified Speaker
You have not had a public campaign event for nearly a week now. Tomorrow you'll be in Montana, which is not a swing state. Some of your allies have expressed concern that you're not taking, taking this race seriously, particularly at a time where there is enthusiasm on the other side. Why haven't you been campaigning this week?

Donald Trump
Because I'm leading by a lot and because I'm letting their convention go through.

And I am campaigning a lot. I'm doing tremendous amounts of taping here. We have commercials that are at a level I don't think that anybody's ever done before.

Plus, in certain cases, I see many of you in the room. I'm speaking to you on phones. I'm speaking.

David Pakman
Yeah. How dare you suggest I'm not campaigning. I am absolutely campaigning all the time in all these different ways. And by the way, of course I'm not campaigning. I'm leading by so much. Why on earth should I campaign?

A disastrous press conference re leading to questions again.

Can this guy even make it to November? And it was so rambling and so deranged that network started cutting away. Let's talk about that next. Networks, I guess, felt they had no choice but to cut away from Donald Trump's mangled and scrambled, swollen, orange and sweaty press conference, during which he claimed to have bigger crowds on the riots than Martin Luther King had, during which he appeared to shoot a tonsil stone out of his mouth, and during which he said, it's disrespectful for Kamala Harris to have parents of different races and ethnicities. Networks started cutting away 1 hour into this absolutely abortive attempt at a press conference. CNN dumped it to start fact checking, which is quite a, quite a tall task.

Donald Trump
Have to have that right. Our second amendment is a very important right, and it has to be protected.

All right.

CNN Fact Checker
There's a lot to fact check there. So we're just going to run through, through things here. He said that Kamala Harris is in favor of, is not in favor of giving Israel weapons. She made it very clear her campaign did this morning that she is not in favor of an arms embargo of Israel. He said that no one died on January 6. People were killed. We know that Ashley Babbitt, three others died from medical emergencies. One officer died immediately after having been pepper sprayed. And the day following, there were four officers who died of suicide in the months after. He talked about how there's a constitutional issue for how Kamala Harris was chosen by the Democratic Party. That's not true. The constitution doesn't govern how the party selects its candidates.

He also talked about the border. He said 20 million people over the border. That's grossly exaggerated. He could have just gone with the actual number. It's not a great number. He chose 20 million.

But actually, crossings are down for the last four months, the lowest they've been in three years since the president's.

David Pakman
All right, you get the point. So CNN dumping and fact checking and then MSNBC also cutting away, and it's just unbearable. Only Fox News could tolerate Federal Reserve or the chairman. Yeah.

MSNBC Host
And so about an hour into this press conference with Donald Trump, we are going to continue to listen and we'll let you know if any of news is made here. But I think it's important, again, after giving him an hour to do some fact checks. And let's start with the fact that people were killed on January 6. Two rioters were killed, and, of course, several officers in the wake of that riot, Biden did not weaponize the DOJ against Donald Trump. Kamala Harris did pass the bar. She was the attorney general of California. He said she wants to take away people's guns. She just named a running mate who was a gun owner and a hunter, she said Josh Shapiro, who was not named as her running mate, was not popular. In fact, he is, for as long as polls have been taken on favorability of Pennsylvania governors, the most popular governor ever in that state.

David Pakman
But that, that's not fair to Trump because he didn't know who Josh Shapiro was very clearly when he was asked about him. So listen, everybody sees what's going on. The network saw it. They gave the guy an hour plus at the end of the day, which is way more than he probably deserved. But maybe most importantly, Republicans are seeing what's going on. And that's what I want to talk about next.

Widespread reporting now finds that Republicans are growing concerned about Donald Trump's mental fitness. It's about time.

Vanity Fair article by Bess Levin Republicans think Trump is having a nervous breakdown over Kamala Harris. The ex president is definitely missing Joe Biden right about not now. I encourage you to check out the article and it explains the number of different Republicans, including Matthew Bartlett, a republican strategist and once one time Trump official, who described what's happening with Trump, talking about Kamala becoming black and spelling her name, Kamabla, and all of this stuff. He says it is a public nervous breakdown. This is a guy who cut through the Republican Party like a knife through butter. This is a guy who pummeled a semi conscious president in a debate and literally out of the race. And now this is a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging. And we're seeing a candidate and a campaign absolutely melt down. The article outlines many other Republicans and republican strategists and advisers that are equally concerned. It is not only Vanity Fair noticing this Rolling Stone with an article, unhappy Trump is freaking out over Harris's crowd sizes. And no matter what Trump says publicly at this deranged press conference, he said something like he got bigger crowds on at the riot rally on January 6 21 than Martin Luther King had in Washington, DC. Of course, it's completely untrue, but it reflects a, an insecurity of Trump's that crowd size is a proxy to enthusiasm. It sometimes is, it sometimes is.

