← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
6/17/25: Iran conflict rapidly escalating, Trump suffers G7 humiliation
00:57:13
-- On the Show: — Trump, the self-proclaimed anti-war president, warns Iranian civilians to evacuate Tehran—after blowing up the nuclear deal, igniting the region, and flirting with a catastrophic new war — Trump crashes the G7 summit in a...
Loading summary
Transcript41 lines
- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome, everybody. You know, if someone were to come to me and say, hey, David, are you anti war or pro war? As a general concept, of course, it's a very abstract question, but I would consider myself anti war in the sense that my instinct, my preference is to see diplomacy as a much better option than war and to see war as an only when necessary sort of thing. Now, Donald Trump swore up and down that he was the anti war candidate. He said this in 2016. He said this in 2020. He said this in 2024. He said he would easily stop and prevent and get us out of if it started World War 3. He's the peace president, the guy who said Obama would bomb Iran simply to save face. And that is the very same Donald Trump now ordering Iranian civilians to evacuate Tehran. It's not a typo, it's not a joke. It's the President of the United States warning of foreign capital that the military might be coming and very hard. Now, of course, the context here is that over the weekend, Israeli warplanes struck inside of Iran. And this triggered a very deadly exchange between Iran and Israel. Hundreds of missiles fired, some striking near American diplomatic zones in Israel, Israel doubling down. And the question is, where is Trump going to land on this whole thing? And Trump is now sort of generating his own Tom Clancy reboot, flying back from the G7 summit, issuing pretty thinly veiled threats and urging Iran to surrender. But I do think it's important to remember the context. And this is the guy who once tweeted a bunch of stuff about what Obama was going to do to Iran simply to boost his poll numbers. We'll get to that. But I want to first remind you, this is a nice little montage from Patriot Takes on X. Some of the times, some of the times that Trump told us he's the guy who will prevent World War Three. He's the real anti war candidate.
- [02:28]
Donald Trump
Speaking of World War Three, I'll keep you out of World War Three. What would happen if we had a war? We won't with me. But you will have World War Three, I believe, without me. But we won't have. I will be sure that World War III will not happen. I'm the only one can say it won't happen. But I stand here today and I'm the only candidate who can make this promise. I will prevent and very easily World War Three, very easily.
- [03:03]
David Pakman
And there you have it. Now, relevant prior tweets, as there often are with Donald Trump, just a few from when Barack Obama was president. Donald Trump tweeting now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate. Trump previously tweeting, quote, I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face Donald Trump while Obama was president, tweeting, quote, quote, remember what I previously said? Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is Obama right now. Back then, Trump was accusing Obama of being a warmonger. And now all of a sudden, Trump finds himself knee deep in this Israeli military campaign, saying he might have to take necessary action, moving American assets into the region, daring Iran to come back to the negotiating table with a fist raised rather than a hand extended. And the kicker here is this entire firestorm really started when Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Obama's deal, not a perfect deal, but at the point that Trump ripped it up, it had been an effective deal. It was keeping, as far as all the evidence shows, it was keeping Iran's nuclear ambitions in check. Now there are broader conversations to have, like, for example, who is anyone to tell Iran that it can't have nuclear weapons when other countries do? Ok, that's a question. That's a question on which reasonable people can debate and argue and make different points and come down on different sides. Or what about should it be countries that do or don't have nuclear weapons that get to decide? These are all fair questions. But understand that as far as the evidence, not the bluster we were hearing, oh, they're, they're, they're developing nuclear weapons even though they signed the deal. Well, we didn't have evidence of that at the time. What we know is that Trump got out of the deal because he didn't like it, because he didn't like that Obama's name was on it. Trump said he would get a better deal. Instead, we got nothing. And of course, Iran did the obvious, predictable, logical thing. I said it the day Trump ripped up the deal. Go back to my videos from that, that era and check it out. The, the logical thing, whether you do a game theory analysis or however you want to slice and dice it, of course, when Trump unilaterally rips up a deal that Iran had not violated, Iran will go back to nuclear work. And this has now led after a bunch of claims, promises and statements from Trump over many years to missiles flying once again. So we have Trump, the so called peace president, pouring gasoline on a powder keg. So we're not seeing restraint, we're certainly not seeing diplomacy. It's the sort of nonsensical foreign policy that Trump claims, claims that he is against. And it's wrapped up in, you know, stars and stripes sort of stuff. So there is a desperation here. Wall street is rattled. Oil markets aren't thrilled as we speak right now. Oil is. Where is oil? I can't