David Pakman (4:03)

Right.

Donald Trump (4:04)

And we could do for plenty of other wars, but we'll start with those two. Maybe someday somebody else will add a couple of more because we won a lot of good ones. But when I see other countries celebrating Victory Day, I watched it. I watched uk, I watched Russia. They were selling, celebrating Victory day, World War II. And I said, we got to have a Victory Day. Nobody even talked about it.

David Pakman (4:28)

Really inspirational. And you can tell Trump is deeply and spiritually connected to the plight of veterans. Trump also declaring, if we die, we must die, and we as men, we die without complaining. Really a wordsmith like no other.

Donald Trump (4:46)

Dear God, he said, we ask only this, that we, if we die, we must die. And we as men would die without complaining, without pleading, and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.

David Pakman (5:05)

And if that doesn't make sense to you, don't feel bad. It doesn't make sense to anybody. But I think the president was trying to refer to those who fought and died for their country in military service, which are the very same people who are the very same people that he and that he had said to John Kelly were suckers and losers during his first term. So your mileage may vary on Trump's patriotism and devotion to the veterans. Trump talking about firing people, I guess, from the VA who he says were sadists, sick and thieves.

Donald Trump (5:47)

And the other thing is, we fired thousands of people who didn't take care of our. Our great veterans. They were sadists, they were sick people, they were thieves. They were everything you want to name. And we got rid of over 9,000 of them. And then when Biden came in, he hired him back, many of them. But we got rid of them, and I think we got rid of them permanently. We replaced them with people who love our veterans, not people who are sick people.

David Pakman (6:16)

I looked into that and was not able to find any evidence that that is true. It just doesn't really make any sense to me. Trump also talking about how other countries hold events where they celebrate winning wars that we actually won, which is, of course, a complaint like no other that is hugely disrespectful to the veterans from our allies who fought alongside us. Trump doesn't seem to respect them.

Donald Trump (6:50)

You know, I was recently at an event and I saw France was celebrating Victory Day, but we didn't. And I saw France was celebrating another Victory Day for World War II. And other countries were celebrated. They were all celebrated. We're the one that won the wars.

David Pakman (7:09)

They were celebrating. We're really the ones who won the wars. Now, the veterans I know have great respect for the allies of the United States who fought beside them. Donald Trump doesn't seem to respect the veterans from our allies. And then finally, in a weird moment, dare I say Kafka esque, Donald Trump saying that. MAGA Mike Johnson is a great man. Not necessarily today, but someday he will be known as a great man.

Donald Trump (7:45)

And we're also honored to be joined by a great man. He will go down as a great man someday.

David Pakman (7:52)

Speaker Mike Johnson, Speaker 1 Someday, someday, not today, but someday, Trump will go down. MAGA Mike Johnson will go down as a great man. Listen, it's very clear that on no level does Donald Trump really value or respect our veterans. Trump, you know, I, I did a thing with Adam Kinzinger yesterday, former Republican congressman who's also a veteran. And I said, you know, aside from whether we agree with every mission troops are sent on, I really respect people who choose to join the military and they are responsible for me not having to. And that is a really big deal. Trump got a letter to avoid being drafted. So we know for Trump, it's less about, hey, if there were a draft, you just get yourself a letter. He's not really connected to the sacrifice and the meaning, but this guy is the furthest thing from someone who respects vets, respects the troops. And in fact, policy has been basically the opposite. And on Veterans Day, we looked at what's happening with aviation. It is not so good. The Trump administration's transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, former reality show contestant, says that the government cannot guarantee airplane safety. Now, how did he mean it? Well, let's play the clip. There's a lot to talk about here.

Donald Trump (9:23)

Listen, you can walk outside. I can't guarantee your safety. You get in your car. I can't, I mean, I can't guarantee safety, but I have to look at the risk in this system.

David Pakman (9:32)

And then we have to make decisions.

Donald Trump (9:34)

Based on that risk and based on that pressure.

David Pakman (9:37)

So even before Sean Duffy said he, he as secretary of Transportation cannot guarantee the safety of air travelers. We still knew that. We had an MTV Real World contestant running the Department of Transportation. We already should have been afraid, but this is now extra disgusting. Now, I know that there are those who are looking to sort of minimize what Sean Duffy says by saying there's no guarantees in life. You know, you can do all of the safety checks. You can. You can do all of the maintenance. You can go through every procedure correctly. And sometimes planes can crash, or you walk out of your front door and you get run over by the garbage truck. You just don't know there's no guarantees in life. That's the way that they are sort of lining it up. But the truth is that American aviation typically is extraordinarily safe. And among questions as to whether safety is diminished in the current circumstances, Duffy, rather than saying, no, safety is not diminished, she just goes, listen, I can't. Nobody's really safe from anything. I care. I can't guarantee anybody's safety. And in the context of this, he threatens air traffic controllers who didn't come to work during the shutdown. Remember, they weren't getting paid. Some of them had to take second jobs. And Sean Duffy goes, I'm concerned about the patriotism of the air traffic controllers who called out forced mandatory patriotism.

Donald Trump (11:04)

Presidents also talked about penalizing some of these air traffic controllers who took sick time.

David Pakman (11:09)

So can you talk about what that.

Donald Trump (11:11)

Plan would look like there? Well, my concern is for those air traffic controllers who, before they missed a paycheck and we're in the shutdown, they.

David Pakman (11:20)

Decided that is such a sleazy thing, by the way, before they missed the paycheck. You know what that means? You do. You know what he's talking about? What he's saying is there was a period during the shutdown before their next check came in, during which they technically hadn't missed the paycheck yet, but they knew they weren't getting paid. They knew that they were showing up for hours for which they would not be paid. And many of them went and had to work an additional job. They hadn't yet missed the paycheck. Give me a break. They were working for free on a.

Donald Trump (11:52)

On a continual basis not to show up for work.

Adam Kinzinger (11:55)

They don't know how long the shutdown.

Donald Trump (11:58)

Was going to be. They had missed a pay period and they didn't come to work.

Adam Kinzinger (12:01)

I'm concerned about those controllers.

Donald Trump (12:03)

I'm concerned about their dedication. I'm concerned about their patriotism.

Adam Kinzinger (12:07)

And so we haven't made a decision.

Donald Trump (12:09)

But we are going to look at those controllers who continually made the decision not to show up for work.

David Pakman (12:17)

Can you imagine? It's the start of a new pay period. You wouldn't be paid for today for 10 or 14 days anyway, but you're going to work for free. Oh, well, then since I haven't yet missed the paycheck, then I should just be happy to be here. He expects them to work for free. And of course, many had second jobs they had to go to since they knew they weren't getting paid, they were going to be getting a missed paycheck. Finally, Duffy says there are going to be issues in the airspace. We might have airlines that say we're grounding our planes. That is how serious this is. Well, it would be nice if we had someone in charge of this stuff to fix it. Right.

Donald Trump (12:54)

You mentioned that if the House does.

Scott Bessant (12:57)

Not vote or if the government does.

Interviewer/Host (12:58)

Not reopen, there would be massive disruptions this weekend.

Donald Trump (13:01)

Can you quantify that in terms of.

Scott Bessant (13:03)

Like a percentage of flights canceled?

Donald Trump (13:05)

So I can't quantify, but in my conversations with the airlines and with the FAA and what we're seeing with air traffic controllers, we. We feel there are some going to be significant issues in the airspace to quantify it. I don't have a crystal ball for you, but I can tell you what.

David Pakman (13:24)

We'Re seeing with all of our equities.

Donald Trump (13:26)

There will be real disruption.