And it really depends on the circumstances. For example, in 2020, Trump talked about Biden can't win because my crowds are big. Biden just wasn't doing mass rallies because of the pandemic that was going on. I don't even agree with Trump that the rally crowds alone are indicative of anything but there's no doubt that right now we have Kamala Harris regularly filling venues that Trump can't fill, including in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris out raising Trump when it comes to money, and Kamala Harris increasingly out polling Trump plus nine. Among independents, a new national poll has her plus eight. There is reason to panic. And Trump behind closed doors, reportedly panicking about the crowd size issue. And then finally, Salon.com Tim Walls is normal dad energy is causing MAGA to come unglued. And then once again, the fact that Tim Walls is just a normal guy, he's a relatable guy.

He's a veteran. He's a gun owner. He likes farming. He is, is sort of in line with rural America culturally and in other ways. That is also panicking them. So three things are going on. Trump's panicking that the race is competitive. Trump's panicking about Tim walls. And Tim Walls is obvious favorability that trounces JD Vance, or shady Vance, as we might call him. And then thirdly, the crowd size issue is really terrifying. Donald TrUmp, we need those cognitive tests. Let's do it. After all, Trump is the oldest major party presidential nominee in american history. In american history. Let's do the debates. Trump claims three are scheduled. Let's do the cognitive tests and let's continue to track the polling for now.

For now, this is looking increasingly ugly for the failed former president. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you expect. Info at david Pakman.com make sure to get one of those memberships at Join pacman.com and help us get to 2.5 million YouTube subscribers. It's not that far. Sign up subscribe free to the YouTube channel YouTube.com slash the David Pakman show. This is a chock full of material Friday show and I'm glad you're here.

If you are a student or you run a business, you know how expensive software subscriptions can get. I can tell you as a business owner myself, it adds up, especially with so many software companies forcing bundles and subscriptions on you. And the solution is our sponsor. Software keep. With software keep, you only buy the software you need. You only pay once, you always get a huge discount and you'll get better customer support. Not only will you save money on software for Windows and Mac, but the experience with software keep is better. Before you buy, software keep will help you figure out what you actually need so you don't overpay after you buy. If you have any issues, questions or anything, software keep provides 24/7 lifetime expert software support, including holidays and weekends, and all purchases are protected by the 180 day money back guarantee and a lifetime product warranty very different than when you buy direct from Microsoft. Software Keep is trusted by over 400,000 customers with a 4.7 star rating on Trustpilot. On top of the major discounts that software keep already provides. You, as an audience member of mine, get an additional 20% off for a limited time when you go to davidpakman.com software keep and then use the code Pacman. The link is in the description one of our sponsors today is Zipix nicotine toothpicks. Zipix brings you a convenient alternative to smoking and vaping, and the vape clouds the ashtrays, the thing in your lip that people can see. I've seen that around.

This is an easier and less messy way to curb the cravings, and you can use Zipix just about anywhere. Zipix is available in six flavors with two or three milligrams strength. The nicotine and the flavor are long lasting, and Zipix has helped countless people kick the bad habits. And they are bad habits. Zipix toothpicks are FDA registered. Their customer service is second to none. It is one of the most cost effective alternatives. Also, check out their b twelve and caffeine toothpicks. See for yourself why so many people have switched to zipix toothpicks. You can only get zipix online. Go to zipixtoothpix.com today. Save 10% with the code Pacman ten at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's zip p I x toothpicks.com. use promo code pacman ten at checkout for 10% off. That's Pacman ten. The info is in the podcast notes speaker one. I know this is not likely the thing anybody would forget, but we are an audience supported program, and if you're hearing this message right now, you're not getting the full David Pakman show experience, which I would love for you to get. I mean, why not? So I'll give you a couple of options. Number one, I would love for you to sign up at Join pacman.com. this is our membership program. It's the primary funding source for the show. We're talking about a few dollars a month and even less if you use the coupon code save democracy 24 and even less if you pay for the entire year at a time. Great perks. The bonus show, commercial free audio and video streams of the show, et cetera.

Now, if even the discounted price isn't right for you right now.