find it. I should have had it ready. I don't know where oil is. Not that oil is the number one thing. It's really just a proxy to understand the expectations about certainty versus uncertainty. And so then we go to Capitol Hill and then you even have some Republicans saying War Powers Resolution. They're talking about that. So what happened to Donald Trump's big anti war energy? Well, he never really meant it. Much as I've been telling you now for a decade, all of the positions that Donald Trump and MAGA have staked out are born out of convenience and out of what can I use to pull myself one rung higher to the promised land of winning an election? I'm anti war until I'm not right. I'm against government intervention and businesses until intervention is convenient. And so what we're left with is a president who once was warning about wag the dog type politics, and he's now starring in the sequel of sorts. Warn about Iran, tear up Obama's legacy, start a war to distract from disaster at home. It's all on the table now. And it's important to understand that Trump built this sort of highway right back into this situation. And if this does spin into a wider war, we've just got to remember the tweets, remember the bragging, remember the irony, remember the promises. Because Trump so far doesn't seem like the guy to stop, quote, World War Three. And he might be writing the first chapter in the book World War Three. And that that's where we are as far as the deal. That is no deal. But we've got to also talk about what happened at the G7. Imagine a guy crashes a high level diplomatic summit, face like an orange creamsicle, holding blank papers in, yelling about tariffs and saying Vladimir Putin will only talk to him. You might think it's a bad episode of a political TV show, but it's the actual President of the United states at the G7 yesterday. Now, of course, it's no surprise that Trump's behavior was embarrassing to himself, but my concern really is that it's humiliating to the United States. So here is Donald Trump explaining how poor Putin will only talk to Trump because he's so offended that he was thrown out of the G8 by Justin Trudeau. Little bit of a problem with that, which is it did not happen under Justin Trudeau's watch. Take a listen.
- [09:10]
Donald Trump
Biggest economy in the world after the United States. Well, it's not a bad idea. I don't mind that. If somebody wants to suggest China coming in, I think we suggest. But you want to have people that you can talk to, you know, they. They don't talk. Putin speaks to me. He doesn't speak to anybody else. He doesn't want to talk because he was very insulted when he got thrown out of the ga, as I would be, as you would be, as anybody would be. He was very insulting. And I mean, he was thrown out by Trudeau, who convinced one or two people, along with Obama. He was thrown out, and he's not a happy person about it, I can tell you that.
- [09:49]
David Pakman
Only one little problem with this, Just a teeny, tiny problem. Russia was booted in 2014 for invading Crimea. Trudeau was not even the prime minister. It was Stephen Harper. These are facts that are very easy to look up unless you're sort of too busy scribbling your name with big sharpies on blank sheets of paper and calling it a trade deal, which is part of what Donald Trump did at this completely humiliating appearance. Now, now, Donald Trump then was standing with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. And again, he sort of waxes poetic about when the G7 was the G8. But Trudeau didn't like it. And he sort of pulls in Russia, Ukraine into this. It's never clear what he understands or how much of this is. Just, let me say words I recognize in English. Marco Rubio standing there maybe as the most irrelevant and impotent Secretary of State and American history together.
- [10:47]
Donald Trump
Very well. I look forward to that. The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in. And I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in, and you wouldn't have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago. But it didn't work out that way. But it used to be the G8, and now it's. I guess. What's that? Nine years ago, eight years ago, it switched over. They. They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake. Even though I wasn't in politics then. I was very loud about it. It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia. He's no longer at the table. So it makes life more complicated.
- [11:30]
David Pakman
But there's an idea. Instead of blaming the attacker for the attack, he. You blame Justin Trudeau for kicking Russia out of the G8, even though that happened when Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister of Canada. What do you think, guys? Is this, is this showing us Donald Trump's incredible skill and finesse when it comes to foreign policy? A pertinent question was asked. Why has there been no trade deal between the United States and Canada yet? And I'll leave it to you to decipher what Trump is saying here.
- [12:05]
Mark Carney
What is holding up a deal with.
- [12:07]
David Pakman
Canada from your perspective?
- [12:09]
Donald Trump
It's not so much holding up. I think we have different concepts. I have a tariff concept. Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like. But we're going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today. I'm a, I'm a tariff person. I've always been a tariff. Simple. It's easy, it's precise, and it just goes very quickly. And I think Mark has a more complex, complex idea, but also very good. So we're going to look at both and we're going to see what. We're going to come out with something.
