So last week, we had a preview of this Axios
interview between Donald Trump and Jonathan Swan, which aired last night. I've reviewed the full interview and this
is truly the stuff of legends. I actually my vocabulary was not powerful
enough to accurately describe the contents of this interview. So I had to spend a bunch of time today reading
Jack London in order to expand my vocabulary, to be better prepared to describe what it
is that we are about to see. That's a joke, by the way. This may actually be the most damaging interview
to Donald Trump that I have ever seen. If you thought the Chris Wallace interview
two weeks and two days ago on Fox News Sunday was bad and it was. This is arguably even worse. And what's particularly spectacular about
this interview is that Jonathan Swan calls out and confronts Donald Trump on all those
things I've been saying during the last five months of coronavirus. Somebody has to call him out. Somebody has to confront him. Well, Jonathan Swan did it when Trump lied
about. We have the lowest death rate. Jonathan Swan checked receipts and had Trump
pulling out papers that Trump didn't even understand. When Trump uses his bogus talking points or
phrases like people are saying, Jonathan Swan says, who is saying, tell me exactly who is
saying? And Trump is never actually able to say, referring
to vague books or whatever let which Trump doesn't read. Let's look at some of this and we'll talk
through it. Here is a series of hilarious fact checks
and weird claims from Trump during the vote by mail portion of the interview. And Trump tries to claim that absentee and
mail in are two different things in this election. Swan says it's the same thing. Trump says vote by mail is new. Swan says it's been around since the Civil
War. This is really, really great stuff. We have a new phenomena. It's called in. It's called Mail in voting, where you send
where you are. It's been here since the civil war in terms
of kind of the kind of millions and millions of ballots it never will be. It'll be big issue because of the pandemic. That bigger, massively bigger. Yeah, because it's going to send tens of millions
of ballots to California all over the place to see who's going to get them. I have a friend lives in Westchester. I send applications having to do with universal
mail and voting. Absentee voting is OK. You have to apply. You have to go through a process. You have to apply for mail, even the same. Good luck, Mr. Cochran. Lipstick on her hat. They're sending out applications, delegations
of ballots. No, they're not. Their applications. There's no way you can go through a mail in
vote without massive cheating. I honestly don't understand this topic with
we to. The Republican Party has an extremely well-funded
vote by mail program. Your campaign puts out emails telling people
to vote by mail, direct your daughter in law, Laura Trump. She'd robo calls in California saying it's
safe and secure mail in voting. Let me tell you, the republic, we have no
choice. That was an old mailing rights. Let me tell you. We went through World War Two. You went to the polls. You had mail in voting system. Supporters of the China virus was supposed
to stay home, send millions of ballots all over the country, millions and millions. You know, you could have a case where this
election won't be decided on the evening of November 3rd absoluteness election. What's so sad? Two months later, maybe two months. What's wrong with the proper mailing cited
many months later? I have to use the phrase it's a verbal inkblot
test. It's just throwing stuff all over the place. Trump is frequently using this thing. We might not know the results on election
night. OK. I mean, shouldn't we prioritize accuracy over
speed? Like, why would it be so bad if we didn't
know the results on election night? Is it that Trump won't be able to sleep for
five days not knowing that it's conceivable that he may not knowing that he may have lost
the election now? Then a ton of the interview was about coronavirus. And this is a portion that we're going to
want to look at very closely. Donald Trump start making incorrect starts
making incorrect claims about deaths in the United States and actually pulls out paper. So let's step through it one piece at a time,
because this is really historically embarrassing stuff. Now, if you're watching and not just listening,
you're going to notice that as Donald Trump is looking at various charts and graphs that
he pulls out, he seems to even struggle what it is that he's looking at and ends up handing
stuff to Jonathan Swann. Take a look at this. Look at some of these charts. I'd love to. We're going to look. Let's look. And if you look at death there, start to go
up again. Well, right here, the United States is lowest
in numerous categories, were lower than the world, lower and lower than what is Europe
in what? In what. So this is already amazing. Donald Trump says. We are lower than the world. And Jonathan Swan is visibly confused. What? What is that even mean? We're lower than the world in what? And so then Trump starts handing papers to
Jonathan Swan. And things start to escalate very quickly. Take a look right here. Here's case death. Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of
cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of
population. That's why the U.S. is really bad. Well, much worse than South Korea, Germany
and Japan. You can't do that. You guys really have to go by. You have to go by where? Look, here is the United States. You have to go by the cases, the case. Why not as a proportion population somebody. What it says is when you have somebody that
has where there's a case of the people that little for all those cases. This is brilliant. I mean, this this is just this is exactly
the confrontation that Donald Trump has needed all along. Trump continues to insist that the reason
our numbers are skewed are the number of tests that we do. And he keeps talking about our death rate
relative to the testing rate. I've talked about this before. The case fatality rate is a rate of deaths
relative to tests. And Trump continues to insist that testing
skews numbers, which is what he says is actually the problem. And Swan points out, you know, deaths per
population, not deaths per test, is really what matters. And Trump is just barely able to even keep
up cognitively. It's surely a relevant statistic to say if
the U.S. has X population, an X percentage of death of that population versus after real
by the cases we look at South Korea, for example, 51 million population, 300 deaths. It's like it's crazy. I know that. I do. It's. Do you think they're faking their statistics? South Korea? And it doesn't come to that because I have
a very good relationship with the country. But you don't know that. Now, that's a really important moment. This is sort of a white flag moment for Trump
