A (3:41)

All right. We've got some election results from last night that should absolutely terrify Republicans. But they are already telling us, oh, it's no big deal. This doesn't really mean anything. Now, I'm going to tell you in advance that their excuses don't make any sense. But then I'm going to make that case to you and then you can decide, are these election results something that we can extrapolate from or is it meaningless off year special elections? So here's what happened. In the 7th district in Tennessee, there was a special election last night. This was for an open seat. It was vacated by Congressman Mark Green. Mark Green decided to resign from Congress and take a private sector job. Fine. Now, the Republican did win the race by about eight points. So you might be saying, well, like, what's the news a Republican won in Tennessee. That doesn't really seem particularly meaningful. Well, what's meaningful is the margin in this race. If you go back 13 months to 2024, Donald Trump won it, that district by 22 points. So in 13 months, the district went from Trump plus 22 to a shriveled and flaccid 8 point victory for the Republican. In other words, if you go from 22 to 8, your margin of victory has been diminished by about two thirds. Now Republicans are writing this off. I was on CNN last night and I'LL have some clips a little bit later for you. And Republican strategist that was on said O. You know, these special elections mean nothing. The opposition is motivated to vote. Democrats put up the wrong candidate. They put up a progressive. And had they put up some kind of centrist, maybe they would have done better. Which by the way, I think, I think is a self defeating and incorrect analysis of the entire thing. But we have other information from 2025 that suggests this is not a meaningless one off and that this actually does represent a trend. And the trend is that since Donald Trump became president a second time and was sworn and did and didn't do all of the things that he has done and not done, Republicans continue to underperform. Let's go back a month to the November elections. In November in New Jersey, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikey Sherrill won her governor's race by almost 15 points compared to Phil Murphy in 2021, winning by only three. So, oh, it's a blue state. Who cares? Well, it's a blue state that does usually vote for Democratic governors, Al. Not always. But winning by 15 instead of winning by 3 in the following election cycle in a regularly scheduled gubernatorial election, not a special election. That is big. It's not the only example. If we go to Virginia, remember that Abigail Spamberger just a month ago, the Democratic candidate won in Virginia, which is much more of a purple state, by more than 15 points. Now you look at the previous gubernatorial election in Virginia and you see that Glenn Youngkin won by like one in 2021, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican, and this time the Democrat won by 15. That is a 17 point swing, a 17 point reversal in Virginia. So where we find ourselves is that we're heading into midterms in 11 months. Every signal is bad for Republicans. You can say all the signals that look good for Democrats don't really mean anything. All right. I mean, sort of like buyer beware, if that's your perspective. But you can't say that it looks good for Republicans. The best that Republicans can do is say all of these signals that seem bad for Republicans aren't actually that bad for Republicans. And you know what? If Republicans want to insist that there's no need to worry here, there's no lesson to learn, there's nothing to change. By all means, have at it. It is sort of at their own peril. The truth is they are panicking. They're just not being upfront about what their plan is because their plan is to try to win elections by messing with when how and if people can vote, let me explain that. Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall with all of these elections that are going far better for Democrats than they should. But in private, they know what their plan is. Republicans are seeing this and they are not saying the logical thing. The logical thing would be to say, hey, let's rethink what we're doing here. Let's evalu what we're offering. Let's evaluate whether riding on the coattails of Donald Trump is lifting us up or actually pulling us down. Are tariffs helping us win elections or are they making us lose elections? What about the latest war crime? Have we delivered anything that was promised, like reducing prices or fixing health care? We haven't. Let's actually deal with that. That would be the right approach for Republicans. That's not what they're doing. Instead, they are thinking about and trying to find ways to affect who can vote. Trump publicly has said, let's get rid of mail in voting. For example, I'm putting up on the screen this deranged truth social screenshot from a little while ago. It's a complete and total wall of text, which I won't read for you right now. We looked at it before, but this is where Donald Trump pledged to end mail in voting and all of it. So when Republicans say that they are worried, or when Republicans say not worried, we know they're worried. But they're going to try to deal with this not by attempting to win the will of the people with policy ideas, but by trying to mess with elections to win anyway. We have to make sure that they can't get away with that. People like Mark Elias and his law group and others are working on that. But Republicans are worried, but they're not changing policy. They're trying to win by messing with elections. Conspiracy theories are exploding after the latest bizarre Trump MRI news. At some point, we just have to ask, does anyone believe this crap? So the White House now admits that Donald Trump got on MRI not because of a stroke, not because of chest pain, not because of any symptom. They say it was a preventative mri. And even doctors are saying that this is bullshit. I got a bunch of emails from physicians in the US and around the world. They all say, with the exception of these executive full body MRIs, Prinuvo and others, you don't really do preventative MRIs. And if you do, they are whole body MRIs. You don't just go and say, we're going to check out the cardiovascular system and the abdomen for no reason, just for no reason whatsoever. A top internal medicine doctor from Northwestern says this isn't standard. TRUMP 79 fine. But there is no guideline, specialty or a standard of care that would say this is an MRI that you do just preventatively. There is a reason we don't just stick people into MRI machines preventatively. Not to mention that even with these full body MRIs that are very popular among the elites these days, you can find meaningless things and suddenly you're treating problems that aren't problems with increasingly invasive tests and you can actually end up doing harm. That's the big picture. Okay, so let's go to a medical opinion about what the White House has said relative to what standard of care is for mri, given Trump's age and known underlying medical situation. To discuss CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He was late Vice President Dick Cheney's cardiologist for nearly 30 years. Doctor, thanks so much for being with us. Walk us through what a preventative cardiac MRI entails.