- [12:40]
David Pakman
Mr. President. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Chomping on quite the word salad for lunch yesterday, as you can see. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stepping in to end this and to stop a neon orange Trump from taking more questions.
- [12:58]
Donald Trump
All Democrat run cities and they think they're going to use them to vote. It's not going to happen.
- [13:09]
David Pakman
Thank you.
- [13:09]
Mark Carney
If you don't mind, just, I'm going to exercise my role, if you will, as G7 chair, since we have a few more minutes with the President and his team and then we actually have to start the meeting to address some of these big issues. So thank you.
- [13:23]
Donald Trump
Thank you, media.
- [13:23]
David Pakman
Let's go. There you go. And Mark Carney having to step in and say, the toddler is getting grumpy because the toddler is hungry. And so we are going to move on here. Final moment. This is horrible and funny. Our friend Pekka Kelly Nemi had some funny tweets about this. Trump attempting to, I guess, display some kind of agreement about something, opens up one of these little folders, these leather folders with papers. He fumbles and drops the papers while standing there with Keir Starner. None of the papers seem to have text. Only Trump's signature. And then he confuses the UK with the eu. Just humiliating and pathetic. An utter embarrassment.
- [14:12]
Donald Trump
The uk and we just signed a document this is it's very important document. A little windy out here. We just signed it and it's done.
- [14:27]
David Pakman
And so we have, we signed it.
- [14:29]
Donald Trump
Our trade agreement with the European Union and it's a fair deal for both.
- [14:35]
David Pakman
And of course Trump wanted to say we've made a trade deal with the uk, not the European Union, even though he's also wrong about that. And the papers were blank. And Trump is not influencing policy. He wants you to believe he's brokering deals, but he's not. He's handing world leaders sheets of paper and demanding to be treated like a genius. So this is yet another opportunity where it's, you could have shown leadership here, but it became a highlight reel of confusion, isolation, disorientation and revisionist history. Not just a failure at the G7, but Trump isn't it's not that Trump didn't score any points in the game, it's that he doesn't understand the game. He's not playing the game and everybody else is like, it's the guy who knows only how to flip over the board. Who's here. Trump then flying back to the United States, leaving the summit early. And when he came back, it didn't go much better. So we're going to talk about that after the break. We'll have more about this on today's newsletter, which I hope you will grab@david pakman.substack.com we do a daily one hour audio podcast. If you're watching this on YouTube, know that you can get the full show on Spotify and on Apple podcasts for free, all widely available. Let's take a quick break and be right back. People in my audience know I am a bit of a pastry connoisseur. Our sponsor Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries and pastas. Wild Grains boxes are customizable depending on what you like and prefer. They've got their classic variety box. They've launched the new gluten free box. They have a plant based box that's 100% vegan and it just takes the hassle out of the baking because all items bake from frozen in 25 minutes or less. Nothing to clean up. My experience has been awesome. I love the croissants. I was having people over last week, half an hour before preheat and throw them in the oven and people love it. Definitely the croissants are my favorite. The quality and the freshness of the items is extraordinary and it is just so, so convenient. Go to wildgrain.com/pacman to start your subscription and get $30 off your first box plus free croissants in every box every month. That's wild grain.com pacman the link is in the podcast notes. All right, awesome. New sponsor to talk about wild Alaskan company. They do sustainable seafood memberships. I got one of these boxes and it is just phenomenal. The whole point with wild Alaskan seafood is that it's 100% wild caught, it's never farmed. It's from sustainably managed fisheries in Alaska, frozen at the peak of freshness and then delivered to you. They've got three curated boxes. The wild salmon box, the wild white fish box and the wild combo box. I got a box that had everything beautifully vacuum sealed. The fish comes in pre portioned fillets. We had crab, we had scallops. I know I should be saying scallops. I just, it's just not for me. I call them scallops. Okay? Delicious and sustainable. They have a sustainable supply driven approach. They get products during the harvest season in a way that doesn't deplete the resources of Alaska's wild fisheries. I encourage you to go to wild alaskan.com/pacman and use the code PACMAN for $35 off your first box. That's wild alaskan.com/PACMAN use code PACMAN for $35 off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program. I would love for you to consider getting a membership. At Join PA we do an extra show every day for our members. We also provide commercial free audio and video streams of the show, a members only soundboard, invitations to members only town hall events. And of course, beyond all of the great perks, you also are directly supporting a progressive independent media show at what I believe is maybe the most critical time to be doing so. Let's talk a little bit about the disastrous aftermath of this dark, dystopian, dilapidated, and quite frankly, poorly attended military parade on Saturday, which just by chance coincided with Donald Trump's 79th birthday. Donald