David Pakman (13:27)

Yeah, if only we had someone in charge of the country's transportation system who could work on this stuff. So this is a reminder or it's a callback to some structural realities about Republicans and the federal government. To a great degree, the shutdown is the policy break the faa and it becomes greater proof that the government can't do anything. Maybe we should deregulate. Maybe we should privatize. They use this playbook with usps. They use this playbook with cdc. They use it with public education. They've used it with Social Security. Air traffic controllers were not getting paid. They were stressed, some of them unable to afford child care or medicine or health care. And Duffy flips it into a loyalty test work for. I'm concerned that some of these air traffic controllers who weren't here, many of whom were working other jobs where they were getting paid, they might be a little bit unpatriotic. We've got to be really worried about that. And this is classic authoritarian psychology. You demand sacrifice from others and you offer none. It's. You go back to 20th century authoritarianism. It is a classic. And you've got a society slipping into chaos. And some of the first systems to fail are the ones that are high complexity, low margin for error, high complexity, low margin for error. Air traffic control is one of those. Power grids are one of those. Health care is one of those. If the FAA is saying it's going to be chaos and we can't guarantee safety, that is a sign that the state is losing its ability to manage complexity and complexity and Donald Trump do not Exactly Go Together have you ever wanted to feel more connected to your partner but found that daily life gets in the way? There is an app designed specifically to help couples deepen their bond called Paired. 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The link is in the description Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists, he's threatened deportation as political punishment, he's expanded executive authority in ways we have not seen in modern history. These are real changes that are happening right now. And what's even more alarming is that a lot of the media is either glossing over the worst of it or they're reframing it. So it all sounds a little more palatable. And that is why I use Ground News. This is a news comparison tool. It doesn't just feed you headlines, it shows you here's how different outlets, left, right, center, are covering the same story. And this is one of the few tools I know of that can really help you detect the political spin, the bias catch stories that your usual sources might downplay or not cover at all on everything from immigration policy to economic shifts. If you want to get a bigger picture, a broader picture of what's being reported, Ground News is an invaluable source to keep you informed. And Ground News is offering my audience 40% off their top tier Vantage plan. You'll only pay five bucks a month. Go to ground dot news, slash pacman or enter the code PACMAN in the app to get started. The link is in the description. This is an audience supported program, a progressive independent media show and the best ways to support the work that we do are getting a membership on my website, join pacman.com or getting a Substack Premium subscription at substack.david pakman.com now for the month of November, we are raising money through membership for the hunger charity Feeding America. This is a phenomenal charity that supports local food banks. Every first payment from new memberships or gift memberships this month will be sent directly to Feeding America. And so far, thanks to your support, we've raised over $12,000 and supported over 120,000 meals, which are wild numbers. Head on over to join pacman.com or substack.david pakman.com get yourself a membership and that first payment, be it monthly or yearly, in its entirety, will be donated to Feeding America. History is being made today, and Donald Trump's worst nightmare is about to become a reality because we've had months of stalling and delays and desperate attempts to block the this moment. But the Jeffrey Epstein files petition is finally getting its 218th signature. Now let me explain why this matters, why Trump should be worried. And we have new developments. Just hours ago, newly elected Representative Adelita Grijalva, who's a fan of this show, was on the show and hi to her kids, who I was told are fans of the show. She will be finally taking her rightful place in the House of Representatives. And this is not routine political business because it is going to trigger something the White House really wanted to prevent, which is a forced vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein case files. Now Grijalva is expected to provide, and she told me she would, the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Now if you're not familiar with how this works, a discharge petition is a tool that lets rank and file members of Congress bypass leadership. And if 218 members sign one, a majority of all 435 House districts, they can force a floor vote on anything, even if leadership is against it. And that's what makes this extraordinary. This is a bipartisan effort. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has joined Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. They're spearheading this and they are moving forward. When you have Republicans and Democrats working together, you know it's serious. Now I want to be clear about what happens next, it's not over. Think about this as game one of a series. Once Adelita Grijalva signs, there are seven legislative days which must pass. This is called the ripening period. We know we've ripened mangoes, right? So we know what that means. You need the ripening before a member can move to bring the petition to the floor. Then Speaker Mike Johnson has up to two legislative days to schedule a vote. So the earliest we could see an actual House floor vote is probably not until the first week of December, once you account for days off or Thanksgiving and the entire thing. Now Donald Trump knows what's coming. This is a bill that would force lawmakers, especially Republicans, to choose between are we going to side with Trump or are we going to back the release of files? We which could put a spotlight on the crimes of the convicted sex offender and potentially expose Donald Trump's involvement. Now, I have to be upfront about the obstacles ahead. Even if this passes the House, it would still have to pass the Republican led Senate and it is not clear that that is going to happen. We also have a situation where, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said to CNN he doesn't think the chamber needs to pass this. And when asked whether the Senate should vote on the bill, he said, I don't really know what that's going to achieve. And don't forget that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to force a vote back in September on a similar bill, but Senate Republicans killed the measure. And we need to be thinking about whether that might happen.

Interviewer/Host (21:47)

Now.

David Pakman (21:48)

You might say, well, if the path forward is so difficult, why, why is this important? It's going to force accountability because every single member of the House is going to have to go on record. They will have to declare, I want transparency or I want to protect whoever is in the files. Is it Trump? Is it other people? We don't really know, but they would be on the side of protection rather than transparency. It is political gold of sorts because this is information voters deserve to have. Voters deserve to know. My elected official voted for transparency or voted to help the COVID up. And so I see this as a bigger moment than just partizan politics. This is like a fundamental question. Do our elected officials believe in transparency and justice, or do they believe some people are above the law and deserve to be protected by some of the most powerful institutions that exist in the country? Trump has spent months trying to prevent this day from coming. He has called the effort a distraction. He's dismissed it. He says no one cares about this, and his allies have done everything possible to delay it. But we now are finally getting that 218th signature. The procedural wheels are in motion. Will the files ultimately be released? Remains to be seen. But what I can tell you is that Trump and every single member of Congress will now have to answer for their position on this issue. And for a guy who has spent his entire life avoiding accountability, that is a nightmare scenario. So the game is on. The country is watching. We are soon going to see where this lands. But in the midst of all of this, there are some stunning, explosive emails about exactly this issue. We have to talk about what just dropped from the House Oversight Committee. This is massive. House Democrats have released emails written by Jeffrey Epstein himself, which contradict everything Donald Trump has been saying about his relationship with the convicted sex offender. These are explicit claims that Trump knew about all of it. He knew about Epstein's abuse of young women or girls. And also, it appears as though there was coordination about what would be publicly said about that. The House Oversight Committee got these emails from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. They are from 2011 to 2019, meaning these were all written after Jeffrey Epstein's suspicious plea deal down in Florida. The first email is from April of 2021. And it is Epstein writing to. It is from. It is from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell here. And he says the following. I want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim, which is redacted. Victim spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, etc. I'm 75% there. Think about what Epstein is saying here. The dog, the dog that hasn't barked. He's saying Trump is the person who could have spoken up. He could have exposed Jeffrey Epstein. He spent hours at Epstein's house with one of the victims. But Trump didn't say anything because as Epstein then claims, maybe Trump himself is implicated. And that's why Trump hasn't spoken out, because he is accused in this email by Jeffrey Epstein of having spent hours at Epstein's house with the victim. Ghislaine Maxwell's response was, I have been thinking about that. Now it gets worse. In January of 2019, Epstein is emailing with Michael Wolff. Michael Wolff is the same author who writes the Tell all books about the Trump White House. And Epstein writes the following. Victim redacted. Mar? A Lago blank redacted. Trump said he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked G. Lane to stop. That is To Michael Wolf from Jeffrey Epstein saying, of course Trump knew about the girls. Not maybe he suspected, maybe he inferred, of course he knew. Of course he knew. And according to Epstein, this is. I'm giving you the full information. Trump actually intervened at some point. He says asked, told G. Lane to stop. Now, then it gets even more interesting. We have another email from December of 2015. This is during the Republican primary. Michael Wolf warns Epstein, CNN is planning to ask Trump about your relationship. Epstein's response here is, if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? The idea here is Epstein is trying to help Trump figure out, what do you say? They're trying to strategize, how do we handle media questions. This is during the campaign, years after they supposedly had this falling out. And at least from this email, there's the suggestion that they would be helping Trump craft an answer for this. Michael Wolf responds and says, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say, jeffrey's a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime. I want to be intellectually honest here. We don't have the full email chains. Trump has never been charged with any crime related to Jeffrey Epstein. But you've got to look at the pattern, which is Trump consistently lying about and minimizing his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. There's video of them partying together, Trump saying, epstein's a terrific guy. He likes beautiful women as much as I do, and some of them are on the younger side. The Trump administration promised to release the Epstein files, then they backtracked. They're fighting House efforts to force the release. If Trump really has nothing to hide, why not release everything? And these emails certainly suggest Trump knew much more than he has acknowledged. And now we have Epstein's own words saying that that is the case. Even if Epstein is lying in these emails, why would he lie in private emails? These were not public statements meant to brag about anything. It doesn't make sense. So the emails raise major questions about what else the White House is hiding. We have a president who has repeatedly lied about the relationship he had with a notorious sex trafficker. We have emails suggesting Trump knew about the abuse, he stayed silent about the abuse, and we have an administration that is hiding documents that the public deserves to see. I want to once more mention this really is about the victims who are almost never talked about in this context. These are women now, many of them abused as teenagers, who deserve to know the full truth about everyone who was complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. Now, Trump as of this moment, and in fact, I will double check whether there's any additional declarations or explosions on Truth Social. No, as of this moment, Trump has not weighed in on it, but I would expect at some point that he says it's a hoax or whatever. The emails are real. The emails exist, they're specific and they appear to be completely and totally devastating. Do people realize that they are being lied to about everything that this administration is currently promising? Is there anything that this administration won't lie about? Here is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen, who has gone through a number of the promises that Donald Trump has made. And he is saying things that I don't believe. He is saying things many in my audience don't believe. But are the magas falling for this stuff? Here is Besant saying very soon every child born for the next three years will get a thousand dollars invested in the stock market. Take a look.