A (11:47)

Well, there really is no preventative cardiac mri. The, this is not a standard test for, you know, an 80 year old man to undergo advanced imaging. Boris. The whole note has kind of a weird and defensive, you know, evasive tone to it. First of all, this is not part of the President's comprehensive physical examination. He had that in April and then he underwent some more testing in July. If you look at his first administration, the president, like most presidents, only underwent one comprehensive physical exam every year. So this comes completely off cycle. Second, it's filled with euphemisms. Again. Dr. Barbara Bella, the president's physician, states that he underwent advanced imaging. Well, what specific advanced imaging did the president have? Was it an mri, as the president said? Was it a ct? Did he have both? Why not just spell it out?

B (12:47)

It's as if a patient came in.

A (12:50)

For a chest X ray and then I only told people that the patient underwent simple radiologic imaging. Just, you know, just spell it out. This is again, not part of a comprehensive screening, particularly, you know, abdominal imaging. Why would someone undergo prevented, quote, preventative MRI imaging or CT imaging of the abdomen? This obviously was performed in response to some clinical concern, which is fine things happen to people as, you know, as, as, as we all get older and president is almost, almost 80. So instead of this kind of evasive, almost laughable kind of note, just, just spell out what happened. I hope the imaging is, is normal and great. That would be excellent news. But this kind of piece by piece, drip by drip release of information is disconcerting. What's fascinating about what we just heard about is that his analysis is the same one that I gave yesterday. And I have no medical training. Now, this is not me patting myself on the back. It's that it is this obvious that the note about Trump's MRI doesn't make any sense. It all stinks to high heaven. And by the way, Trump already had a physical in April. Since when do we do full presidential physicals every six months? Like, why is this happening? Why is the MRI suddenly urgent? And then it get even weirder because the White House isn't really being clear about what kind of MRI it was. Remember, we did not get a medical report, even though the White House says we did. We got a note, a note editorializing what was done, and it says it was evaluating Trump's cardiovascular and abdominal parts of the body or whatever. That's not really the way we describe MRIs. And if you're trying to stop conspiracy theories dripping these vague statements like it's Watergate certainly doesn't help. Now, Trump's doctor says that everything is excellent, but we still aren't really being told what the scan was for. And CNN's Jonathan Reiner, who treated Dick Cheney like you, like you heard there, is basically laughing at the explanation and saying there is no preventative cardiac mri. Now, one note that I got from a doctor in the audience says that if you're doing physicals every six months and so called preventative MRIs, nine times out of ten, you are monitoring an underlying aortic aneurysm. Now, we have, again, no idea whether that's what's going on with Donald Trump because there is no transparency, but it's very clear that this leaves a lot to be desired. This shouldn't be that complicated. If the imaging was normal, just say exactly what was scanned and show the actual report. You don't usually hide benign findings that are not going to worry anybody. And the real point, obviously, is that there's a long history of hiding his health for Trump. The letters written by Trump's doctor, Walter Reed Trips, that they tried to hide, the bizarre, perfect health statements and Trump would be the healthiest president ever. And every time they try to cover it up, everybody starts to assume the worst. And this is why you get these hypotheses that Trump suffering a series of small strokes or that there's a cognitive issue, and then you add that to the weird bruising that Trump has on his hands. The administration keeps telling us Trump is fine, but the picture is one that raises a lot of concerns. So why the secrecy? Why now. And if Trump wants people to stop talking about medical issues that he may be having, don't hide the information. It's the worst possible strategy. Now, many of noticed that now Trump is covering the makeup on his hands, that is to cover bruises with bandages. So makeup to cover bruises, bandages to cover makeup. I noticed that. A lot of you notice that and we're going to talk about that after the break. 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There is still plenty of time to get an Aura frame shipped before Christmas and you'll get $35 off their bestselling Carver Mat Frames. When you go to aura frames.com and use the code Pacman at checkout. The link is in the description. Well, in the midst of trying to convince the world that he is in perfect health and the picture of virility and strength and alpha, Donald Trump fell asleep three or four times during his own cabinet meeting. And the falling asleep, quite frankly, wasn't even the worst thing he did. He said some stuff that should concern us a lot more. So endless instances of this. Here is one of Trump just battling, battling to stay awake and failing. Take a look. But this war is going on and the President is trying to end it. Not because, listen, we got a million things to focus on, focus on in the world as a country, but he's the only leader in the world that can help end it. And that's why. That's why even as we speak to you now, Steve Woodkoff is in Moscow trying to find a way to end this war to save lives of 8,9000 people. Mr. President, as you want to, are dying.

B (20:15)

Every week, more people.

A (20:16)

Yeah. Trump's eyes continued to close. He was dozing off, and every few seconds he would sort of jerk awake. It's like what happens to me on a city bus. Take a look at this. Below the price of inflation, Unfortunately, Biden brought all of us a lot of inflation. If you look at the other end of the spectrum, California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland. I could go on what happened in those states, policies and politicians that forced the building of unreliable electricity generation, which requires new infrastructure and transmission lines. And what happens, happened Today, as Linda McMahon was winding down her remarks, Trump again just unable to maintain consciousness in the battle against exhaustion that he is facing. Take a look at this.

B (21:10)

I can say, sir, that we are moving to return education to the states and to bring the level of education back up. Making sure our students can read, are.

A (21:20)

Reintroducing the science of reading in schools and going into next year. So listen, he's almost 80 and he's tired. I don't, who, who am I to say it's wrong that he is tired? But it's the hypocrisy, obviously, that we are pointing out here. When Joe Biden.