Trump wanted something powerful. Donald Trump is enamored with the ways that North Korea and Iran and Russia, that authoritarians exercise power and project that power. So Trump wanted a military parade to mark the Army's 250th anniversary. Probably more importantly, his own 79th birthday as well. Discipline, uniforms, tanks, service members marching in uniform in lockstep, a big crowd. Something to really strike fear into critics and to make them look like a King. What Trump got instead was a poorly attended school field trip. And according to biographer Michael Wolfe, Trump furiously flipped out after watching his dictator fantasy fall apart on Constitution Avenue. The soldiers looked relaxed and human. Some were smiling, which I guess is great. But it wasn't what Trump actually wanted. The crowd was sparse. The environment was not really electric. It was muted. And the whole thing came off more like a poorly attended neighborhood block party where a lot of people said, I actually have a game. I want to stay home and watch instead of going to this thing. And Trump was reportedly furious and placed the blame on his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, allegedly screaming about the tone, accusing the troops of looking too friendly, they were too non threatening. The authoritarian orange guy wanted menace and he didn't get it. Imagine being mad that the people being forced to march in your military birthday parade just didn't look angry and scary enough. And it doesn't stop there, because when the story got out, the White House didn't even deny it with a straight face. They said that Michael Wolf, who reported on this, has a, quote, severe and debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome that has rotted his peanut sized brain. That statement came from the White House communication director. Not a guy on Reddit, not, you know, some drunk muttering to himself outside a gas station or on the subway platform. That is the official communication from the President of the United States office. We used to have a thing called decorum, and I don't really care that much about decorum for its own sake, but there was a situation where when politicians lied, they lied in a certain way. That was not a full blown psychiatric projection coming from the West Wing. The way that we see it right now, and it starts to make people like Kim Jong Un look way saner than he is. We've all been subjected to and sort of been living in Donald Trump's psychological breakdown now for a lot of time. Back in 2016, you might remember that forensic psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee was warning anybody who would listen. She said Trump's behavior is dangerous. It's not just about politics. It's to the public's mental health. And Dr. Bandy Lee, we interviewed her, she explained how pathological narcissism on this scale can spread. It never stays contained. It will start to warp norms, which it has. It will poison the discourse, which it has. It will destabilize communities, which it has. And a lot of people didn't want to hear it. We started seeing the national psychiatric associations allegedly coming under pressure to keep quiet because the Trump administration didn't like what was being said. And consider now that if you were 10 or 12 years old in 2016, you're, you know, 19 to 21 right now. You kind of grew up watching a man lie every day, spew cruelty on social media, dodge consequences, mistreat the people that work for him. And it was all presented as an image of masculinity and strength. That would be your model for leadership and manhood and power if you're around 21 or 22 years old right now. So this is much more than a Trump problem. This is a generational problem. Now we go back to the parade. Yeah, the parade was a disaster, without a doubt. But the bigger story is what the parade, Trump's reaction, and Trump flipping out on Pete Hegseth Reveal, which is this is a deeply broken man surrounded by enablers, obsessed with looking powerful while everything around him is crumbling. So the parade did not end up being a show of strength. It was this kind of lonely tantrum. I believe the soldiers knew it and on some level Trump knows it too, because he flipped out on Pete Hegseth for the obvious failure that it was. And Trump is not doing well. And what happened last night in the middle of the night is just a reminder something is very off in the middle of the night last night. The world is on the brink of war. We're following what's happening in Iran. And Donald Trump is spiraling, posting erratic rants on Truth, Social Truth Central at 8:00, at midnight, at 2:00am, at 6:00am each more disjointed than the last. Imagine what's going on. What is Trump up to? Maybe he got a little sleep between 2 and 6, I don't know. But this is what he's doing. 8pm okay, someone please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. So start there. Trump lashing out at Tucker Carlson of all people, his one time kind of propaganda wingman turned Russian apologist. This is not a post about policy. This is a post about insecurity. Tucker has been going pretty soft on Iran lately. We're going to get to that. And Trump doesn't like the idea that anyone else on the right might be seen as the real alpha. So instead of explaining US Policy, Trump does this WWE style promo against the former former cable host saying that he's kooky. So that was 8pm Then we get to midnight Eastern time. Trump quote, if I didn't put the National Guard in Los Angeles, the place would be burned down to the Ground right now. I did. Incompetent Governor Gavin Newsom, who doesn't have a clue, the favor of a lifetime. One of the worst governors in history. That's midnight. Okay? This is what Trump's doing at