Donald Trump (30:21)

The president has thrown out. And I'll just tell you what he said to make it shorter. He said, hey, I'm thinking about $2,000 stimulus checks coming from the tariffs to everybody and 50 year mortgages. First off on the $2,000 stimulus checks, isn't that like paying using your overdraft to pay off your credit cards? Or isn't it like, you know, taking money from a credit card and paying off your bills? Do you think that that's the most financial, financially responsible thing to do?

Scott Bessant (30:44)

Well, there are a lot of options. The president's talking about a $2,000 rebate and that would be for families making less than say, $100,000.

Donald Trump (30:57)

Have you decided on that yet?

Scott Bessant (30:59)

We haven't. We haven't. It's in discussion. But the other thing to think about, Brian, is that what we did with the tax bill is actually financing the President's no tax on tips over time. Social Security and the big refunds you're going to see are a result of that. So that's another payment to the American people. And then the other thing you're going to see on the in the middle of the year are these Trump accounts. Every child born retroactively to January first for the next three years is going to get a thousand dollar account that's going to be invested in the US Stock market.

David Pakman (31:40)

So, all right, so listen, in theory, in July of next year, there will be these Trump accounts made available. They will be retroactive to 2025. My, my younger baby daughter, in theory, would qualify for that. If that does come to pass, I will be honest with you and I will tell you about that. And it would be a thousand bucks in her account.

Interviewer/Host (32:05)

Cool.

David Pakman (32:06)

But, but the $2,000 that they're talking about, it's not clear at all that that is going to happen. And we're going to go back to that in a moment. But they are framing all of this up with dishonest lies. Here is Besant, also today on Newsmax, shamelessly lying, saying everything that's happened is inherited and everything is going great right now.

Scott Bessant (32:28)

And we came in, we inherited a mess. We have brought the inflation down. And Rob, there are two ways for curing affordability. There's bringing inflation down because some of the things, some of the prices we are going to be able to bring down. So energy prices, gasoline down quite a bit. Four year low. Yeah, four year low.

David Pakman (32:52)

Understand that electricity prices are up 10%. The mess they inherited is one where inflation has basically been flat.

Interviewer/Host (33:01)

Flat.

David Pakman (33:01)

Inflation has been bouncing between 2 and a half and 3% for a while now, predating Donald Trump taking office. Remember that there are a lot of people they are taking advantage of people who don't know the difference between inflation coming down and prices coming down. If inflation is above zero, prices are going up. If inflation goes from 5% to 4%, inflation has come down, but prices are going up. The rate at which prices are going up has slowed down. And this is, it's sort of like what, what is calculus? Calculus is measuring the speed to the change of something. So you could say, okay, in the imagine you're in a car, right? You hit the gas in the first 10 seconds you go from 0 to 60, and in the next 10 seconds you go from 60 to 90. Well, the speed at which you are accelerating has slowed down, but you are still accelerating. And that is what we're talking about here. The price level continues to go up, but not even at a lower rate, at the same rate as it was towards the end of Joe Biden's presidency. But Bessant just lies and unfortunately a lot of people don't know the difference. Here's another one. What Besant disaster? What is the treasury doing to reduce job insecurity? He just Straight up lies.

Donald Trump (34:28)

What does the Treasury Department and the dollar itself in your job have to do with lessening job insecurity in this country?

Scott Bessant (34:38)

Well, I think what President Trump's doing in terms of bringing back high paying percentage of manufacturing jobs to the US is all about job job security.

Donald Trump (34:46)

How many jobs have come back?

Scott Bessant (34:48)

Sorry, that is just starting. I was down in South Carolina.

David Pakman (34:53)

Translation, nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Trump is bringing back high paying manufacturing jobs. Oh, how many? Well, none yet. Oh, in fact, we've reported on this data. Manufacturing, the manufacturing index has declined. And for all of this talk about bringing back manufacturing jobs, the United States has many open manufacturing jobs that it turns out a lot of Americans don't want. They don't want, presumably because they don't pay enough. You've got to, you've got to offer a higher price for labor if you want people to take some of these jobs. Even Besson admits when pushed, well, none of it has actually happened yet. The topic of the two thousand dollar dividend that Trump announced for everybody but the very wealthy, everybody's getting 2,000 bucks. Besant was asked about that on ABC. Here's what he said.

Scott Bessant (35:45)

You know, it could, the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms in lots of ways, George. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the President's agenda.

David Pakman (35:57)

Ah, so it might not really be a two thousand dollar check. They might be tax decreases people have already gotten, even though most people have not gotten that.

Scott Bessant (36:09)

You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

David Pakman (36:11)

Ah, the two thousand dollar dividend is from Trump removing taxes on tips, which of course most people who are in tipped jobs will not really be materially affected by that because of the way tax brackets are set up.

Interviewer/Host (36:26)

Okay, excellent.

Scott Bessant (36:26)

Social Security deductibility of auto loans. So you know, those are substantial deductions.

David Pakman (36:33)

So you're sending me two grand. Well, I made interest on auto loans, tax deductible, so you're not sending me anything right now. One funny thing is the idea is we're going to take the tariff money and send everybody 2,000 bucks. The problem is the tariff money is paid for by Americans and so at best you're returning tariff money that they are paying. The bigger problem is there haven't been $2,000 per American collected in tariffs. So the math doesn't work. No matter what. I don't think people are getting anything. And then Bessant says, big picture, listen, it's all going to get better for everybody. It's going to be good and the.

Scott Bessant (37:15)

American people are going to start feeling better. But look, this has been a tough.

Donald Trump (37:21)

Period, which you feel like only nine months in you inherited. But there are people that say the numbers are good in some areas, but I don't feel it. What do you say to those people? Say I don't feel it. Be patient.