A (21:42)

At one point was having a limited schedule, for example, 10 to 4, it was immediate evidence that he needs to be removed and he simply can't do the job. And now Donald Trump is reportedly working an even tighter, smaller, shorter schedule than was Biden. 12 to 5 to Biden's 10 to 4, White House simply says that's fake news. Recently, everything the White House says is fake news ends up being confirmed as true. So take that denial with a grain of salt. But three, four times, Trump falling asleep during his Cabinet meeting, out of energy, exhausted. He doesn't seem to be able to do it anymore. Now, let's go to some of the horrible substantive things from this Cabinet meeting. Remember when Joe Biden inarticulately said Trump supporters are garbage, and it was the biggest scandal in the world for, like, weeks, and it was just so horrible and terrible. Well, at the Cabinet meeting yesterday, Donald Trump about Somalis said the same thing. We are taking garbage into our country. We need to stop. Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage. It's all garbage. Take a look at this.

B (22:53)

I'm understanding. And you're going to look at that. Scott, I hear they ripped off Somalians, ripped off that state for billions of dollars. Billions every year. Billion. Billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing. The Welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, okay? Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country. I could say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them to help. We got to. We have to rebuild our country. You know, our country is at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it. We could go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go. Come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing.

A (24:14)

Trump's new focus on the Somali population is just the latest scapegoating. This is what Trump knows how to do. They're being credibly accused of war crimes. The prices that were going to come down haven't come down. Jared was going to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict in the first term. It didn't happen. Mexico was going to pay for a wall across the entire US Mexico border during the first term. It didn't happen. And so Trump needs a new scapegoat. And that scapegoat right now is Somalis and Somali Americans, and we aren't falling for it. And we know why Donald Trump is doing this. At another point during the meeting, Donald Trump bizarrely seems to say that both Tim Walls and J.D. vance are incompetent. This one is really hard to parse grammatically and syntactically. Listen to what Trump said and see if you can figure out what he's talking about. Mr. President, do you think he should resign over the fraud scandal in his state?

B (25:09)

Who should. Tim Walls over the broad scandal in his state? Look, I think the man's a grossly incompetent man. I thought that from the day I watched JD Destroy him.

B (25:21)

I was saying, who was more incompetent, that man or my man? I had a man and he had a man. They were both incompetent. And I had a man and a woman. I thought she was very incompetent, too. But now she's leading the field, and I think she's leading the field in this nomination.

A (25:39)

Anyway, look, so is he saying that both Walls and Vance are incompetent? I don't know what Trump is talking about, and quite frankly, I don't think Trump knows what he's talking about at this point in time. The economy came up during the Cabinet meeting and Trump says inflation has been fixed and he resolved eight wars and everything is just going fine. And it's perfect.

B (26:06)

Inherited, really. The worst, again, the worst inflation in history. We inherited that. When I came in, that's what he had. And we fixed inflation and we fixed almost everything, if you want to know the truth. Including eight wars. We got one to go. But including eight wars. But when they always say, I watched today, where they have a race going on right now in Tennessee and this woman goes, affordability, affordability. They're the ones that caused the problem. The prices were way high. We're bringing the prices down. But they're like scam artists. They're con. I call them con men and women. They come out, they say affordability, like, oh, oh, I see price. We're going to get prices down still further, but we brought them down from the prices they cost. The reason that they had the highest inflation in the history of our country is because they had the highest prices, but we brought them down and now we have normal inflation. Yeah.

A (27:06)

President so we are going to delve into the inflation thing a little bit more based on some comments that were made on Fox News. But just like Top Line, I want to remind you that inflation has bounced between two and a half and three since June of 2023, and it hasn't come down since Donald Trump became president. Inflation is basically where it's been for two and a half years. Most of that time was under Joe Biden. And Donald Trump now says that he brought inflation down because during COVID it was really high. It doesn't make sense. And arithmetically, a lot of what this guy says doesn't make sense as Donald Trump also brought out this 500% price reduction thing, which just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

B (27:56)

Remember this under my executive order to lower prescription drug prices, which I think is the single biggest thing we've ever done that nobody writes about because you fake news. I've made unprecedented deals along with Bobby and Oz and all of the people that work on it. A lot of people, a lot of people that you wouldn't even think work on it, but they do to slash drug prices by 200%, 300%, 400%, 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%. Nobody's ever heard of it before.

A (28:35)

Yeah, and again, I wish a reporter would just say to Trump, if you bring the price down 100%, the cost goes to zero. What do you mean you're bringing down the price 500%, 600%. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand that. Now, sleeping aside, there was a really good tweet from Daniel Dale kind of summarizing the situation at this Cabinet meeting and all of the different lies that were told, which are, Trump claimed grocery prices are down, but they're actually up. Trump said he's going to cut prescription drug prices 500 to 900%. Those numbers make no sense. He said he stopped inflation in his track, but the September year over year inflation rate was the same for a very, very long time. He says he inherited the worst inflation of all time, but inflation was 3% when Donald Trump took over. He says he secured 18 trillion in investment commitments. That's nearly double what the White House says on its website. And of course, it's all wildly inflated. He says he ended eight wars, but a lot of the wars he claims to have ended didn't actually exist. And makes a number of other false claims, including that Washington D.C. has had no murders anymore, even though that is obviously untrue. And Trump also says the 2020 election was rigged, which it wasn't. Trump simply lost. Now, I want to remind you of something that is critical to understand the videos you just saw. That was the Cabinet meeting there. In prior presidencies, there would be an actual Cabinet meeting. Where issues of substance are discussed, policy is sort of negotiated and figured out, and then either before or after they let the cameras in, 5, 10, 15 minutes and a few questions are asked, that's not what happens anymore under this administration. You could either say it's hilarious or you could say that it's tragic. Trump has neither the attention span nor the interest, nor, at this point, the stamina, quite frankly, for an actual meeting outside the view of the camera. That was the Cabinet meeting. Finally, Trump says it will not be him in 2028 who will be the candidate for the Republican Party president, presidential Republican nominee, but that it will probably be someone sitting at the table with Trump.