when you can't argue the facts anymore, when you've been beaten on the facts and your arguments,
if you can even call them that, fall apart. You call into question whether we can believe
anything, whether we can know anything like this is a complete white flag because it stops
the conversation. It's actually a really common crutch. It's a basic epistemological question that
in a sense we can always ask. Right. You can always turn to how do we know anything? How can we. What what really is true? Can we know anything? But this is a crutch that stops the conversation
because it's like, well, then anything you're saying is also subject to that same question. It is a white flag when it is an interview
about facts. At any point you want, you can always say,
how do we know any fact is true? Okay, but that's not really where you go. If the facts are on your side and if you're
able to coherently put together an argument and Trump then goes back to holding up pieces
of paper that even he doesn't understand and just continues handing them to the interviewer
and they have spikes, keep Germany low. Here's here's one right here. United States, you take a number of cases
will last. Many were first asked out on a date with destiny. Is it worth. Again, it's courtesies. OK. And we have cases. The majestic four thousand Americans died. But I understand. I'm sad on cases. It's different. No, you're not reporting it correctly, Jonathan. I think I am. But if you take a look at this other charge,
look, this is our testing. I believe this is the testing. Yeah, we do not. To them. Well, don't we get credit for that? And because we do more tests, we have more
cases. In other words, we test more. We have. I'll take a look. The top one. That's a good thing. Not a bad thing. Get tough. Jonathan, if if if hospital rates were going
down and deaths were going down, I'd say terrific. You deserve to be priced for testing. But they're all going you know, they very
costly. Sixty thousand Americans are in hospital. You watch the house and don't read the papers. They usually talk about new cases, new cases,
new cases. I'm talking about death. Will you look? It's going up. Death is way down from where it was. It's it's a thousand a day. It was two and a half thousand. It went down to 500. Now it's going up again. The scariest part about this is that under
the most basic questions like these are simple pushbacks from Jonathan Swan. These aren't gotchas. This is what Trump should have been confronted
with all along. He immediately becomes incoherent. He has to fall back on repeating things that
don't make sense. And you really get the sense that Trump doesn't
understand what's going on. Yes. He also doesn't care. But it's not just that he doesn't care. He also doesn't get it. He can't pass the data. He can't understand the facts. And here Trump is confronted about his constant
refrain that coronaviruses, quote, under control when it's very clearly completely out of control. And take a look at Donald Trump's response. They listen to every word you say. They hang on your foot. They don't. To me or the media or Foushee, they think
we're fake news. They want to get their advice from you. And so when they hear you say everything's
under control, don't worry about wearing masks. I mean, these people, many of them are older
people with suppressed ideas of control. Yeah. Under this, giving them a false impression. I think it's under control. I'll tell you what, how a thousand Americans
are dying a day or dying. That's true. And you. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean we are doing everything
we can. It's under control. That's really bad, right? I mean, a thousand deaths a day. This interview was recorded a week ago. We've had a couple of fourteen fifteen hundred
death days since. And Trump says, well, it is what it is, but
it's under control. Either Donald Trump doesn't understand language
or he will not concede ever that this may not be under control. But Trump just repeats. It's under control. The deaths, they are what they are. But it's under control. It's like language has no meaning anymore. And then they get back into testing and cases. Take a look at that. I mean, I've heard you say this. Big countries don't test like we do. They don't show case. Just a couple of points on that. I wasn't gonna continue on the test, but you
said it. So we're testing so much cause it's spread
so far in America. We test and we do so much because we had the
ability to test. Okay, because we came up with to South Korea
and we weren't even we didn't even have a test when I took over. We didn't even have a test. Now, in all fairness, why would you have a
test? No test bars to resist. How would you say since there was no test
for this? No, we didn't have a test because there was
no choice in a very short order. We got one test. We got another test. It was broken. Many of those tests are now obsolete because
we are you know, it's cool science and all of a sudden something's better. So Jonathan Swan here doing a good job of
calling out the talking point that Trump keeps using that before Trump was in office, there
was no test for Corona virus. Yeah, that's right. It's a novel virus. It's called Kovik 19 because of the year 2019. And sometimes it seems Trump is trying to
use this phrase. We had no test when I took over to place blame
on Obama, which is really crazy. But sometimes what Trump tries to use that
talking point for is to say that the U.S. was in a uniquely difficult position relative
to other countries. Listen, we didn't have a test when I became
president, but that was the case for every country. In other words, it was not just the U.S. that
was facing a novel corona virus with no test. No other country had a test for it because
it was a novel corona virus. Nobody had a test, and yet other countries
were able to get the virus under control. Let's keep going in this part of the interview. But because we tested so many people, 55,
60 million people, very soon we get cases you test. Some kid has even just a little runny nose. It's a case and then you report many cases. So we look like we have more cases than massive
countries like China, which, by the way, doesn't report, as you know. I don't put any stock in, Charles. The point is, yeah, it is, because we are
so much better at testing than any other country in the world. We show more cases now, as you probably know
by now, if you've been watching my show, this is not true in terms of per capita testing. The United States has now crept up to 18th
in the world. But the important thing to understand, as
Jonathan Swan attempted to point out earlier, is that at this point, a lot of countries
don't need to test. So now arguing we are doing the most testing,
even if true, which it's not, is no longer equally relevant because the game is to develop
a testing program early. There are many countries now that the U.S.