We do have a free membership program, and I'm going to speak very slowly and clearly because every time I mention this, people email me and say, David, please put me on the list and I will not do it because the process is automated. If you would like a free membership, you can get in the queue by going to david Pakman.com.

free membership. No other website will help you get on that list. Emailing me won't help you get on that list. You just go to david Pakman.com freemembership. If you would like to send a free membership to someone on that list, that's very easy as well. You just go to join Pacman.com, get yourself, go through the membership process, but check the box that says this is a gift, and then we will assign your gifted membership to the next person on the list. Gifts don't recur, so if you gift a month, you're gifting a month and you won't be billed again, then it'll be up to the gift recipient to decide whether to continue. Same thing if you gift a year. So many, many options. Join Pacman.com is the place where all of it happens. We have an extraordinary polling situation, my friends. Kamala Harris's lead on Donald Trump continues to grow. Now, I am not here to suggest to you that this trajectory will continue and that come November, Kamala Harris will have some double digit polling lead over Donald Trump. It's just not the way american politics really works right now. Given the level of polarization and partisanship, given the sort of baseline support that the Republican and the Democrat will get, it's not likely that Kamala Harris's current trajectory is sustainable, which would put her at like a ten point lead by November. However, however, the change and the momentum is remarkable and very much worthy of looking at. We've been using as a sort of guidepost the real clear politics average of recent polls.

And what this does is it says, here's a list of polls that we believe are good enough to include in our average. We add them all up and divide it using a relatively simple algorithm that they have. And here's where things land. And where they land right now is that Kamala Harris has achieved a half a point average lead over Trump nationally. Now, you might hear me say that and go, David, this thing is tied. What are you talking about? Half a point lead? This is no big deal. This is less about the number and more about the momentum and also more about the rhetoric that surrounds this polling so if we back up a little bit, one of the things that you can see when we look at a chart, and the important thing to understand here is this is, this is a graph of polling numbers. Red is Trump, blue was Biden and then became Harris when Biden withdrew.

One of the things that's notable is that if you look right around the 4 July holiday, Donald Trump had a more than three point average lead over Joe Biden. More than three point average lead. That's why there's this large space between the red and the blue lines. You see the vertical black line, which is when President Biden withdrew. And then what you see is that the lines have essentially converged. And now Kamala Harris has taken a half a point lead. This is a swing to go from losing by 3.3 to winning by 0.5. That's a swing of almost four percentage points. Almost four percentage points. If you think about a typical electorate being about 160 million people, I don't know if that's fair. I'm kind of rough to mating 16 million people.

Every point represents 1.6 million voters. And thus a 4% swing suggests something like six and a half, 6.4 million voters that have switched. It doesn't mean individuals have switched. Some may have gone from voting Trump to I plan to stay home. Some may have gone to from I plan to stay home to going out voting for Harris Walls. But it's in the aggregate, we're talking about a nearly six and a half million voter swing as interpreted by these numbers. This is remarkable. Now, as you can see, if you were to just say, let's just chart this decline by Trump and this increase by Harris and project out to November, you would have Harris winning by 1012 14. I just don't think that's going to happen. And that's why this now becomes key in terms of thinking about what happens next. At some point, this is going to flatten. Now, the DNC is coming up soon.

It is sometimes believed to be a rule of thumb, which someone wrote to me and said, David, that's offensive. It relates to domestic violence. It's sometimes considered to be a conventional wisdom of sorts, that you peak a couple of days after your convention. If that's the case, we would expect Kamala's stock to continue to rise, peak Friday, Saturday after the DNC. And then what happens is the question.

So we're going to have to follow and watch that. We don't know how much of this is the sort of shift that comes as a result of news and the announcement of, uh, she has become the presumptive nominee. And then she selected Tim walls. And Tim Walls seems well liked. We just have to see there's another aspect to this, which is that Donald Trump, for a long time now, and we spoke about this on Wednesday, anytime the stock market would go up under Biden's presidency, Trump would say, it's going up because of the expectation that I will win in November. There was no evidence of this then. We had a few days late last week and this Monday where the stock market declined so pretty precipitously. And Trump came out and said the reason the stock market went down is because the polls show that things are a little bit better for Kamala Harris. But those polls are rigged. Of course, this was nonsense. Us stocks were dragged down, as were global stocks, by a number of different factors, including economic news out of the banking sector in Japan and other things. It was nonsense what Trump said. But interestingly, we've had some very good stock market days this week. And as we've seen those solid stock market days this week, I discussed this Wednesday, Kamala Harris's polling has continued to increase. So if you want to play stupid games, you'll win stupid prizes. And if we play this stupid game, the prize Trump now gets is, wow, stock market up. Kamala's polling also up. So point in time, the momentum matters.