midnight. This is pure fantasy. There was no mass destruction in Los Angeles. The National Guard wasn't even under Trump's direct authority, the way he's describing it. Ok, but in Trump's mind, he saved the city despite the fact that the protests were contained to a few block radius and they were overwhelmingly peaceful. This is textbook historical revisionism. Trump taking credit for something that didn't happen to justify what he did as an authoritarian. And then of course, attacking Governor Gavin news scum while the world watches Trump fumble yet another international crisis. This is not strength. Then we get to 2 in the morning, OK, Trump, quote, publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron of France mistakenly said that I left the G7 summit in Canada to go back to D.C. to work on a cease fire between Israel and Iran. Wrong. He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington. But it certainly has nothing to do with a cease fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay tuned. So we are now into middle of the night paranoid theater. What do you think Trump is doing at 2am as he types this out? Where is he sitting? What is he up to? Trump is denying he returned to D.C. to work on diplomacy, as if that would be something to hide. And he teases this vague, ominous, much bigger reason than stopping World War three for returning. So it's vintage Trump. Vague threats, blown up ego, zero details. But the real problem is that if he's not working on a cease fire between Israel and Iran, what is he working on? The Post is more alarming than anything that it does to answer questions. And then at 6:00am, remember, is Trump sleeping? What's he doing? Trump, quote, I have not reached out to Iran for peace talks in any way, shape or form. This is just more highly fabricated fake news. If they want to talk, they know how to reach me. They should have taken the deal that was on the table. Would have saved a lot of lives. So this is the full pivot after I guess being up all night into denial and blame. Trump insists, I'm not talking to Iran, even though we hope someone's talking to Iran. Trump says, I'm not negotiating a cease fire, even though we hope, I hope someone's negotiating a cease fire. And then he starts scolding, scolding other people. So this is governance by chaos. He wants credit for working all night, but he's just shouting at people. He's contradicting his own administration. He's making it clear that if there is a war, it's certainly not my fault. Now the reaction from the Trump fans is critical to understand. The most loyal Trump fans love saying, isn't this great? He has so much energy, he's up all night, he's leading, he's focused all hours of the day. He's running a 247 White House. But step back for a second. This is not high level strategy. This is a guy spiraling on social media from 8pm to 6am 10 hours straight, obsessing about former cable news hosts, ranting about the French president, lashing out at governors, lashing out at world leaders while casually saying, he's not doing the one thing I wish he were doing, which was trying to get some kind of cease fire, trying to reduce the possibility that we do go into the very World War Three that he promised us. He was the only person who would be able to promote it, so prevent it. So he's not working in any kind of productive sense. He's unraveling and that should terrify everybody but the MAGA people go, oh, he's so great. He's up all night, he's working. Not like Sleepy Joe, who would be asleep. We're in trouble. We're in real trouble here. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now, if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe, oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News slash pacman and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the sources political bias and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use. So you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to ground news/pacman. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. If you're running a business and feeling stuck juggling the logistics, the multiple apps, programs, endless spreadsheets, manual data entry, all of this stuff. Switch to Odoo, the powerful all in one management platform that'll give you everything you need right at your fingertips. With our sponsor Odoo, you can say goodbye to the disconnected software, the tedious manual data entry, streamline lead scoring and inventory management. It might be accounting and manufacturing or point of sale. Odoo is completely customizable. You pick the apps you need, you tailor them to the way you like it, experience how Odoos flexibility can give you back time, reduce errors and boost the bottom line. If you're ready to transform and simplify the way you run your business, you can get a 14 day free trial, no credit card needed, and your first app is free forever. Go to odoo.com/pacman now that's od o o.com/pacman the link is in the podcast Notes I want to talk a little bit about crime. An issue that is always there. An issue that is often weaponized by elected officials. An issue that was arguably, arguably not handled particularly well by Democrats leading up to the election of November of 2024, but that is also weaponized by Republicans in a completely dishonest way. California Governor Gavin Newsom sort of proverbially stuffed Republican Congressman Mike Smith into a locker. Let me explain. Republican Congressman Mike Smith really thought that he had a zinger. He tweeted at Gavin Newsom in the context of the L A protests, Governor, I suggest focusing on the lawlessness and crime in Los Angeles and San Francisco instead of auditioning for the 2028 presidential primary with stale talking points. Now you can practically hear the smugness dripping off of this one. And Gavin Newsom responded with facts, where he said, quote, your state's homicide rate is 117% higher than California's. This is what happens when you come for a guy with statistics, when the other guy has nothing but, you know, a bad idea for a tweet. And Gavin Newsom didn't just dunk on Mike Smith, he really buried him under his own talking point. And you might recall a similar incident that we covered not long ago. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried the same thing. She went on Fox News and she said, oh, we would never have the lawlessness and the chaos of California in Arkansas. And Gavin Newsom responded, your homicide rate is way higher than ours in San Francisco. And then it also happened when Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who I find to be one of the most Regrettable and despicable members of the Senate right now. Mullen put out a video about the same issue and Newsom responded. If you want to discuss violence, let's start with your state's murder rate, which is 40% higher than California's. So let's now zoom out. Republicans love pointing fingers at cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. It's just popular. They see it as low hanging fruit. Nobody's going to look too deeply. Oh, it's so dangerous there. But when you look at the per capita homicide rates in many of these deep red states, states way higher, way higher. I mean, you look at Louisiana, 16 homicides per 1 0,000 residents in 2022. That's more than twice the national average of roughly 7 per 1 0,000. You look at Mississippi, almost 30 gun deaths per 1000 residents. That's nearly three times the rate in California. Now that's. Now you present Republicans with this. They either won't know what to say, they'll change the subject. Sometimes they will come up with these tired phrases like, well, that's because the people in the blue states are too scared to report the crimes because the police won't do anything. There is no evidence that there is a plague of unreported undocumented murders happening in blue states. It's just laughable. It's ridiculous. So what the numbers show is much darker crime skies hovering over red states than any of these west coast sanctuary cities. The murder rates in deep red states is often way higher. Newsom has the receipts. California's homicide rate is lower than the national average, dramatically lower than the red state elected officials that are yelling the loudest. And when you look at the FBI data, red states consistently rank near the top for violent crime. You look at homicide, you look at assault, you look at robbery, you look at Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, all of these above the national average. And you compare that with blue states. California, you know, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts. What we see here is red state politicians loving to reflexively blame urban blue enclaves for so called lawlessness. But that's not actually what's happening. New York City versus Oklahoma City is another popular one. New York State versus Oklahoma, as a state, it all points in one direction. Now, I also think, I don't know that Kamala Harris handled this the right way as a candidate. But it is also the case that nationally the murder rate has just been coming down. Overall, the United States is becoming a safer place to be in. That doesn't mean we don't care when we see crime outside of our windows, it doesn't mean there isn't work still to do. The improvement isn't uniform. Right. You states with higher baseline crime can see a reduction, but still have a lot of crime. So this is not a finished issue. But on a per person basis, America's most violent states are in red America. They aren't these blue coastal cities that Republican talking points love to focus on and that right wing elected officials love to demonize. The other thing is a lot I hate to be this I know will feel insulting to a lot of my audience. I hate to have to go to such basic arithmetic stuff, but a lot of people don't understand crime rates per capita. If I said to you France has more robberies than Lichtenstein, I think most of you would intuitively go, wait a second, France has almost 70 million people. Lichtenstein is 40,000 people. Most people would realize if we just compare the numbers, it doesn't tell us much. We need to look at the rates for these things. And the same sort of idea applies here when we look at red states, blue states, red cities, blue cities, etc. So if lawmakers were serious about fighting crime, they should really focus on where the statistics say the problem is the worst. And right now, blue states like California, blue cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, these are not the places at the top of the list. But Republicans don't care because it plays really well with their base. This morning, Donald Trump answered questions nominally. Like, what I mean by that is reporters asked questions and Trump used words from the English language. They weren't really answers. Now, one of the questions Trump was asked on the plane was, have you called Tim Walls yet? This is a question that has come up because Minnesota had this horrible tragedy where a lunatic MAGA terrorist killed Democratic elected officials, almost killed other elected officials that he shot, had a list of even more Democratic elected officials that he wanted to kill. But he is surrendered to police. He is now in custody. There was the idea that, hey, Tim Walls is the governor. Tim Walls was on the hit list. Maybe Trump will call him. And Trump goes, he's whacked out. I'm not calling him. Have you called the governor yet or been able to speak to any of them?