is passing in tests per capita over time because those countries don't have some people with
symptoms. They don't have people to test because they
have so few cases early on, remember when we were 50 or 50 fifth in testing per capita? That was the time to be testing to to suppress
the spread of the virus. Many countries have done that. So at this point, even bragging about our
testing per capita rate becomes less relevant, because even though it's still only 18th in
the world, a lot of the countries we've passed since the countries that are 25th, 30th fortieth
in testing per capita, they don't have anybody to test anymore because they have so few cases. It's all just basic critical thinking and
stats stuff from high school that Trump doesn't get. Now, at one point, Donald Trump was asked
about the recent passing of Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights hero who Trump barely
acknowledged previously. And check out what Donald Trump says immediately,
making it all about him. John Lewis is lying in state in the US capital. How do you think history will remember, John? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know. John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He chose. I don't. I never met John, actually. I don't believe you find him impressive. I can't say one way or the other, I find a
lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive. But no. But I didn't find his story. He didn't come to my inauguration. He didn't come to my State of the Union speeches. And that's OK. That's his right. And again, nobody has done more for Americans
than I have. So he should have gone. But I think he made a big mistake by taking
your relationship with him out of it. Do you find his story impressive, what he's
done to this country? He was a person that devoted a lot of energy
and a lot of heart to civil rights. But there were many others also. I don't know him. He didn't come to my inauguration, he says
twice. And I am the savior of black people is what
Donald Trump manages to turn that into. Trump can not comment on anything outside
of his own relationship to the person or the event or the material in question. And Trump doesn't. All lives matter here. This is equivalent to all lives matter. Trump is asked about John Lewis, his contributions
to civil rights. And Trump says lots of people contributed
to civil rights. That is, again, like, well, we're we're talking
here about the victims of the Boston Marathon. Well, but people also died in 9/11. Okay. But what one black lives matter? Well, all lives matter. OK, yeah, but we're talking about black lives
right now. What about John Lewis, who just passed away
contributions to civil rights? Many people worked on civil rights sic. Really, really sick. And then here's our sort of desert. Our Danu man Trump once again wishing well
to a serial accused child sex trafficker, Zeeland Maxwell. Nice way to cap off the interview all over
the country. Prezant The other day, a reporter asked you
about Glenn Maxwell. You said, quote, I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years,
especially since I lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is. Miss isn't Glen Maxwell has been arrested
on allegations of child sex trafficking. Why would you wish such a person? I don't know that. But I do know that she has she's been arrested
for that. Her friend or boyfriend, Epstein, was either
killed or committed suicide in jail. She's now in jail. Yeah. I wish you well and wish you well. I'd wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty. I mean, you do know that. So you're saying you hope she doesn't die
in jail. Is that what you mean by wish her well? Her boyfriend died in jail and people are
still trying to figure out how did it happen? Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish you well. I'm not looking for anything bad for her. I'm not looking bad for anybody. And they took that. I mean, she's a child. Let's try to big deal. But all it is, is her boyfriend died. He died in jail. Was he killed? Was it suicide? I do. I wish her well. Famous last words maybe from Donald Trump. I have never seen anything like this. I thought 16 days ago that the Fox News Chris
Wallace interview was rock bottom. As far as interviews are concerned, no, this
is far, far worse. Let me know your thoughts. I'm on Twitter at David Pakman. And remember that you can get the daily audio
podcast excuse me, the daily audio podcast of the show every single day, right around
3:00 p.m. Eastern Time on whatever is your favorite podcasting app, Spotify, Google Play,
Pandora, I, heart radio I, iTunes, whichever you prefer. Get the daily audio podcast. We'll take a quick break and
be right back.
So what names will he call that brilliant reporter who skewered him through his tiny heart. Besides four letter ones and the iconic (to his tiny brain) fake news. Twitter here he comes.