Where will this end? We don't know, but certainly the DNC upcoming. I would expect to give Kamala Harris at least a little bit more of a boost. There's a very interesting thing happening now nationally in terms of a growing concern for Trump, for voters in general, and it is a concern over Donald Trump's health. There's a Newsweek article about it. We've seen new polling about this as well. Now, the natural question, if you hear me bring up Trump's health, would be, am I talking about Trump's mental health or am I talking about Trump's physical health? Because both of them seem to be declining. And the answer is, yeah, I'm sort of talking about both, although it's sort of that Trump's mental health seems to be used as a proxy towards his physical health. Let's see what this says here. Newsweek reports fewer voters believe Donald Trump is in good health, and more think the 78 year old Republican is too old for run to run for office now that Biden is no longer in the race. According to a new morning consult poll, the results show that now that Trump is facing off against for 59 year old Kamala Harris, fewer voters believe he's in good health, down to 52% from most recently, 58% since Biden dropped out. More than half of all voters now say Trump is too old, up from 44%. And the number of people believing Trump is mentally fit is down from 53 to 48. This is good news. It's not good news because I take pleasure in people struggling with their faculties. It's not good news for any other reason other than it is empirically the case that Donald Trump is the oldest major party nominee in american history.

It is absolutely the case that if you watch videos of Trump being interviewed and speaking going back two years, four years, 6810, 1225 years, you see a notable and marked decline in his vocabulary and how articulate he is. And that to a degree, Joe Biden stepping aside is making that even more apparent. Now, you may have noticed that Trump is no longer talking about cognitive tests. He tried it early last week. And when we initially heard that Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, you heard Trump say, I still think we should do the cognitive tests. I bet I would do better than her. That was an extraordinarily stupid thing to say. Given that Trump says things such as.

Donald Trump
Saudi Arabia and Russia will re be.

David Pakman
Do, will re be do, et cetera.

Trump has stopped talking about cognitive elements altogether because it's a very bad idea. And it's becoming apparent from the polling that this is a growing concern for the country. There is a desire for some new energy. That the new energy will come with a from a nearly 60 year old only reminds us of what the alternative is. And it's been Republicans who have running on this stuff about we don't need a really old president anymore, pointing to Trump two and a half years younger than Biden as the alternative to the old Biden. But that has all been shaken up and changed now that Trump is the oldest nominee in american history. Do I think that this is going to be sort of like a dispositive make or break factor? No, I don't. But certainly, and especially if Donald Trump continues to allude to, I don't know that I'm going to debate. I don't know that I need to debate on this. I do agree with Anthony Scaramucci, who said Trump's only toying with not debating to get attention, but he knows he has to debate or it will be humiliating because it will come off as him being scared. I hope he debates.

It's very difficult to keep up with the latest comings and goings of will he won't he on ABC, on Fox News anywhere else? Will there be one debate, two debates? Zero debates? We don't know. As soon as something is officially scheduled, of course I'll tell you. But it is starting to become a real concern that what happened to Joe Biden in his debate against Trump on June 27 could happen to some degree.

Lesser or greater remains to be seen in a debate against Kamala Harris. I expect her to be prepared and you know, VP debate, Vance versus walls. I expect walls to wipe the floor with JD, both in terms of policy knowledge as well as charisma and just general demeanor. So let me know what you expect as far as debates. Let me know whether you are more concerned with Trump's health since President Biden stepped aside. Info at David pakman.com dot many of us have bad habits we want to kick. Finding motivation can be hard, especially when life gets heavy and the bad habit seems to be what's keeping you sane. Thankfully, fume is here to help you prioritize your health in a way that will not disrupt your daily life. Introducing fumes award winning flavored air device that is quickly becoming the leading alternative to smoking and to vaping. The point of fume is to satisfy the hand to mouth fixation of some of these bad habits, which makes healthy change feel even easier. The fume device is sleek. It's sophisticated. You can fidget with it. There is no nicotine here, only natural ingredients like plant extracts and oils. There's no electronics. There's no vapor. There is an amazing selection of flavors, from the popular crisp mint to the adventurous black licorice and cinnamon hearts. Fume is delicious. It's subtle. You can keep using it without feeling overwhelmed. So start your journey today. Go to tryfume.com and use the code pacman to get a free gift with your journey pack, which includes a fume device, three core flavors of your choice, and a cleaning kit.