- [39:51]
Donald Trump
I don't really call him. He said, look, he appointed this guy to a position. I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I'm not calling. He's a mess. So, you know, I could be nice to call, but why waste time?
- [40:05]
David Pakman
There you go. So Trump's not going to waste time calling the whacked out governor of Minnesota after one of his own supporters killed, assassinated. That's where we are right now. Democratic elected officials in the state. Screw Tim Walsh. Then maybe more substantively, the topic of Iran came up. Trump was asked, are you open to negotiating with the Iranians? And Trump goes, not really in a mood to negotiate right now.
- [40:39]
Donald Trump
Right now or do you want to wait? I've been negotiating. I told him to do the deal. They said the deal. The cities have been blown to pieces, lost a lot of people. They should have done the deal. I told them, do the deal. So I don't know.
- [40:56]
David Pakman
Trump has said it. His mood is not one for wanting to negotiate. Isn't it great when global conflict comes down to the mood of one guy who doesn't really understand anything? Now, very interestingly, Trump seems to say here that he doesn't trust his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Trump was asked about the reality that despite what Trump is now saying about Iran approaching a nuclear weapon, that Tulsi just couple months ago said Iran's not close to building a nuclear weapon. And Trump goes, I don't care what she said. Don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon.
- [41:38]
Donald Trump
But how close do you personally think.
- [41:40]
David Pakman
That they were to getting one? Because Tulsi gave her. Tulsi Gabriel testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't going to.
- [41:49]
Donald Trump
Say, I think they were very close to.
- [41:51]
David Pakman
Yeah, he just doesn't care. I think they're close. Oh, really? Well, the intelligence community doesn't think so. Don't care. Your Director of National Intelligence doesn't think so. Don't care. All right, Just. I guess he just doesn't care. He believes what he believes. And then finally, Trump over the last 24 hours has sort of said, cease fire. I'm not working on any cease fire. He was asked, what's better than a cease fire between Iran and Israel? What do you want? And Trump kind of goes, we just want the end.
- [42:24]
Donald Trump
A real anti ceasefire.
- [42:25]
David Pakman
And then so something that will be.
- [42:27]
Donald Trump
Permanent or giving up entirely. Is that okay? Are you closer? Is that impossible? Why not? Certainly possible. Give up. That's possible.
- [42:43]
David Pakman
This is all about ego for Donald Trump. Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal. Iran hadn't violated the deal, but Trump didn't like that it had Obama's name on it. Trump just didn't want it. So he unilateral, literally said the deal is done. Iran does what any natural country would do. If you had not violated the deal and someone goes, we're ripping it up. They go, all right, well, if the deal is done, we'll go back to researching nuclear and looking at enriching uranium and all of the other sort of precursor elements that are involved in having a nuclear program. Trump then goes, oh, no, they can't do that. And then now, given the possibility that Trump could get in, listen, I'm not going to say there's no way that Trump could help reach a cease fire in this situation or get a new deal. Let him go, try to do it. But Trump is now saying he's not even in the mood to negotiate. He's not even interested in a cease fire anymore. He wants an end. And as we know, sometimes these ends can lead to even more radical regimes coming in. That's a whole different story. But this is a guy driven primarily by ego. How can I self aggrandize and put the attention on myself? How can I make myself the main character of this entire thing? And it is not going his way? So for the good of the world and for the good of the country, I hope Trump changes his mind. I hope Trump directs his team to go and try to get a cease fire, try to get a deal. But Trump now seems committed to that not happening. And of course, he's as disoriented and as confused as ever as to the facts on the ground. This is what happens when you elect a guy like this. There's simply no way around it. It's what we expected, and it's what we're getting. I want to introduce you to an amazing tool that has helped a huge number of people reach their health goals. It is called Lumen, and it's the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it'll tell you, are you burning fat or carbs? And give you tailored guidance to improve nutrition, workouts, even stress management. Your metabolism is like the engine of your body, how you turn food into fuel. And because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health can translate to many benefits, including easier weight management and improved energy levels and fitness results. It's a long list. Lumen gives you recommendations to improve metabolic health based on the context of your breath measurement, whether that's first thing in the morning, before and after meals, or workouts. And you can get 20% off your lumen by going to Lumen, Dot me slash Pacman. That's L U M E n Dot me slash pacman for 20% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, this is really interesting. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has now admitted one of the things that we all know to be true about Fox News, which is that Fox News is a propaganda machine specifically designed to manipulate older folks into submission. This happened on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. He talks about Mark Levin, he talks about Jesse Watters, and he does also, by the way, his completely off the wall cackle laugh. But there's a lot of interesting substance here. So let's listen to what Tucker Carlson said and then we'll talk about it. So what is that? That's not by popular acclaim. It's not like their viewer surveys like, you know, we need a lot more Mark Levin, less Jesse Waters, more Mark Levin. What they're doing is what they always do, which is just turning up the propaganda hose to full blast and just trying to, you know, knock elderly Fox viewers off their feet and make them submit.