Scott Bessant (37:33)

I say that you are going to feel it. That I was just down in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina on Friday and this new Boeing plant is opening up. That's a thousand new jobs that the President has brought back. There was a I went to a Rare Earths plan plant up in Sumter, South Carolina. 800 construction jobs, 300 permanent jobs that they think could come. 3,000 permanent jobs. And the great part of the story there is those were Caterpillar workers who have been laid off. Thanks to President Trump, a new factory has moved in.

Donald Trump (38:12)

Yeah.

David Pakman (38:12)

Now a couple little details here. The South Carolina Boeing plant that he's referring to, as far as I know, is a plan that was in place predating Trump's presidency. I researched it. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Donald Trump. This doesn't change the fact that overall the manufacturing job level is coming down. But we went very quickly from lower prices on day one to look for it in 2026. Are people falling for this stuff? I want to hear from you. Are people in your communities falling for this stuff? Leave a Comment make sure to like the video make sure to hit the subscribe button on YouTube every time you Google your name, you will probably find dozens of sites that expose your personal information. This can include phone number, home address, family details. It's just sitting there waiting to be scraped or abused. Incogni is a privacy service. They go after these sites on your behalf. They contact the data brokers, they they demand your data be removed, which the brokers are legally required to do. Incogni will automatically remove your information from hundreds of the biggest and most notorious data broker sites. But you're not just limited to those. You can use Incogni's custom removal. If you find your info on a website outside of Incogni's default list, team at Incogni will work to get that information removed. This is how you protect yourself and your family from identity theft, financial scams, harassment, even AI powered profiling by ad companies. And Incogni's data removal process is the only one verified independently by Deloitte. This gives them a unique level of credibility. Try Incogni risk free and get 60% off when you go to incogni.com/pacman and use the code PACMAN. The link is in the description. I had a great conversation on my substack live with former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. In the conversation we're about to hear, he explains why he never plans to vote Republican again. He talks about his new documentary. He explains his perspective on the Griper ism that is infecting the Republican Party and a lot of other stuff. This was a great conversation with former Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

Interviewer/Host (40:32)

It's great to speak today with former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, also a veteran joining us on Veterans Day. And we thank him for his service generally. And I specifically do because for every person that chose to do made it less likely I would have to. And for that I am extremely, extremely grateful. Good, really good to talk to you. I'm glad we're able to do this.

Adam Kinzinger (40:58)

Yeah, you too. By the way, I always want to say know thank you for paying your taxes because that allowed me to fly America's airplanes. It was the best gig I've ever had in my life. And I kind of miss it. I had to retire. I kind of miss it.

Interviewer/Host (41:12)

Well, I contributed, I guess, in some way, some small way.

Adam Kinzinger (41:15)

Then there you go.

Interviewer/Host (41:17)

The documentary about you really is the last Republican. It was produced by our friends over at Midas Touch under the Midas Studios umbrella. And it's really interesting. I encourage people in my audience to check it out.

David Pakman (41:31)

It's really, I mean, listen, I, I.

Interviewer/Host (41:33)

In a sense, it's sort of the movie equivalent of like Kamala's book and Jonathan Allen's book and Jake Tapper's books. These are books that people who follow the political space would be very interested in. And the film is sort of an audio visual representation of that. I think my audience would find it really interesting. A couple of the things I want.

David Pakman (41:54)

To ask you about.

Interviewer/Host (41:55)

One is the film does portray a number of different tensions. And so, for example, there's the tension between the Republicans who knew something was wrong but didn't feel compelled to be public about it, and those who did, those who are in the sort of true believer category and those who like you sort of thought more for themselves. Can you give us a little bit of the lay of the land in the party at the time that the election fraud claims were going on, at the time that the January Six Committee was going on, like, how divided was the Republican Party?

Adam Kinzinger (42:33)

Really divided. And by the way, everybody watching it, it's more than just a political documentary too. There's a lot of human elements, and I would encourage Apple tv, Amazon prime, but. And I have no financial interest in it, too, so make that clear. But look, I mean, the gop, really, since the day I got elected, so I was elected in 2010. I mean, we were battling the far right in the party. And initially, the far right was, you know, just a small part. I always make the joke, like, we do these things called Lincoln Day Dinners, where it's the fundraiser for the county and the county party, and there was always, like, one table of weirdos, right? And so that was the weirdo table. But over time, that grew. And then when Donald Trump came, that exploded, right? And basically that became mainstream. So after the election, the night of the election, Trump comes out, says, frankly, the election has been stolen from us, right? And that's where I'm like, dude, we have to speak out on this. The one thing about democracy that you need, the only thing, honestly, is a trust that the system to count votes works. That's it. Everything else you can disagree on. And so I started speaking out, and there were. Look, most of the people in the gop, at least on the House side, agreed with me. About half of them would speak out. The other half were like, oh, just wait till December 15th when it's official, and then he'll acquiesce. And then it became, oh, just wait until the turn of the year. And then, oh, just wait until January 6th. And what you see is just this absolute, like, cowardice, right? And so there became really strong tension eventually to where it culminated, you know, with the impeachment vote. And then there was that intervening time between basically January 6th and the very beginning of February, where I think the party could have gone a very different way. And I was trying to get the other nine people that voted to impeach with me to basically take over the party, to just kind of declare, like, hey, this. You know, we're in charge now, right? Because we needed to take out Kevin McCarthy. He's the one that helped the leader of this. And the other nine impeachers, unfortunately, were all saying, like, hey, this is time to just heal the party. You know, everybody. I mean, really, to be fair, everybody thought Trump was done then everybody. Nobody showed up at Andrews when he left. But the thing that changed it, and the guy that owns Donald Trump's resurgence is Kevin McCarthy. Because when he went down to Mar A Lago, when he got his picture taken with Donald Trump, the party's like, well, I guess it's Trump. And everything turned on A dime. And so, yeah, tons of tension. Particularly then when I got on the January 6th committee, I mean, I basically became Persona non grata. I'm still friends with the people I was friends with, but politically, you. You're basically kicked out.

Interviewer/Host (45:21)

Were there people back channeling with you saying, you got to get out of this January 6th committee thing, or was it basically, like, as people saw that you were speaking out and scheduled to be on it, it was sort of like, people knew there was no talking you out of it.

Adam Kinzinger (45:36)

Yeah, they knew. I mean, because the fact that I made the decision to get on it, I mean, that was. You know, I equate it politically to like, hey, take that hill. You're not going to make it to that hill, but the guys behind you might, right? And so when you make that decision, they know. And plus, these folks know that I was always kind of a. I'm not saying this to sound like Jesus, but like a man of conviction, right? If I had my mindset to something, I'd do it. And look, here's the thing, man. The oath that you take, I think, forced you to have to vote to impeach and, you know, to serve on the committee if asked. Unfortunately, there were only two of us that made that decision. But the oath is very clear. Defend the Constitution. And that day, the Constitution wasn't defended. So. But I would still have for a while. It was maddening. People would come up to me and be like, hey, thanks for doing it. I can't do it because my district's too Republican, but thank you. And I'm like, dude, my district is like, super Republican too, but okay, whatever. Whatever makes you feel good.

Interviewer/Host (46:40)

You know, there's this thing that definitely happens on both sides to a degree, and I'll give you an example from the left. I was just at crooked con in D.C. over the weekend, and I spoke to.

David Pakman (46:52)

I'm not going to out anybody, but.

Interviewer/Host (46:54)

I spoke to, like, five people, prominent, either lawmakers or, like, podcast independent media. People who confided in me. My actual opinion about X thing is the following. I can't say that right now because.

David Pakman (47:12)

The risk I would become pn.

Adam Kinzinger (47:15)

Yeah.

Interviewer/Host (47:16)

And I think that this is terrible. It's a form of self. Self censorship. People in my audience, I think, would be shocked to hear who these people were and what the topics were. And I wonder, when it came to that, in the Republican Party at this time, was it about. I'm worried Trump will target me if I do this. I just want to maintain access to power. If he eventually comes back into power. Like, what was the motivator for people who had an opinion but they weren't saying it?