If you are struggling to get rid of that bad habit, that's try fum.com dot, then enter the code Pacman for a free free gift when you buy the journey pack. The info is in the podcast description.

There are two big problems with the cheap plastic disposable razors. Two thirds of people have skin irritation, and then over 2 billion plastic razors enter our landfills in the United States alone. Now, our sponsor, Henson shaving, solves both problems. With the plastic disposable razors, you have unstable blades wobbling around as you shave, which causes the irritation. It's like if you were cutting something with scissors or a knife and the blade is wiggling. That's what's happening to your face with the cheap razors. So here's the solution. Razors produced by Henson have a blade that extends only .0013 inches past the shave plane, and that means no blade movement. More comfort before and after shaving. This is something only Henson can offer because of their precision manufacturing shop that also makes aerospace parts. Plus, the only part that you replace is the blade itself. The razor will last you a lifetime. Better for your wallet, much better for the planet when you buy a razor at henson shaving.com pacman. Use the code Pacman to get a two year supply of blades for free. Make sure to add the blades to your cart. That's henson shaving.com pacman. Use code Pacman for free blades after adding them to your cart. The info is in the podcast notes we've been talking about lines of attack, lines of attack that team Trump has been trying against Kamala Harris, including before she selected Tim walls as her vice presidential running maid, and then since. And there's really bad news for Trump, which is that so far, nothing is working.

Trump team is panicking. This is why he's saying, I'm not going to debate. I am going to debate. This is why he's attacking her based on her laugh or DEi, essentially saying, I know from the color of her skin that she's not really qualified to do the job she's doing. These are the sorts of attacks that are coming because Trump is desperate. Trump is completely and totally desperate. And I want to show you some of the coverage about this and what the implications might be. And the context is the conversation that I had last week with Tim Miller, a republican strategist type guy, and his historical Republican who is an anti Trump Republican at this point in time.

Washington Post has a report. Trump, with a history of sexist attacks, again faces a female opponent.

Strategists and aides from both parties are girding themselves for an election steeped in allegations of sexism and racism.

You know, talking about allegations makes it almost seem like anybody could hurl allegations, regardless of whether they're empirically based or not. When the truth is, a lot of what we're hearing about Kamala Harris is sexist and racist. She became Black Dei, the way she laughs, et cetera. There's also an interesting report from the new Republic. Trump team panics about his attacks on Kamala Harris backfiring. Trump's allies are worried they can't control him as he attacks Vice President Kamala Harris. And then finally from KX, a NBC Republican pollster says Trump talking about Harris as a DEI candidate would backfire. And one of the ways we know that it seems to be backfiring, uh, is that several Fox News hosts have even started to point, to point out, hey, by the way, when you're calling her dumb, when you're going after her, laugh. Dei. This stuff isn't working. It's name calling. We don't think it's going to be effective in defeating her. And even some Republicans are starting to agree. So let's go through it.

Childless, at least as far as biological children.

Dei, the way she laughs, failed borders are, which starts to teeter, maybe on policy, and then things like, she's not super smart, she's low iq. Trump has been saying she didn't pass the bar exam on the first try, although, of course, ultimately she did and was a successful lawyer. A lot of these things are not polling well with exactly the people that Trump needs to win over. Suburban women, independence, et cetera. I already told you earlier this week that when JD Vance goes to a rally and yells out about Kamala Harris wants to take your gas stoves and Kamala Harris wants to make it so you can't have red meat anymore, that stuff isn't going to work on the people you actually need to convince at a Trump rally. It will get cheers, but you're not going to, at this point, get into serious corporate media reporting about, is she really trying to take away beef from you?

Is she really trying to take gas stoves? You know, the gas stove thing, I don't want to go back over it in total, but we've talked about how the Biden administration, forget about the fact that they're not even trying to take away gas stoves. They wouldn't even have the authority to take away gas stoves. And even if induction is great, and I can vouch for it, it really is great. Uh, these are just lies. So the problem is, how do you go after Kamala Harris in a way that will be more effective? Tim Miller's idea was you kind of just use the generic playbook that's always used. She's far left. She wants to defund the police, even though she doesn't. She's going to raise middle class taxes even though she won't. She'll make the border be wide open, even though obviously she wouldn't just kind of, like, run the normal playbook. Deficit, this and that, even though it's Trump who blew up the deficit by record amounts go with that. And then if you can, and they're starting to do this, also attack her vice presidential running maid as extreme, even though when you actually see his views placed on the political compass, it is all really very moderate. So a few other comments from people on the right who recognize this is very much going in the wrong direction because nothing is landing. Republican pollster Whit Ayers warned that, quote, taking shots at her race and gender would be a political liability.

