Trump was met last night at the Libertarian Party Convention with a raucous crowd and a few rubber chickens from a pro-RFK Junior Superpack hoping to fire up an already raging audience. The moment Trump took the stage, heckling broke out from libertarians, trying to drown out the rows of his supporters in the back of the room. Now, with a CNN reporter, actually witnessed at least one libertarian throwing a punch at a Trump fan. Why did Trump brave the unfriendly audience for this speech? Well, because independent and third-party voters could actually make or break this race. But when you toss in the rest of the candidates who could appear on the ballot, it becomes clear that the two of them actually have a bit of a problem. As you can see, they're very, very close. All right, my panel is back, and John Breznan from Punchball News is joining us for this conversation as well. Trump's comments were interesting to this crowd last night because he also was clearly trying to talk to them, speak their language, and made some promises to folks folks in the Libertarian Party.

The Libertarian Party should nominate Trump for President of the United States. Only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don't do that. Keep getting you 3% every four years. I will put a libertarian in my cabinet. If you vote for me on day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbrich to a sentence of time, sir.

One person quoted by Politico, who is the director at large of the Libertarian National Committee, said, Any libertarian worth their stripes who has looked at Donald Trump's record will see that he barely aligns with the conservative camp and is a far cry from the libertarian Party. I guess that's true. Look, Trump's record in office wasn't particularly libertarian.

No. He grew government, which is the first thing. He ran huge deficits. I mean, he's not a libertarian at all.

He signed the surveillance law.

Covid was huge. He COVID spending, the whole operation warped speed and everything. They were against COVID vaccines or the whole COVID restrictions. So he's not a libertarian. I do like the idea of seeing a libertarian candidate for a cabinet. I would love to see how the Republican Party, the Senate Republican- Could Rand Paul get confirmed by the United States Senate? How Mitch McDonald and John Thune June and John Barroso and John Cornyn, how they all vote on libertarian candidate. That would be something to see.

We'll see if that actually comes to that. But there was one thing, Dave, you were in the room. He mentioned this pardon of Russ Albrook, who was the founder of Silk Road, which is a massive dark web drug market. He was actually charged with money laundering and drug trafficking, and he was given a life sentence. How was that received when he said that?

That was raqueous. There were signs distributed throughout the ballroom hours in advance of the speech saying, Free Ross. And he saw a sea of those. He also came to the convention a day after Vivek Ramaswami warmed him up. He spoke to the convention on Friday. And Vivek, who had run on pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Stodan said, And also Free Ross. And so the The message got back to the Trump people. This is a promise that if you go walk into a diner in Minnesota, there are people talking about that pardon? Probably not. Are there people who are very intensely focused on that issue? If you make that promise, they'll remember it. There are. That was a deliverable Trump does this in a way that Joe Biden and other candidates do not. He hears something, it's responsive. He does the return on investment calculation, and he said it. The word got out before the speech, but it really surprised people. That was the one moment where he had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

Cynics would call it pandering, but that's another word for it. Meantime, his running mate, Nicole Shanaan, RFK Junior's running mate, not Donald Trump's running mate. Rfk Junior's running mate. Rfk Junior was also in the crowd trying to court voters. Nicole Shanahan is She's actually going to be speaking later today. There have been not so positive stories about her character in the past week, from the Post and the New York Times. She has also been absent from the campaign trail. You've been following RFK Junior's campaign. What do you make of this?

The whole campaign is very weird. It's a very disorganized campaign. A lot of eccentric figures on the staff. She clearly was brought in, at least in part because she has a lot of money and can help him get on the ballot, which is expensive in a lot of states. Look, I think people are gravitating to RFK's campaign because they're looking for something different and weird and not the same as the two major party candidates. If there are people out there who think that this ticket is actually going to occupy the White House, maybe this gives them pause. But I think more people are looking at this as a protest vote. They're not necessarily looking at this as like, Well, I'm not sure that this is someone who could step into the office after President RFK Jr. Or When something happens to him, there's a lot of steps to get to that point. But she does seem like a bit of a flake, frankly. She's got an interesting record. She's never been in politics before.

She's very, very, very rich. About a billion dollars or so from her divorce settlement. There's also the question about RFK Jr. Why he's so important is because he's actually getting a significant amount of votes in a lot of these in terms of the polls, about 14% or so. That can make a huge difference in these swing states. Will he to get on the ballot in those swing states? This is the map of where he is on currently in these swing states. Michigan, of course, that is going to be this key battleground state. But there are other ones as well which they'll be contesting where they're still trying to get on the belt, which seems possible. North Carolina, Nevada being some of them, and New Hampshire as well. I mean, this is the real concern for both sides. It's unclear who he takes more support from, but this is why everyone's watching him so closely.

Well, I mean, everyone should be nervous if you're worried about states that could hinge on a few thousand voters. I think when it comes to a third-party candidate, what's more important, even than the candidate or the candidate's message, or in this case, candidate's last name, is having a big pile of money. That is what RFK got when he chose Nicole Shanaher was a big pile of money. It cost a lot of money to get on ballots in most of these states. You have to collect thousands and thousands of signatures. That's why you're seeing that they submitted in a number of states, but those signatures have to be vetted, verified. They have to be allowed on the ballot. I think, to be honest, they've done It's been a pretty impressive job so far, and both candidates, both major party candidates, should be worried if they're able to get on several of these other states.

All right. Also, look at this. There's a question about the brain worm, right? The brain of the dead worm that was in RFK Junior's brain. Look at this. 30% of voters are concerned about the parasite potentially impacting his ability to serve. 65% are not concerned. Brain worm is good politics.

He's actually not shying away from it either.

He joked about it.

I think what this poll shows you is that the brain worm is the least of his words. If you're polling it 10%, but 65% of voters don't care that you have a brain worm, clearly, they are concerned about other parts of your record, other aspects of your candidacy other than the brain worm.

No question about.