B (30:52)

They have really bad policy, and I'm not going to say what it is because I don't want them to change it necessarily, because I want to run against it. Whether it's not going to be me, it's going to be somebody that's going to probably sitting at this table, could be a couple of people sitting at this table, could be a couple of people running together, sitting at this name.

A (31:14)

But now, whether Trump is suggesting it will be his vice president, J.D. vance, or that it will be a Secretary of state, Marco Rubio. So those are the two names that are floated most often. It seems as though Trump is acknowledging no third term for him, which, interestingly, is not what Steve Bannon is saying. We're going to get to that later this week. But that was the Cabinet meeting, and no Trump Cabinet meeting is complete without everybody taking their turn at sucking up. I want you to decide who embarrassed themselves the most, who laid down like a doormat the most for Donald Trump, who sucked up to Trump the hardest during the Cabinet meeting. There's basically three parts to the Cabinet meetings of Donald Trump. Number one, Donald Trump making demonstrably false claims like we fixed inflation, we're cutting prices 600%, and other mathematically impossible things. That's part one of the cabinet meetings. Part two is Trump sleeping. And Trump fell asleep three or four times during this latest Cabinet meeting. That's a new part to the Cabinet meeting that some people like, Some people not so much. And part three is that Trump's Cabinet secretaries get the opportunity. And whether we call it an opportunity or there's a requirement to suck up to Donald Trump, to praise Trump, to be down on their knees for Donald Trump. And it started with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who said to the dear Leader, it has been an honor to work for you. Thank you for giving me a very interesting job.

A (32:58)

Some days it's a little controversial, too, but it's been an honor to work for you. You are a great American. The fights that you pick are the right fights and they're always on behalf of this country. So I appreciate the chance to do this job heading up this department. Now then, Kristi Noem, my God, these people are pathetic. Then Kristi Noem sort of jokingly said, you even kept the hurricanes away, sir. You made it through hurricane season without a hurricane. And so fema.

A (33:28)

You kept the hurricanes away. So we appreciate that. And FEMA is deploying resources and dollars 150% faster than ever before. So somebody does have something bad that happens to them, you are immediately there helping them and telling them they have the resources to get back up on their feet. So notice the nervous laughter in the room. People know that it's a joke, I think. I don't believe Kristi Noem is literally praising Trump or crediting Trump with keeping hurricanes away. But the risk with authoritarians and this goes back a long time. How much do you laugh? You want to make sure that you are seen as laughing with them rather than laughing at them. And Donald Trump doesn't laugh very much. So there's a very dangerous line there that needs to be walked. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said that Donald Trump is doing so many great things prosecuting the Biden administration, etc. Working on terrorism. TDA, Ms. 13 Antifa. President Trump, we've charged more than 500 defendants with assault on federal officers, thanks to your directive. And also we have dropped countless cases against Americans that were prosecuted under the Biden administration, including J6 Covid, FACE act and more. And as everyone knows, we cannot talk about pending grand jury investigations. But no one is above the law and that includes what happened in Arctic Frost. I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah and happy holidays. Thank you for fighting for our country.

B (35:10)

Thank you. Thank you very much. Please. All right.

A (35:14)

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for allowing me me to be so Bondi there essentially bragging and saying along with Trump, we have weaponized the doj. We have politicized prosecutions and indictments and pardons, by the way, all things that Donald Trump claimed the Biden administration was doing. We then get to Lee Zeldin, the administrator for the epa. And Lee Zeldin says that Donald Trump is willing to take a bullet for the American people. Take a look at this president after four years serving in office.

B (35:49)

He could have just left it in the rear view mirror and went on.

A (35:53)

To really Enjoy retirement. But he is willing to take a bullet for all of you tuning in at home because he believes in his flag, our freedom, our liberties, and to save the greatest country in the history of the world. So I'm grateful this holiday season for you, Mr. President, you're willing to take a bullet for all of us. And by all of us, it's the American public.

B (36:10)

Thank you.

A (36:11)

You know, it's hard to imagine a more false statement about Trump than that he's willing to take a bullet for the average American. Trump spent his life kept isolated from the average American as a rich guy from Manhattan and Queens. Everything that Trump has built his life around has been to be cordoned off, literally and metaphorically. Literally, the way he is at his table at Mar A Lago from the average person. Trump wouldn't take a bullet for anybody. Brooke Rollins, the secretary of Agriculture, says Biden increased food stamps. We have courageously reduced food stamp spending. American taxpayer. As Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40.

A (37:03)

So now, as we continue to roll that back, so the partnership in making America healthy again is also in food stamps. But a lot of what we're going to, Bobbi and I are doing together is really remarkable. But again, just gratitude and joy for this work and so, so grateful to you. The final thing, I'll say a lot of gratitude to Secretary Marco Rubio for wearing his Aggie maroon tie as a.

B (37:26)

Reflection of of Texas A and M.

A (37:28)

Beating Florida handily about a month ago. So, Marco, I want to thank you and much gratitude and joy in my heart as well.

B (37:36)

Yes.