And in general, you know, these ad hominem approaches to running a campaign, they can work narrowly, but backfire, big picture, I think, is the way that I would say it, because you risk alienating, I don't even know that I want to call them undecided voters at this point because is anyone really undecided but swayable voters maybe would be the way that I would say it. So for now, there is significant concern on the republican side about what is going to be the approach.

Do we just try to win on turnout without attacking or do we have to find some line of attack? And then lastly, if indeed the debates are going to happen, Trump, Harris and or Vance waltz, what are going to be the approaches there? And we'll have time to discuss that. The dam seems to be breaking. We all knew that plenty of them exist behind closed doors. I'm talking about anti Trump Republicans, but many are starting to now go public and say, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. Earlier this week, I interviewed Anthony Scaramucci, literally worked for Trump, and he said, I've publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, but there is much more to it. And there's an interesting newsweek article. Republicans line up to endorse Kamala Harris. The list is extensive. Now, you may not know all of these people, but these are significant individuals in the political context. Former Republican Congress members endorsing Harris include Rod Chandler, Tom Coleman, Dave Emery, Wayne Gilchrist. Okay, it's a whole long list. Joe Walsh, you may know he's been a guest on the program. We also have more prominent individuals like Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and others. What is the important aspect to this that we should talk about?

There are many Republicans that we know privately have really disliked Trump all along, and they've confided in their personal contacts about that.

There have been Republicans who once they don't have anything left to run for. Mitt Romney is an example, although he did express his anti Trump beliefs before he decided he wasn't running for reelection. But people like Mitt Romney or Flake and others who say, all right, I'm publicly saying I am not a Trump supporter. But I don't really have, there's really no political downside. You know, I'm independently wealthy like Romney, or I'm not running or whatever the case may be. You then have people like Chris Christie who have said, I'm not voting for Trump. But recently Chris Christie said, okay, I'm not voting for Trump, but I'm not voting for a Democrat either, at least as far as he's willing to admit publicly. The interesting thing about this growing list of republican officials, current and former, that are straight up saying, I am voting for Kamala Harris is that it not only might serve to influence some of the republican voters into saying, hey, I have license to do it myself, and particularly in important swing states, it could make a difference. That's one reason that it's important to hear from these Republicans that they're endorsing Kamala Harris. But the other aspect to it is that it may trigger Trump into even more erratic behavior, which has this vicious circle or virtuous circle if you're looking at it from our perspective. And we want to see that of just sending him off the deep end further and further, reminding voters how unstable he is, reminding voters how chaos and, and insanity just follow him everywhere.

So the important takeaway for us is that there are going to be some cynical and nakedly political actors on the left who are going to say to you the same thing they would say about Biden when a Republican would say, I prefer Joe Detector Trump, which is they're going to say, hey, you know why these Republicans are voting for Kamala Harris? It's not because Trump is bad. It's because Harris is actually conservative. And that's what they would say about Biden. Of course, Biden has some republican supporters. Biden is really right wing. It's really important that we not fall into these traps. Remember that the Biden Harris administration, as far as how they ran to, I would argue, the most progressive platform in 2020 of any democratic nominee. Nominee, right? Not candidate. Yes, there have been further left candidates that said, I'd like to be the nominee, but if actual democratic nominees, Biden, Harris is the furthest left of, of anything we've seen. But it's also how they've governed. Because when you look at all of the legislation that was passed, when you look at where government spending has been done, I've done it a dozen times, but it's important not to, like, take this slice of the left that's saying Republicans like Biden and they like Harris because they are actually right wing it's important to be able to push back on that and to actually have the policy to demonstrate it. And we've done long form pieces on that before. So the list of Republicans that will vote for Harris, I believe will only grow from now until November.

The sort of actionable question is, will it influence voters? Will it make a difference? That's what I want to hear from you about. You can email me info at david pakman.com and let me know. Will Republicans endorsing Harris move the needle, or will it not matter?

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. Ground News provides a great summary of the situation based on over 100 articles that ground news found reporting on it. And ground news shows me that almost no conservative news outlets are covering the story. Not a surprise, ground news shows us that the right wing outlets only report on how Trump is denying involvement with the project, while the center and left outlets are actually giving context on Trump's connections to the movement of Project 2025. Every story comes with this visual breakdown of the political biases and ownership of the reporting news outlets, which is really important to know as well. Go to ground Dot news Pacman, or scan my QR code for 40% off the same unlimited access vantage plan that I use.