Adam Kinzinger (47:44)

So here's the thing that I. And I, and I. If I forget, remind me, because I'd like to come back to how you opened it. You know, there's. I've come to believe that people fear more than they fear death. They fear being kicked out of their truck. They also fear, when you're a person with a title. I mean, keep in mind, when you're a US Congressman, any room you walk into, except in the White House, you are the most powerful person in that room and probably the center of attention. That becomes a pretty powerful kind of identity, how you see yourself. So I think a lot of it was they were fearful because they knew that they would have to basically give up their job to do it. And there's a sense of, I'll be kicked out of the tribe, I'll be excommunicated. And that's a scary thing. Trust me, I've gone through it. It's not fun. I think there was some of that. There's also, yes, Donald Trump can make an example of me, but the thing people feared the most was the base, the base of Republican voters that Donald Trump had turned into a cult. I mean, let's just be clear. Not every Republican is in the cult, but every one of the hardcore magas it is. And what you see in cult behavior, by the way, is you see a leader that basically creates this. Do whatever I say, even if it doesn't make sense. You have that. But the one thing and Democrats can learn from this that Donald Trump does really well is he forgives. Okay? So if you decide you want to come crawling back, I could do this tomorrow and I'd be in the White House tomorrow. If you decide you want to come crawling back, he'll allow you to. Now, the rule is you can never cross me again, but he'll allow you to come back. And that's a lesson to Democrats, because, like, I interview people that leave MAGA all the time, some of them just within the last few weeks. And the comments I get from people that are granted, it's online, but it's just like, you should have known to whoever I'm interviewing or this is your fault. Screw you. And it's like, listen, guys, I get it. And I think people that leave MAGA that want your attention have to admit that they were wrong, but we have to welcome them. I mean, because, look, this last election we lost because we didn't have enough people. So unless we're just creating more people out of thin air, we gotta win people over. And I do want to touch on the thing about, like, the podcasting space and everything. I'm really worried about Democrats on that end. Obviously, the last two election cycles, I voted straight Democrat. I'm not gonna vote Republican again. And so my real interest is helping Democrats. Right. And winning the majority in the House and the Senate. Um, this happened in the Republican Party, where there became this litmus test. And if you go outside of it or you have a different opinion, you lose donations, you lose sponsors, you lose whatever. And so you create a perfect environment for somebody like Trump to come along for Democrats. Look, you know, I've experienced this with my substack, right? You write something that's not exactly in line or perfect, and people, oh, I'm unsubscribing. Right. I'm leaving. I thought you were different. And that is a scary thing, because, frankly, if you want to be a big tent party, and you have to be to win, you've got to welcome some opinions that are not exactly line up. I'm married, happily married. We don't agree on everything.

Interviewer/Host (51:04)

You know, I'm going to make a small adjustment to my ring light. People saying I look too yellow. I don't want that. I don't want to look jaundice. Today, I'm really interested in you saying you're never voting Republican again. Let me give you a little context for this, because this is a topic I plan, plan to bring up. I've had Sarah Matthews on a couple times, who was deputy press secretary to Donald Trump towards the end alongside Kayleigh McEnany.

Adam Kinzinger (51:28)

Great person.

Interviewer/Host (51:28)

And she basically said.

David Pakman (51:30)

I'm paraphrasing, that she is basically still.

Interviewer/Host (51:33)

Kind of like a moderate Republican. And so. And she didn't name these people, but I'll name them. If it was someone like a Mitt Romney or a John McCain or something like that, that would bring her right back to enthusiasm for the voting for those Republicans. Have your political views changed where you no longer see yourself even as, like, a moderate Republican?

Adam Kinzinger (51:58)

No, look, I still believe what I've always believed right now. The good thing, when you kind of leave a party, so to speak, you. It gives you the flexibility to then kind of relook at what you believe. Right? Because it would be like, let's take something like an issue that nobody knows much about, Net neutrality, Right? Okay. That's an issue. It was a big issue for a while. You kind of take a position based on, well, the party's kind of here, so I'm going to go there. And you know, obviously you have pressure on issues, so it allows you to take a look at those things again. So I've even further moderated as a moderate Republican, but the party completely changed. Right. And why I say, I guess I said I'd never vote Republican again, certainly not in the foreseeable future. Because for me it's like, let's say a Mitt Romney comes along, okay? Ultimately, even though I think Mitt is an honorable person and would be a good president, ultimately he would be enabling a structure or a party that has made it very clear that they do not believe anymore in liberal democracy. And until that is pulled out root and stem, until that is burned out of the party, which it will be someday, if the party wants to survive, then I can't support that. Right. And then who would you be putting in power? Let's say Mitt Romney wins. Who would be Secretary of State, secretary of defense? All that stuff, people that went along with Donald Trump. And to me that is an unforgivable sin as long as they continue to say what they did was right. So that's the battle. I mean, it's like, do I agree with Democrats on everything? Obviously not. But I don't think any Democrat agrees with the Democrats on everything. But I definitely want them to win because to me, I use the example. It's like being in a trench in Ukraine, okay? And I have a target, a bad guy 5 meters away and 130 meters away. All of our attention should be focused on the guy that's five meters away. The 30 meter guy you can deal with later. Right? And that's where we're at the threat. The five meter is democracy. And all the stuff we may disagree on. I mean, we will sit around someday around a campfire because we don't have electricity anymore, wishing for the day we just simply disagreed on issues.

Interviewer/Host (54:16)

Do you have any opinion or sense of what is quote, really going on with this sort of, how do I want to say it? There's this kind of like groiper versus MAGA thing that's developing now where people like Tucker Carlson have kind of treated with kid gloves, this white nationalist Nick Fuentes. And even though I think now the president and vice president have denounced to some degree or done the whole I don't know anything about it type type of thing like do what, what do you think is the. Not that Nick Fuentes is going to.

David Pakman (54:47)

Be the next nominee.

Interviewer/Host (54:48)

He wouldn't even be Old enough. But what do you think is the. The meaning of this thing that's kind of taking place here?

Adam Kinzinger (54:54)

I'm glad you asked him, by the way. If you're a parent out there with a young kid, a young guy in your life, right. As a child, and. And it's appropriate look at what they're doing online. And I. I think generally that's good advice. But, like, this is deeper than I think a lot of people realize, particularly young among young men. And this is one of my passions that I'm trying to focus on is why are we losing men? Why is the definition of ma. First off, masculinity is not toxic. There is toxic masculinity, but masculinity is a great thing. But the definition has become, among these gripers, like, it's yelling, it's punching down, it's being mean to women. It's putting women in their place. Right. And what we need is. Is good male leaders to come along and talk about what real masculinity is. It's like punching up. It's fighting for a cause, taking care of your family, et cetera. So what you're seeing is that that groiper movement under Nick Fuentes kind of grew in the shadows because he used a lot of people's racial animus, you know, animus against women. They talk about incels. So you get a lot of these guys that. I mean, we all in high school sometimes felt like we couldn't date women or whatever, but they used that anger and turn it into, women don't deserve it. And so for a while, people have been kind of, by the way, Nick Fuentes went and had lunch with Donald Trump at Mar A Lago. That's an important point to remember with Kanye. But there. There. There's always been a firewall on the far right. You have the elements of, like, racial Nazism kind of like that, but there was a firewall in the right between that. So if a guy showed up like a neo Nazi at a Republican party, they'd be. They'd kick him out. That firewall is crumbling now. And the danger is because there's the saying in the GOP that, like, there are no enemies to the right. And what it means is if someone's to the right of you, common cause, they're an ally. And so you saw that with Heritage Foundation. You saw that with Tucker Carlson. And so what do I make of it? That this is a very dangerous moment where we are about to mainstream, or at least I will say, somewhat acceptable people that are straight up neo Nazis and racists.

Interviewer/Host (57:09)

I mean, look, maybe tolerance is the right word. There's a growing tolerance.