A (37:37)

You know what this is really about? She's bragging about taking food stamps away from people. When Brooke Rollins, and she's trotted out this deranged talking point before when she says we've been able to bring food stamps down, understand that that is not because they found efficiencies in the program or reduced administrative overhead or curtailed bureaucracy. All they did is make it harder to qualify for food stamps, introduce paperwork to bury people in and kick people off of food stamps. They are bragging about kicking people off of food stamps, which, by the way, is one of the most, if not the most stimulative form of government spending that there is. And then Scott Besant jumps in and says that it has been a great year in the economy, but it's going to get even better. And he keeps referring to the dollars that have come in. Pay attention to that, Mr. President.

B (38:34)

It's been a great year on the economy. But the best is yet to come. The tens of trillions of dollars that have come in in investment, both the portfolio investment, investment by companies, investment by.

A (38:48)

Countries, that is turning into a capex.

B (38:51)

Boom for the U.S. capital expenditures up 15% in history.

A (38:57)

When capex is up, jobs will follow.

B (39:00)

The one big beautiful bill.

A (39:02)

Remember that the dollars that have come in, they're not coming in from some other country. They're not coming in from, you know, picking coins off of a magical money tree. They're talking about tariffs collected from American companies. They're bragging that they put a blanket tax called a tariff on imports and American companies are paying, they are bragging about that. Very different than Republicans passed. And finally, Howard Lutnick reminds us why he is pejoratively referred to as Howard Nutlik. I'm sorry, I didn't make that up. But it's something that he is called because he goes full propaganda and says that Trump has assembled the greatest cabinet ever and he is the greatest president ever is.

B (39:54)

A year ago today I was working on transition with President Trump, right, to.

A (39:59)

Build the greatest cabinet ever for the greatest president ever.

B (40:03)

And I, as I sit here today, I can't be more proud of how you did it, sir. You've created the greatest cabinet. It is a joy to be at this table. You know, one thing we will who.

A (40:15)

Do you think is going to regret the sucking up more? Caroline Levitt or Howard Lutnick? When it's all said and done and they review their legacy and their work for this administration, who do you think is going to be more embarrassed by their performance? Lutnick or Levitt? Leave a comment? I don't know. It's a 5050 for me. The truth is that most underwear wasn't designed with comfort in mind. Sheath underwear actually was. And the difference will immediately hit you as you put them on for the first time. Instead of letting everything mash together like traditional underwear, sheath is designed with dual front pouches that separate and support you throughout the day. It's breathable, soft, built to keep you dry. No more sticking, no awkward adjustments, no discomfort. It sounds too good to be true, but once you try sheath, you're going to understand it is difficult to go back. I've heard from so many people they were skeptical and then they were sold after their first pair. 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If you find your info on a website outside of Incogni's default list, the 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. All right, so many of you wrote to me, you saw that Donald Trump was spotted at his latest cabinet meeting with multiple band aids on his right hand. And so this now becomes the next chapter in the continuing saga about Donald Trump's hands, which is just one part of the continuing saga about Donald Trump's health. So let me go through the iterations. First, Donald Trump had bruises on his hands. First notable on the right hand and eventually on both hands. Initially, the White House said nothing about it. There was nothing in the health reports of Donald Trump's that would suggest anything about bruising on the hands. Now, at some point, Donald Trump started to get a little self conscious about the bruises because everybody on the Internet was talking about them. And so Trump started covering the bruises with makeup. The problem was that unfortunately makeup that that didn't quite match his skin tone was selected and that only raised more questions. Not to mention that again, they were on both of Donald Trump's hands. Now, in the middle of all of this, at some point the White House said, oh, this is from being out there in the world working hard and vigorously shaking hands with so many people. None of us believe that. The primary reason being that Trump only shakes hands with his right hand. That wouldn't explain why both of Donald Trump's hands had bruising on them and had makeup covering the bruises. So it's not a particularly believable explanation. Now, at the latest Cabinet meeting, Trump has two band aids where previously he had makeup covering the bruises. Doctors wrote to me, and increasingly the belief among not only doctors, but also nurse practitioners and nurses, all sorts of medical professionals wrote to me, and they said, this suggests that Trump is getting IVs on a somewhat regular basis. The regular IV use on the top of the hands can cause bruising, and it can also cause the sorts of. I forget the word. I mean, hematoma just means bruise. There was another word that they use, but that it can cause damage to the top of the hand, essentially. And what a lot of people do, most people who are not in the public eye would never use makeup to cover it. They would just use a band aid to try to prevent bumping that area. Now, if we imagine for a moment that that's true, that Trump is regularly getting an iv, we have to then say, well, what are the reason that. That reasons that that's the case. And the reality is that it could be absolutely anything. On the one hand, the most sort of benign. You know, now it's increasingly in vogue to get these liquid hydration IVs, people getting vitamins and nutrients through IV, and you can pay for the bags, and sometimes they even color them like neon green because people think, oh, the neon green stuff is definitely going to be doing more. Last time I was in Vegas, in fact, the. The. Some of the people I stayed with at the hotel said, oh, they'll bring the whole IV set up and you can get a hangover prevention or hangover cure IV. So that would be like Trump's getting recreational IVs. I doubt that that's the case, but that just to give you a sense the spectrum of why someone is regularly getting IVs, that could be it. On the other hand, you could be getting anything via iv. Like, I'm not even going to speculate. But quite literally, it could be any sort of condition, some of them extraordinarily serious, some not. We have no idea. We just have no idea. Because, again, this would be part of the lack of transparency, part of the deception. The White House has never reported that Donald Trump has a condition for which he is regularly getting IV treatment. So we're left to speculate. And the theme here is that the explanations are always lagging. The visible signs and symptoms. By either weeks or months after Trump was seen with the hand bruising for a while, the White House came out and said it's from shaking hands. By the time the White House said that, we already knew it was implausible since Trump doesn't shake hands with his left hand and he had bruises on both hands. So I don't know if and when we will really get an explanation here. But now Trump is using band aids to cover the makeup that he was using to cover the bruises, or he's skipping the makeup altogether and just saying I'm going to use the band aids to cover the bruises. We aren't being given the whole story. If this were a Democratic president, this would be a scandal on all of right wing media, period. But it's Trump and so he claims to be the most transparent ever. And meanwhile, we get extraordinarily little information about what is actually going on here. There was an event in the Oval Office yesterday involving the president and others and it went so strangely that the people around Trump were sort of stunned into silence. Into silence. Trump looked confused. The people in the, in the Oval Office looked confused. Trump really struggling even to finish a sentence here. And Donald Trump continually trying to minimize this completely corrupt bribery project called the Ballroom, in which various actors and grifters are donating out of the goodness of their hearts for the demolition of parts of the White House in order to build Donald Trump's ballroom. And Trump says that they're doing a lot of things. Not only are they doing ballrooms, they're going to be doing arcs or arch. I don't know what he's talking about. Take a listen to this. Well, as you, Mr. Dell, about contributing, can you walk us through maybe who you've been talking to and how much more we can expect on top of each other?