All right, let's get into Friday feedback. Super interesting data point to start with today.

Weeks ago, before Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, we did a poll of our YouTube audience and said, is Kamala Harris more likely to defeat Donald Trump than Biden, or less likely to defeat Donald Trump than Biden? It was basically 50 505-149-5545 something like that. The audience was mostly split before Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee. As to whether Harris improved democratic odds or worsened them, we redid that poll in the aftermath of Kamala Harris becoming the presumptive nominee, and the numbers are stunning. Based on 133,000 of your votes, 92% of you, 92% of you believe that Kamala Harris is more likely to defeat Donald Trump than Joe Biden. Now, there's two parts to this.

The first part is how many people's opinions changed just because Biden stepped aside and Harris became the presumptive nominee.

The feeling of it, in other words. But then part two is, are there empirical changes that would point more in the direction of Kamala doing better than Joe Biden? And the answer is yes. Because if you look at the insane record fundraising numbers, that's a proxy to enthusiasm that suggests, hey, this might work out okay. If you look at the polling numbers in swing states and nationally, improving significantly for Harris relative to where they were for Joe Biden, that's an empirical change that suggests, hey, this actually could be better with Harris rather than with Biden. So I think it's very interesting that becoming the presumptive nominee completely upended the view of our audience on who is more likely to defeat Donald Trump. But also, circumstances on the ground have changed. Let me know your thoughts. 133,000 of you, thousand of you voting. Okay, let's look at a few other things now from user ding Gratz on Reddit saying, Jon Stewart was right. This was an opportunity. I didn't see it at the time. I couldn't see it at the time, but God damn, this is electrifying and absolutely surprising. Trump is in a corner and everything is coming fast at this obese elderly criminal. Karma, if you're listening. Okay, so an anecdotal example of someone whose view on what makes sense to defeat Trump has changed since Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris stepped in. However, not everyone is as confident, and so we'll look at another example. Here is a Reddit post from AP man who says, can you reassure me how Kamala will mop the floors in a debate with Trump?

I don't doubt it will happen, but I may not be 100% sure it will. I remember that Hillary did a good job debating Trump and did her best to point out his flaws as a human. The problem is, Trump can deflect any sane argument. The way he uses nonsense to accomplish this is impressive and not enough people acknowledge this. It seems we underestimate Trump's ability to bully anybody when we point and laugh at his remarks about sharks and batteries. She may have been a tough prosecutor, but I suspect Trump may be an even bigger bully. Everything apt man says is right.

And if there is to be a debate, and I know we keep going back and forth, there will be a debate. There won't be. The ABC debate is originally scheduled. No, only Fox News per Trump. If there is a debate.

Kamala Harris needs to come in not only with a very specific plan for how to deal with what we know Trump's performance will be like. And we've got the June 27 debate to prepare from, but she needs to come in prepared to diffuse the sorts of non responses. How do you deal with the non response word salads from Trump where it's like, yeah, he's lying, but he lies confidently and it kind of impresses his base? I don't know what that plan will be.

I don't know what the plan should be. But I think we are right to be cautious about Trump's ability to just lie his way out of this sort of stuff.

Kamala Harris, obviously is more knowledgeable on policy.

Kamala Harris, obviously, I expect, would be more honest in a debate than Trump, but you need to have a plan. Otherwise, it can go very haywire very, very quickly. All right, another instance of confidence. User proof of my existence from subreddit says Kamala has this election in the bag. I'm genuinely excited to cast my vote for her. Her chances are sky high for multiple reasons, and I have a feeling she's going to beat Biden's record for most voted for president in history. I'm also glad that people like David aren't in charge of the, of decision making because then we'd still be backing Biden and then inevitably losing to Trump. It's funny because at all points, number one, I wasn't even suggesting that there is a particular decision to be made all along. I was saying I'm going to vote based on who's on the ticket in November.

My decision, if it's Biden, Trump will be that I vote Biden. If there is a decision made to replace Biden, I will evaluate who replaces Biden and then vote on that basis. This is sort of like a revisionist history suggesting, I don't even know what, other than, other than what I said all along, which is it's seeming unlikely that Biden will be replaced up until the point at which it started to seem like a possibility, which I told you right away, and half my audience was furious. It eventually became to me insurmountable what Biden had to do to stay on the ticket. And then even more people were angry at me. Despite me saying, I'm calling it like it is, I think he's going to have to step down. And within three days of that, he stepped down.