Adam Kinzinger (57:12)

Yeah. A growing tolerance of race.

Interviewer/Host (57:14)

I don't know.

Adam Kinzinger (57:14)

That's. That's a good way to put it. Think about this, man. Did you ever imagine that we would be a country that said, no more immigration. Okay, no more immigration, but we're happy to have immigrants that are from. That are white, from South Africa. That. I mean, that's our new immigration policy, right? Yeah.

Interviewer/Host (57:32)

Or videos, by the way. The videos of the refugees from South Africa who are wearing cargo shorts and look like they're getting off of a mediocre cruise. It's surreal stuff.

Adam Kinzinger (57:42)

It is surreal. And you know that. And who's the one driving that? Elon Musk. Why did Elon Musk kill usaid? Because it helps people that aren't white. I mean, that's what is really going on here. And I don't know. It's frightened. I never imagined the country would ever go back to like this.

David Pakman (58:00)

Yeah.

Interviewer/Host (58:01)

In thinking about 2028, a little. And I don't want to do a lot of this because I try to always keep my eyes on the next election. But. But I want to mention a little bit about it. In thinking about 2028, the polling is. This is JD Vance's. At the same time, rarely is the polling three years out indicative of who ends up being the nominee.

David Pakman (58:22)

And I think that that's an important.

Interviewer/Host (58:23)

Thing to keep in mind. But there's a movement that's been writing to me saying it's going to be like a Marco Rubio type person, someone adjacent to Trump. But I think if it's not Vance, I think it's because there's been a revolt against everything Trump touched. And it won't be Rubio either.

Adam Kinzinger (58:39)

Yes.

Interviewer/Host (58:39)

So in my head, I'm trying to say what's more likely an extreme right winger if it's not someone from Trump's inner circle or someone like a Romney? And I don't actually know the answer because I don't know what the Republican voters want.

Adam Kinzinger (58:54)

Yeah. I mean, look, if you asked me this question a couple of years ago, I probably would lean more towards the GOP is going to touch the stove and then learn its lesson. Now, I still believe that. I just think it's going to be way in the future. The Republican Party has to lose elections.

Interviewer/Host (59:11)

Right.

Adam Kinzinger (59:12)

That's the deal. They have to lose the presidential election in order to kind of wake up. So I think the second this is part of why Donald Trump is being so cagey about running for a third term. I want to be clear to everybody, Donald Trump will not be president again. He can't run for a third term. It is clear in the Constitution they're trolling. But the second he says, yeah, I'm not going to run again, all of a sudden he's a lame duck. And now there's competition. You're already seeing this bubble up. You know, there was always this belief that, like, Rubio and Vance were buddies and they were going to run together. I'm already seeing stories leaked that Vance has leaked against Rubio. Right. Particularly with Venezuela. And so that is going to be a battle in the party. And who is going to win? If I was a betting man and had to bet, I would say probably a not JD Vance, because he's not good, but somebody that, like, has that viewpoint. But, but I don't know, because Donald Trump is unique. He is uniquely able to, like, be shameless. And he's got a superpower, we have to admit it. And, and none of these guys have that. So the key is who's going to be the Republican? I don't know. But Democrats have to win in 28, particularly not just for the country, but also to save the Republican Party from itself.

Interviewer/Host (60:33)

My view on the Democratic primary of 28 is I say get everybody in. I, I, I really think that the widest and most robust primary is going to put the party in the strongest position. And the truth is there are some people dabbling here or that that would be competing for some of the same voters. Like, for example, I think Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, and to a slightly lesser extent, Wes Moore are com would be competing for a lot of the same voters. And you might think, oh, well, in that case, only one of them should run. Now, I think anybody who wants to really should run here. And then if it's going, if AOC is interested, have her run. I mean, I think the point of this is there really should be an evaluation where there are lots of choices so no one can say we didn't really have a choice from X Wing. And that will, I think, put whoever ultimately comes out on top in the strongest position to say, I really want it.

Adam Kinzinger (61:31)

I agree. And I think that happens all the time. I mean, look, it's like putting somebody through the fire. Like, I know when I've had tough elections, I am much better at the art of politics after that tough election because you're forced to do it. You're forced to, you know, over and over and over, you know, say what you believe, you're forced to raise money, which unfortunately is a requirement, um, and you're forced to go out and grab voters. Now, here's the thing. If you have, imagine this as Democrats, if you have like a conservative or centrist Democrat all the way to a big lefty Democrat, you've widened the aperture of people that are going to vote Democrat in a primary. Well, somebody that votes Democratic in a primary is very likely to vote Democratic in a general election. It is very rare. Now, one exception was Bernie. And a lot of people that voted for Bernie voted for Trump. But generally, if you are participating in a Democratic primary, you'll vote for the Democratic candidate. So let's say you had a conservative Democrat run, right, like an old school conservative. They get, they get, they lose, but they still brought new people to pull a Democratic ballot for the first time. That is good for the party. That is good for the party.

Interviewer/Host (62:43)

To go back a little bit to your journey. Just in the last few minutes, we have. Do you have an interest in getting back into elected politics?

Adam Kinzinger (62:51)

Yes, but. And the but is I want to make sure I'm not like, I don't want to go in just to get a position and just to be somebody. It's if I think I can make a real difference and if, if there's a need because I've done 12 years in elected office. That's a long time. It goes by really quick. But I know my, my, I still have that burning passion, right, to, to fight for the country. I talk about the issue of men, the issue that Democrats are losing union voters, by the way, which is unthinkable. I was a big union Republican and so, yeah, I could see myself getting back involved at what, what position, what office? No clue, no clue.

Interviewer/Host (63:36)

I have, I have a couple friends I'm thinking of who are in industries where they immediately run to any former members of the House or Senate that they believe can make important connections for them. And I was stunned when one friend in particular told me, hey, you know, this elected official and this former, and this former elected official, we've cut them checks for high six figures or seven figures just for individual introductions that let us make. Obviously, much more than that. The, the influence pedaling revolving door is really something.

Adam Kinzinger (64:13)

It is. And I want to be clear, I don't do that. And the thing that is you can make, I mean, if I'd have gotten out and decided to do that, to do like the lobbying, consulting thing, you can make 5, 10 million bucks pretty easy. Which Is insane. But the problem is, and this is the, this is why it's so bad. It's not. I mean, look, you know, people that are prosecutors end up becoming defense lawyers. People that are in the military end up going to, you know, sector that. Okay, it happens. And politics is the same. The problem where it gets bad is. Okay, so let's say all the January 6th stuff, right? There were a lot of people that weren't running again that didn't speak out. Why didn't they speak out? They weren't running again. I talked about the other nine impeachers, right? Seven out of nine of them didn't run for office again. But why didn't they speak out? Because the second you alienate the party, you get rid of your ability to call up that person that that company needs you to call up and you become less effective. So you're, you're taking a hit to your own financial well being. That's why people decide not to run again. And that's why instead of being like not it's not courageous, just telling the truth, they go quiet.

Interviewer/Host (65:29)

That's why I want to make sure any of my Substack followers who are here make sure to follow Adam Kinzinger substack. I'd be humbled if your followers also did the same.

Adam Kinzinger (65:41)

My followers go to Pac man here, follow him.

Interviewer/Host (65:45)

The the documentary is the Last Republican debuted as the number one documentary on Apple TV and it's on all the streaming networks. So glad we were able to do this and I really appreciate talking to you and I hope we get a chance to do it again anytime.

Adam Kinzinger (65:59)

Good talking to you and everybody. Thank you for tuning in.

David Pakman (66:02)

All right, we'll talk to you soon.

Adam Kinzinger (66:04)

You bet.

Interviewer/Host (66:05)

Take care.