B (48:56)

I think the people you probably would think I would be talking to, I have, there's a group of people out there that have been very successful and we've already started talking to them. You know, we're doing ballrooms, we're doing arcs, we're doing, we have a thing that's being planned that's going to be a great tribute to the country. As you know, you probably heard about it. The arc that we're looking at by the bridge, by near Arlington, there's going to be something. We're doing some other things for Washington itself and for the country itself. But a lot of the people that have, you know, gone in and done a real job with that, the ballroom. I think Michael and Susan, the next time we meet, well, I think we'll, hopefully we'll meet before then, but we're Going to have a big event over in the ballroom to celebrate this. We're building a ballroom that they've wanted at this beautiful White House for 150 years. They've wanted it so badly. Right now we can hold 109 people, if you're lucky, in a room. It's a beautiful room, but it's 109 people. And we're building something. You see the trucks in the back, you see the clanging, the banging. And when it's completed, it'll be one of the greatest ballrooms anywhere in the world. It's going to be amazing. So people that, that were involved in that process, I have a lot of friends with a lot of success, and every one of them, I would be shocked if anyone turns us down. We're going to have a lot of big contributors.

A (50:17)

Jeff, does anyone in my audience, even if you are a maga, believe that these projects are on the up and up? And I've got to commend this. I don't normally take this show as an opportunity to just praise MAGA people, but there are some MAGA people I want to praise. I am hearing more regularly than ever from people who write to me and they say, you know, David, I'm not a person of the left. I don't really agree with the left's view on tax policy. I don't really agree with the left's view on a lot of social issues even. But the level of corruption, grifting, self dealing that this president is involved in, I cannot support it. And this is what suggests to me that the opportunity to really unite to the extent that unity is possible against this MAGA movement is not about convincing right wingers that we should be taxing the rich more. Even though, by the way, that's a pretty popular position. But many of them don't agree with it. We are not going to find unity by convincing right wingers on issues of, you know, trans or lgbt. Like, that's not what it's going to be. It is going to be, listen, everything is at stake with this level of corruption going on.

A (51:43)

Without consequences, I think is the way that I will say it. And if and when we can remove such a brazenly corrupt administration and movement that is maga, then we can get back to figuring out what should the top tax rate be, what should we do about issues of transports or foreign policy or whatever. And I want to really commend it's not a lot of them. But I am hearing from more and more magazines who are writing to me and saying, I can't in good conscience support this grift, this corrupt grift anymore. And it's this sort of stuff that is making them feel that way. A reporter brought up to Trump, you know, you pardoned the former president of Honduras. Seems like it is at odds with now going after alleged narco traffickers connected to Venezuela. When on the other hand, if you really cared about drug trafficking, you wouldn't have pardoned the Honduran president. Trump goes, no, no, no, no, no. That was a Biden witch hunt. Take a look.

B (52:36)

I did.

A (52:37)

You also pardoned the former president of Honduras and he was released from, from prison yesterday.

B (52:42)

Well, he was the president and the, they had some drugs being sold in their country and because he was the president, they went after him. That was a Biden horrible witch hunt, which was, you know, a lot of people in Honduras asked me to do that and I did, and I feel very good about it. If you have some drug dealers in your country and you're the president, you don't necessarily put the president in jail for 45 years. That was a Biden inspired witch hunt.

A (53:09)

His letter impact your decision. You know, Donald Trump many times has called for the death penalty for drug dealers. When he was a candidate, he said they should get the death penalty. And now Trump is pardoning, pardoning someone convicted of narco trafficking. But there's an incredible detail here. You know, who prosecuted that case, which Donald Trump has now issued a pardon for the Biden witch hunt case. It was a guy named Emil Beauvais. That name might ring a bell because Donald Trump made Emil Beauvais a judge on a court of appeals federally. Sounds like Trump was really disgusted with that prosecution. Right. Remember that it is all grift. It is all grift. Trump on policy proposals saying, we're looking at programs to raise the birth rate. Like what Australia did were originally discussed as a way to incentivize people to have more children. Are there any other policy proposals you're looking at like this to encourage the birth rate to increase?

B (54:13)

Well, we are looking at programs. We're looking at. There's a certain Australian plan that people are liking and they're talking about, you know what I mean? There's a plan where not for children necessarily, but it's for people, working people. And we are looking at other things different from this. I think this is very unique, but different from this, but very important. Yeah.