So if you want to accuse me of anything, accuse me of something I did, which is calling it like it is at any particular moment that I was asked about it. Okay, let's look at some other critiques. Here. Is pink Moon Lander from the subreddit asking, why does David keep implying Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real historical figure? I agree with Pacman on almost all his points about Trump, except he keeps implying there's a possibility Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person. It's pretty obvious Trump is joking and being comedic when he refers to Hannibal. It makes Democrats look stupid when they try to pin stuff like this on Trump instead of focusing on real issues. I am dead serious when I tell you I can't tell whether Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a historical figure. He does do. When do individuals refer to fictional characters as the late great?

It just doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying I'm sure Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter was a historical figure, but it's certainly plausible. Certainly plausible. Graham Burgroth from Facebook says, pacman always has glassy eyes. You know, it. It is true. And this goes to, as many of you know, I've been accused of having a drinking or drug problem, as evidenced from me being on something during the show, according to some. And I've explained that I don't use any drugs and I drink very, very rarely.

But what happens is I think I wear contacts and we have bright lights.

This is not a CNN studio, so it's conceivable that the lights aren't at exactly the right height that they should be at. And, yeah, I mean, look, I'm looking there, and I can see a little bit of that reflection off of my contact lenses with the, with the studio lights. But rest assured, I'm not high right now, nor have I ever been. During the show, Colin is jumping in on the Kamala critiques and says, the voice, the cackle.

Unelectable.

Unelectable. Based on her voice and her cackle, I don't see it the same way as Colin. I now, Britt Owens responded by saying, kamala's voice is like caramel coffee, sweet and strong.

Ah, the projection of her voice is so powerful. Yeah. Listen, whatever you think about Kamala Harris's voice or anything, it seems very clear from the polling and from the media reactions that going after her for her intelligence, her voice, or her laugh are not working as effective means to defeat her candidacy does not seem to be doing anything to hurt her chances. So for their own purposes, right wingers and Trump supporters are going to have to come up with something a little bit better. Michelle Rose wants me to focus more on astrology, Nichelle says, David, I know you don't follow astrology, but you really should. There are some very illuminating astrological things happening over the next year and specifically with this election. Just floating that to you as I think astrology has really been villainized through history via church agendas.

Yeah, I'm so sorry. And every time I do this, five people who like astrology write to me.

I will not insult my audience with astrology and suggest to my audience that we might be able to divine something about the future of presidential election outcomes from the believed and often incorrect positioning of heavenly bodies at different points in time. I respect my audience too much to pretend that there's any there there. And at the risk of offending five people in my audience, that's been my view for a very long time, and it continues to be my view. So don't expect any astrology on this program. Gilbert Mendez writes, the media should now start talking about Trump's mental decline. Well, it is getting more attention. I jokingly said Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in american history. Is that really what the country needs right now? It was sort of tongue in cheek, but that narrative, that retort, that talking point has wildly triggered magA. They hate the fact that their guy, after they spent years saying Biden's too old, that their guy, who's almost as old as Biden and is glitching regularly every time he speaks in public, is now the nominee as the oldest nominee in american history. So I do think it should be talked about. It does appear as though there is somewhat more focus on Trump's melt mental decline coming forward, but it should continue to be discussed because it is such a prevalent issue. You can pre order my book, the Echo Machine, at David Pakman.com echo, or by searching any audiobook, physical book or digital book platform for my name and the Echo machine.

At the beginning of the week, we had 450 preorders. The goal is to get to 5000 pre orders before the book's release. That would make it.

If we get to 5000 copies at publication date, which is months away, the book would be considered a success and it puts us in the possible running for New York Times bestseller list. Ten K would be better than five k, but we'll talk about that as we approach. So Monday, I will give you an update on order numbers. Please pre order the book. There are three or four different planned goodies for those who pre order, and everybody will be eligible for those regardless of when you pre order.

Signature elements are part of it, which are the number one thing. That's the primary thing people ask, ask about. So pre order anytime, Barnes and noble, Amazon, bookshop.org, comma, your local bookstore, anywhere, and I'll update you on order numbers Monday. I hope that you will be joining us on the bonus show momentarily.

8/9/24: Trump press conference a clinic in brain fail

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Analyzing Trump's Statements

3: Media Reaction

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Content Warnings:

Transcript