David Pakman (66:05)

Bye. Let's be honest, when it is hot outside, the way it's been, bad underwear makes it really much worse. Our sponsor, Sheath Underwear, has completely rethought how men's underwear should function in the heat. Sheath's boxer briefs are designed with a dual pouch system, keeping everything in place separate, ventilated. This means less sweat, less sticking, less of that awkward adjusting. And if you're not using the pouches, the fabric alone is a game changer. Soft, stretchy, moisture wicking. Now available in cooling materials like bamboo and mesh. I wear these at the gym during long work days, especially when I know it's going to be hot outside. It just keeps you dry and comfortable. And they've really raised my expectations about how good, good underwear can be. Wearing Sheath is like having built in climate control for the lower half of your body. Everything stays cool, dry, and where it should be. If you've never thought much about your underwear, this is the one brand that might make you start. Go to sheath underwear.com/pacman. Use the code PACMAN for 20% off. The link is in the description. Donald Trump was interviewed on a sports show hosted by former football player Pat McAfee. Now, I don't have a problem with sports shows interviewing presidents. I don't have a problem with presidents being interviewed by sports shows. I don't really have a problem with any of it. What I do have a problem with is a nutty, sycophantic interview where Trump comes in and the guy who's asking the questions knows not a damn thing about politics. And the interview becomes about politics. And Trump is allowed, with absolutely no skepticism and no questioning whatsoever to spread debunked and deranged lies to an audience that I hope knows better, but I simply don't know. The host, Pat McAfee, certainly doesn't seem to know any better. Trump says the quiet part out loud. Just like to set the stage, Trump goes, the only reason I'm even doing this is because you blow smoke up my. Whatever. You say great things about me.

Donald Trump (68:25)

It is our honor live from Parris island, to say, ladies and gentlemen, joining us now for the first time ever, the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump. Yeah.

Interviewer/Host (68:40)

Yeah.

Donald Trump (68:41)

Mr. President.

Adam Kinzinger (68:42)

Yeah.

Donald Trump (68:43)

Hello, Pat. Hi, Pat. So most people would think with our show that this would be an impressionist of the president because no president would actually join us. But on this Veterans Day, we want to say, Mr. President, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you. And I'm only joining you because I hear you say such nice things about me from your very large audience. I've always heard you've said such nice things. So when people say, say nice about me, I joined. When they don't say nice about me, I take a pass.

David Pakman (69:09)

That's not a joke. I mean, listen, it's the most honest, I think I've ever heard Donald Trump be. He wants easy interviews, and sometimes even his easy interviews don't go particularly well, and that probably applies here. Trump is spouting all sorts of nonsense during this interview. And at the end of this clip, the host, Pat McAfee, actually says, I don't know a thing about politics. I'm completely out of my element. I am not equipped to for this. Essentially, he shouldn't be doing this.

Donald Trump (69:35)

People that, you know, we have $17 trillion plus being invested on our country. That's.

David Pakman (69:40)

That's a lie.

Donald Trump (69:42)

Many times more than any country has ever had. We don't want to be wasting time. So they tried to basically renegotiate the great big, beautiful deal.

Interviewer/Host (69:50)

They didn't.

Donald Trump (69:51)

They weren't able to get it. And now they said, let's close up our country and we'll see if we can get it. But again, getting it for people that came to, came, came into our country illegally from prisons, from gangs, from, from mental institutions.

David Pakman (70:04)

Of course, that's also not true from.

Donald Trump (70:06)

You know, places that you don't want and giving them one and a half. Think of it. 1 1/2 trillion dollars in medical costs and things. You just can't do this. You can't do it, and it ruins it for everybody else. So they were not successful in renegotiation, and it looks like is going to be opened up. But you're right, it's. The House has to vote, and then, of course, I have to sign it. Okay, so once again, I don't know your guys's world. I assume everything you just said there will have some people very pissed about it, and then obviously the rest of the world, United States of America, will be very excited that the government is back open. So I think that deserves a big.

David Pakman (70:46)

There you go. Really incisive stuff. Now, again, I would love it if we had a president who was able to call into a show like this and go, listen, Pat, I love your commentary about football, and I love that you were doing this show, this show on Veterans Day from Parris Island. You're there with some of our troops. We support the troops. We love the troops. Thank you to everyone for their service. Thanks to them, I didn't have to be drafted, you know, whatever, right? That would be fine. But Trump calls in to lie nonstop and transforms it into political propaganda, which he should be ashamed about. And Pat McAfee is completely ill equipped to actually deal with. Trump was asked, what does Veterans Day mean to you? And Trump talks about his approval rating.

Donald Trump (71:41)

Thanks. Even though we're just sports stooges for you, what does Veterans Day mean, especially now that you're Commander in Chief again? Well, to me, it means taking care of the veterans because they've taken care of us. And, you know, we have a 92% approval rating at the VA, and I just got back from making a speech. It was beautiful. The whole, surrounding the whole. I don't know if you've got to witness it a little bit on television, but it was Something, and, and the veterans have taken such good care of us. What I think of with the veterans is how do I take care of the veterans? And we've done a really good job. Doug Collins, as you know, is the secretary and we have a tremendous.

David Pakman (72:18)

Anyway, what does Veterans Day mean to you? I have a 92% approval rating with the VA. And then finally, sort of like a throwaway moment, Trump is asked, what are your favorite sporting events? So, like, one answer would be, oh, I really like the Super Bowl. Trump figures out a way to talk about how he actually is the winner of the 2020 election.

Donald Trump (72:41)

Obviously been afforded the opportunity to go to some of the best sporting events, you know, over the last, well, I guess, you know, over your lifetime, I suppose. But we saw you, you know, in the Yankees clubhouse on 9 11, which was awesome. A bunch of different big time college football games, Army, Navy included. You were just at the Ryder cup, obviously, the NFL game. Is there one sporting event that either you haven't been to yet that you'd.

David Pakman (73:04)

Like to go to, or is there.

Donald Trump (73:05)

One where you, you know, are thinking, like, man, if I could have the opportunity to experience that for the first time again, I would love to do that. Well, you're going to see, you know, I was able to bring in my first term, sign up the World Cup. So you're going to have the World cup and you're going to have the Olympics. I never did the Olympic thing. So we're going to have both the Olympics. I signed both of them up. I never thought I'd go to see him as president, but then we had a election that there was a little hanky panky going on, as you say, and there you go.

David Pakman (73:32)

Now all of a sudden, remember what were your favorite sporting events?

Donald Trump (73:35)

The president during those two. And then of course, we have the 250th year, which, you know, the anniversary thing, which is big. I do have to say, look, I like them all, I love sports, But I do have to say, and I'll probably get myself in a little trouble, but this, I hate the kickoff. Oh, come on, Mr. President. Weird. I think it's so terrible. I think it's so demeaning and I think it hurts the game, it hurts the pageantry. I've told that to Roger Goodell and I don't think it's any safer. I mean, you still have guys crashing into each other and it's so, you know, it's the opposite of what the game. The ball is in the air and nobody's moving all Right.

David Pakman (74:13)

So Trump now talking about the Kickoff rule, which, by the way, I might agree with him about the Kickoff rule, I don't know. But what sporting events do you like the most? They took the 2020 election from me. So I want to hear your take on this. My view, after reviewing a lot of this interview, is the problem isn't the venue. It's okay for presidents to call into sports shows. The problem is that he's doing his lying propaganda rantings rather than actually simply saying, it's Veterans Day. Thank you to the troops and the veterans for your service. Thanks to Pat for doing the show. Where you're doing the show, that's not what it was. And then Pat McAfee, he just can't handle it. He, he, he's in way over his head. That's the problem I have with it. It is not a problem in principle, it's a problem in execution. Money cannot buy class. And if there is any greater proof of that, it is Donald Trump personified. During part two of what is truly the most bizarre interview I've ever seen with Donald Trump, Fox News host Laura Ingraham walked around the White House with Trump where he told her about how he's redesigning the White House. There's a lot of gold paint, there's a lot of marble and gaudy, different things. This is truly, you know, this reminded me of something that I hadn't thought about for a while. Trump would much rather just be doing his building stuff with daddy's money, which, by the way, would have done better if he just put it in the S&P 500, than done a single building project. But that's a different story. Trump doesn't want to be negotiating peace deals, which he's terrible at anyway. Trump doesn't want to be working in the economy, and with the constraints that exist at the global level, Trump wants to be picking stone. You know, that's what this is fundamentally about. Here is Trump talking about the presidential walk of fame that he's putting in place at the White House. And when asked whose idea was it, he goes, of course it was my idea. Democrat heads will explode in 3, 2, 1.