A (54:39)

Now, as if you couldn't tell from that deranged word salad, Trump doesn't know what Australia did He seems to have no idea what Australia is doing. But I'll tell you what Australia is doing to try to increase the birth rate. Number one, they've increased the subsidy for what's called the child care subsidy. They've increased the amount of money and they've removed the annual cap on the amount families can claim. Republicans are against that sort of thing. They've done direct cash incentives called the baby bonus. Trump said he might be up for that. They've set up, this is so critical. Australia set up a parental leave and family payment structure, okay? Over decades, Australia has expanded the financial support for families through family benefits and per child payments. Republicans hate that crap. They don't want paid, paid parental leave. They don't want any of it. So the current thinking is that everything Donald Trump is saying we should be looking at is stuff that Republicans have said they are against. Does Donald Trump really even understand what's going on with the birth rate? Does Donald Trump understand what Australia is doing? Of course not. But he delivered a word salad so impenetrable that everybody around him froze. Question. Do you think Republicans really care about the declining birth rate or is it just a proxy to some other grift that they've come up with? Let me know in the comments. I want to hear from you. Holiday hosting can be stressful. Don't I know it. You should see what happened to my last Hanukkah brisket. But Wild Grain makes it so that you've got it handled. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the subscription box that brings bakery quality breads, pastries and pastas straight to your freezer, which you can then bake from frozen in just 25 minutes or less. I had friends over. I served apple pie bites and cranberry pecan rolls from Wild Grain. Huge hit. People thought I made them from scratch. Did I disabuse them of that notion? I don't know. That's a question for a different day. I love how everything turns out consistently. Every loaf and roll is perfectly browned, soft inside, smells great. They also have plant based and gluten free options so everybody's covered. Wild Grain is one of those things you try once and you think, why didn't I start doing this sooner? Whether you're gifting it or keeping it for yourself, Wild Grain makes it easy to have something special on the table at any time. Get $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life at wildgrain.com/pacman. The link is in the description. Well, fox news is Dr. Mark Siegel is not happy about all of the Trump cognitive decline talk. And it's natural that that talk is increasing because after all, Donald Trump did fall asleep three or four times during yesterday's cabinet meeting. So in comes Dr. Mark Siegel, and he says, angry, this is a disgrace. Cognitive tests. Trump's passing a cognitive test every single day.

B (57:48)

Problems. So this is a disgrace because we don't need to see President Trump passing cognitive tests. As you just said, he passes one every single day.

A (57:58)

Day, every single moment.

B (57:59)

Going in and out of press conferences.

A (58:01)

I've never seen anything like it. Actually, you know.

A (58:06)

I. It's hard to know where to start with this, but I do think it's relevant to remind you that Trump has been given supposedly a brain injury screening test, and Trump said it was really hard. We are supposed to believe that the guy regularly given brain injury tests for some reason we can't totally determine and says that that test is difficult, is completely fine. Put aside for a moment that he fell asleep three or four times at yesterday's Cabinet meeting and regularly delivers impenetrable word salads, sometimes with words not known in the English language. But Dr. Mark Siegel is defiant and angry. Why would anyone even suggest that? Laura Ingram says he didn't really fall asleep yesterday. There was one moment where Marco Rubio was talking and Trump closed his eyes for a second. He was just. He was just listening. And then Mark Siegel goes, no, he's super sharp. Siegel, look. Yeah, there was a moment where, again, social media goes crazy and the left is going crazy after totally deep sixing any concern about Biden for four years. And they went crazy because at one point today when Rubio was talking, President Trump had his eyes closed for, you know, a few seconds. It seemed like a few seconds. And. But they went crazy. Like he's sleeping during meetings. Like your reaction tonight, I think he.

B (59:36)

Seems extremely sharp, and I think this.

A (59:38)

Whole thing is a bait and switch.

B (59:40)

They don't like that he's going after the auto pen stuff, because Biden doesn't.

A (59:45)

Look like he even knew that he.

B (59:46)

Was signing with an auto pen, let.

A (59:48)

Alone what he was signing, explaining. And, you know, you know, when they are minimizing and explaining, you know, they realize they are losing. And Trump didn't close his eyes once. He seemed asleep at three or four different times. If the truth wasn't damaging, they would just say, listen, he dozed off three or four times. These meetings are long. Trump, 79, he's slowing down, but he's still the best possible person for the job. But they can't say that because they know nobody would buy that. Especially after the years they spent wildly talking about Joe Biden Ingram, then bragging about how Trump doesn't need a lot of sleep. And by the way, neither does she. But they will sometimes. Both Laura Ingraham and Trump, if people talk too long, why wouldn't you close your eyes? Well, we all know that he doesn't sleep. You know, I'm not a big sleeper either, so, you know, on occasion I close my eyes if someone's talking for too long, I admit it. But big deal. I mean, the results speak for themselves. What President Trump does on a daily basis, if you sleep three hours or four hours a night, you're probably going to close your eyes whether you're 79 or 49. I don't think that matters.

B (61:08)

Yeah, President Trump, Thomas Edison believed in the 10 minute nap, by the way. What would they say? We wouldn't have electricity. Right.

A (61:18)

Oh my goodness. Well, Dr. Siegel, we will continue to see them fixate on this after everything they did to cover for Joe. Yeah, you know, consider the linguistic acrobatics that they are going through to say Trump wasn't sleeping. And by the way, if he was, Thomas Edison would take 10 minute naps. I also don't need a lot of sleep, but if people are talking too long, I'll just close my eyes a little bit. And by the way, does your, does your jaw go slack when you do it? Do you jump startle awake when you do it as well? But none of it is sleeping. And then the ire and defiance building as Dr. Siegel says. Why are they even asking about him getting an MRI? Executives get MRIs now. That's a thing. Take a look. They're going, oh, why is he having an mri?

B (62:14)

Well, because that's, by the way, what executives do now. They have MRIs of the heart. Dr. Fuster at Sinai is doing them on a lot of people as screening tests.

A (62:23)

And he had some leg swelling. They went after that.

B (62:25)

So he had an mri. Looks normal. But Biden by comparison was not normal. He had medical problems, he had prostate cancer, he had cognitive problems.

A (62:34)

Listen, I've been explaining this for months, okay? If this was one of these swanky executive prod nouveau style full body MRIs, they could have said that. They could have said that up front. But Trump said he doesn't know why he got the mri. Trump said he didn't know what body part was scanned. Trump said they didn't know what they were looking for. And now the White House has put out a statement saying it was not a full body screening MRI because Trump is the president of the United States. And by the way, doctors have explained that's not the standard of care. The latest explanation is we were looking at his abdomen and we were looking at his cardiovascular system. They are saying it was not one of those executive MRIs. But the angry and defiant Dr. Mark Siegel, in an effort to defend any old thing that the White House puts out, says this is standard for executives. You know, that they're panicked because they are constantly explaining. And when you're explaining in conflicting ways, it's because you're losing. And you know you're losing the American people. All right, some of you saw that. I was on CNN News Night last night. Now, I'm going to play a clip. I'm going to be up front. I don't like doing this stuff and I don't think I'm particularly good at it. So I got a few emails of support. I got a few emails from people saying, david, why didn't you talk more? Why didn't you this, why didn't you that? So I'm just going to tell you, like in panel environments where participation requires interrupting people, talking louder than other people and simply not giving up until they let you speak. I'm just not good at that. Now, I'm going to come to you in a moment and ask you, should I get better at it or is it just not the right venue for me? But here was the setup. I was on CNN Newsnight hosted by Abby Phillip. This is the 10:00pm Eastern show on CNN. I was in this panel with Bhatia Angar Sargon, a Republican strategist named Brad Todd, I believe was his last name. Anna Navarro was there. And then they cycled in some, some other folks during other segments. Here is just one funny moment where I crowbar in that Trump fell asleep four times. But this is really the latest panicked scapegoating because Trump is, is in real trouble in a lot of areas. He fell asleep four times during this meeting, by the way, which is raising even more questions about the energy level. Having your ass for hours could be a little boring. All right, so listen, I don't, I didn't come out of this thinking, man, that was awesome. That was really great. Now, there are a lot of dynamics at play, but I take responsibility. Like, listen, the way these shows work is up until the last second, they're switching topics, they're changing who's on the show and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That makes it Harder to prepare. But I don't blame that for the fact that I didn't really say that much. I am just not good in scenarios where they don't go to you. You have to say, listen to me, it's just not my nature. You all know that I much prefer being interviewed by a host or being with the host and one other person where it's clearly some kind of a conversation, whether it's a debate or analysis or whatever. Where it is a conversation. This is a show where you basically just have to be the loudest and the brashest. And you all know that that's just not the way I do it. When I do adversarial interviews or non adversarial interviews or whatever, I think about these as conversations. When I run panels myself, I make sure I go, oh, that's interesting. Panelist number one. Panelist two, what do you think about that? And what about this other thing that Panelist 3 said? So there's like a couple possibilities here, right? I could say I'm going to do this stuff all the time and I could accept a lot more of these opportunities. I tend not to because of either scheduling conflicts or I just don't want to do it. I could, I am going to get better at interrupting and speaking more loudly and I'm just going to keep doing it. And like with anything, I assume with practice you get better at it or, and I want to hear from people in the audience, is this just not really my venue? Is the way that I think about politics and the way that I try to inject nuance and really think things through, is it just not suited to that style of show? I don't have the answer. I'm kind of willing to go either way. But certainly, certainly it is. It was not an environment in which we could speak extensively about, you know, like I was thinking back, there's one point where Bhatia Angar Sargon goes, this president has brought in $20 trillion or something like that. And of course, if it were my show, I would go, hold on a second. What, what do you mean he's brought in 20 trillion? Are you talking about the fact that when he went to the Middle east, leaders of Middle Eastern nations said, under the right circumstances, over the next decade, we might be willing to invest X in your country, but they haven't actually invested anything yet? Is that what you mean by the 20 trillion that that came in? But when she said that and everybody jumps in, just, I couldn't find an opportunity to sort of squeeze that in and then do I go back to it later? So needless to say, the only person to blame for my performance on that show is me. And I want to hear from you. Should I insist on doing this stuff and sort of join this whole like yelling the loudest to get attention thing? Or should I leave it to other people and find other other venues to appear on by as an example? By the way, Bhatia Angar Sargon said, hey, you should be on my podcast where it would just be she and I, which to me seems actually like a much better venue for actually having an in depth, depth conversation. So anyway, I want to hear from you. I did it. I don't think it went particularly well. I don't think I'm being unfairly hard on myself. I think I'm being accurately hard on myself. But I want to hear from you. Leave a comment. Let me know whether I should do more of this stuff or whether it's just not my bag baby. Let me know We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. We will talk about the Costco lawsuit. We will talk about Indiana Republicans and their Congressional map proposal. We'll talk about the open AI Code Red announced as Gemini is blowing up the AI world. All of those stories and more on the bonus show. You can sign up at join pacman.com you can also become a.

A (69:10)

Substack premium subscriber@substack.davidpakman.com I'll see you then. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite Podcasts with Libsyn ad, go to libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com Today.

A (69:56)

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