Donald Trump (76:16)

Ballroom will go from here to there, and you'll see the proper number of people. And the White House will finally have, after 150 years, the ballroom that they wanted. You know What? They've waited 150 years. And the public is paying for for nothing. The public is paying for absolutely nothing. It's all being done by donors all the way over there to be Beautiful.

David Pakman (76:40)

One of the must be Laura Ingram. Stunned. Wow. Is just too much in the world.

Donald Trump (76:45)

Come on. Okay. You know, a lot of people don't know that. They don't say that. There's no cost. That is. That's some room. That's unbelievable. Now I'm going to show you. So this is the presidential walk of fame. Now, whose idea was this? My idea. Everything's my idea. Everything's your idea. Okay. Sadly.

Adam Kinzinger (77:11)

Who's that guy?

Donald Trump (77:13)

That's Barack Hussein Obama. Okay. This is Biden right here. Wait a second.

David Pakman (77:18)

The profile.

Donald Trump (77:19)

The profile of Biden. So he's the worst president in the history of our country. And Barack is in Obama's top five, meaning bad. Are you going to replace that with his actual photo? I don't think so.

David Pakman (77:30)

And what they're talking about is that where there would be a picture of Biden, there's just the picture of the auto pen. Everything is my idea, Trump says, until it backfires, at which point it wasn't. He doesn't know a thing about it. Who did this? Let's fire someone. Trump talking about thick bronze. Thick bronze. This is what he cares about, folks. If you're wondering is this a man who's concerned with what's happening to the farmers, when he talks about thick bronze, you know that he is not.

Donald Trump (77:59)

A lot of people are wondering who, which child would be the best, certain way. They all could take a look at this, fellas. You want to see detail. So like the sign, most people would just do a sign they painted on the wall. So that's half inch thick bronze.

David Pakman (78:14)

Okay. This is the gaudiest sign. It's that stupid script sort of pseudo cursive font that Trump loves in shiny gold. It is so crass and gaudy. And it is again, a reminder that no money, it doesn't matter how many billions Trump has, it's not going to buy class.

Donald Trump (78:38)

Carved by a very talented person. And it's brass. It's pure brass. It's half inch thick brass. And you can't just do that. That's, you know, you look at that, that's quality, right?

David Pakman (78:51)

And it really takes some skill to come up with that stupid looking gold lettering. Trump kind of admits that his greatest strength is building ballrooms. At the end of the day, that, that's really the. That that's really a better thing for him. Oh, no, do I not have that clip? We'll have to come back to that. Laura Ingram asks, where do you get the stone for this stuff? And Trump goes, oh, you know different places.

Donald Trump (79:18)

But the, and now you can have news that's the same stone as the White House. So now you can have news conferences. You can, you know, nobody could stand in the mud. Where did you get the stone? Different places. But I'll show you, I'll show you something. This is the equivalent of what I do with the ballroom. I built many ballrooms and many buildings and that's my greatest strength actually might as well do this.

David Pakman (79:45)

So, okay, so this was the clip. I might, My greatest strength is building ballrooms. I might as well just be doing this. Laura Ingraham with no question too sycophantic not to ask it. She goes, you know, you have such attention to architectural details. How did you get so good at architectural detail? Hey, what about you went to court to try to keep food stamps from people? That should be the question still.

Donald Trump (80:13)

And the marble man said, I said, do you think you could bookmark your event? He said, yeah, look at the other one over there. Bookmarks. But look at the quality of that job. Where, where do you think you develop the attention to architectural detail?

David Pakman (80:25)

Again, I, it's, it's a gag worthy, it's vomitus. Where, where do you think you developed the attention to architectural detail?

Donald Trump (80:35)

What age should you start realizing that's what you could do? Yeah, I was involved with my father and building and all this stuff and my father was a builder. So as a little boy I'd be sitting there playing with blocks, I guess and my father would be on the phone, you know, and I'd be listening, I guess. And you know, you listen. I had a father was very good as building. He was very good at building things and so am I. I build better than anybody else. Nobody can build like me. But was he, as you can ask Steve Witkoff, who is the best builder. Did your dad have the same attention to the specific details that you did? Well, he built low moderate, so it was a different, so he didn't have to do a floor.

David Pakman (81:12)

You seem extremely particular about the water pressure in your bidet, sir. Is that something that you believe is instinct or something you learned from your father?

Donald Trump (81:23)

He do a floor tile linoleum at the time they used to call it, and it would be a different kind of a thing, but he had a tremendous attention to quality. In other words, if it's going to be even, you know, a regular floor, it would be exactly even, exactly straight, exactly.

David Pakman (81:38)

And as you can tell, this is obviously the guy that should be president. One final clip from this part of the interview. And then I Want to get to something more serious from it? Laura Ingraham also asking where are the speakers? Because I hear music playing. Where are the speakers?

Donald Trump (81:53)

Pretty cool, right? Where are your speakers? Because I heard this all here. They're in the bushes. They're all. Yep, they're all here. When did you decide you want. You were a frustrated dj? How long ago? Well, I don't do that much, but, but I think having good sound is important because we do now news conferences on this space. You know, as you know, you were probably a victim to it. You'd stand in the grass, your high heels would be ruined. The women are, you know, walking out without. So I had to make it a hard surface. So I made it the same color as the White House itself.

David Pakman (82:25)

Exactly. The high heels were a real problem. They would sink into the dirt. So I decided to turn this entire thing into a gaudy mess. All right, one more moment from the actual interview part. Trump got very sweaty during this. And consider the number of lies in this brief discussion about the economy.

Donald Trump (82:43)

Wouldn't want to say, because that gives that person an immediate boost. It's like when they say, are you going to attack Venezuela? Are to you going. You going to attack this one? Are you going to attack. See, I'm not going to tell you whether or not I am. So I don't want to really give you. But I think this we are doing phenomenally well. This is the greatest economy we've ever had. Their talking points, of course, I guess I. By the way, the only thing is beef, beef, coffee is a little high because the ranchers are doing great. Coffee, coffee. We're going to lower some tariffs, we're going to lower coffee, have some coffee come in. We're going to take care of all this stuff very quickly, very easily.

David Pakman (83:17)

You know, a good question would be, we basically don't grow coffee in the United States. Why did we put tariffs on it to begin with? Trump is now like, oh, no, no, we're going to deal with the problem with the coffee tariffs. Oh, yeah. Well, you also created the problem.

Donald Trump (83:28)

It's surgical, it's beautiful to watch. But our costs are way lower now. Wal Mart came out with Wal Mart.

David Pakman (83:36)

I love that. Wal Mart. How does he. That is a fascinating linguistic. What, what was that?

Donald Trump (83:41)

It's beautiful to watch, but our costs are way lower now. We Walmart, Walmart, Walmart came out with a statement that they do every year for many, many decades, and they said that a Thanksgiving meal cost 25% less anyway.

David Pakman (83:58)

So that's been debunked Walmart put together a Thanksgiving meal with, or I should say Walmart put together a Thanksgiving meal with fewer items. And then they're like, okay, if we strip a bunch of the stuff that's normally in it and shrink the size, the price is down 25%. It's completely meaningless, folks. We know groceries are up about 3% since Trump took over. It's just whacked. What a bizarre interview. What a truly bizarre interview here. And Laura Ingraham loves it because she's getting access to hang out at the White House. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. Sign up@join pacman.com I will see you there.