- [46:38]
Donald Trump
This is this.
- [46:40]
David Pakman
Now there are some people I saw in comments online who find these comments ageist like that Tucker is implying older folks are easier to manipulate with propaganda. I think there's, there's two things that are really important to understand. First is Fox News is demographic skews older. It's whatever you think about the susceptibility of older folks to what Fox News puts out. Fox News simply has an older audience. Cable news in general is an older news consuming audience than what you would see on other platforms. And Fox News specifically among Fox, CNN and msnbc, especially during certain day parts skews to a significantly older audience. So that's just a statistic. Now I do think it's relevant to discuss that we know from studies on social media misinformation sharing that older folks are disproportionately likely to share disinformation and fake news on Facebook, for example. And I'll be perfectly kind of frank and it's a little bit sad, I think that this is just a reality of after a certain point our comfort with newer technologies is diminished. And I'm including myself in this. You know, we publish the show to Snapchat and I look on there, I see what we're publishing, I see what the comments are, etc. I couldn't tell you how the hell Snapchat works. And it's just, I mean it's not that I literally cannot understand it, but it's just sort of like another platform, I don't know. So I don't even think that Just recognizing that sometimes newer technologies, by virtue of being less comfortable and natural for certain groups or whatever. Right. I don't think that what Tucker Carlson is saying is ageist here. I think it's just that he's conveniently leaving himself out of criticism for having participated in it and also acting as if he's presenting something different now that he's independent. Tucker hosted one of the most watched and most misleading shows in Fox News history. He parroted Putin talking points on Ukraine. He sped spread Covid conspiracies. He suggested that the January six rioters were merely misunderstood patriots. And now he goes, oh, Fox News is this manipulative empire. They're preying on an aging audience or something like that. So I don't really see this as whistleblowing. It's a confession. It's accurate. And Carlson also argued at a different point in this interview that Hannity and Rupert Murdoch are warmongers, suggesting that they're using their platform to push Trump into war, but they pretend to be anti war. And the irony is so thick because Tucker Carlson once did the exact same thing. He styled himself as this truth teller, but he would then serve up distortion every single night. So none of this is about principle. This is about power. Tucker acts like it's bad to turn on a fire hose of disinformation at older folks, but he used to turn on a fire hose of disinformation at older folks. Tucker acts as if it's immoral and unique to pretend to be one thing and to do another. But Tucker was publicly supportive of Donald Trump, while his private text messages revealed that he deeply despised Trump because he said in text messages, I deeply despise Trump. So none of this is about principle. Tucker is calling others out for doing the exact same stuff that he did. He just no longer has a seat at Fox News. So now he's trying to burn it down from the outside. He helped build this house. He's been kicked out of the house, and now he's trying to burn it down. So congrats. Tucker's right. Fox News lies, and the audience is disproportionately older, but he was one of the best liars that they had. And one of the interesting things, actually, it would be interesting to go and look at more of the interview, which I did, and I encourage you to do so. Bannon's attitude during the whole thing, you know, at some points, Bannon would smirk. At some points, Bannon almost seemed like he was trying to give no reaction at all. At other points, Bannon seemed a little bit uncomfortable with what Tucker Carlson was saying. And so it was interesting to see that dynamic. But Tucker Carlson stumbled upon a truth that he himself of course, is guilty of. Hey, this is really, really wacky. Fox News cut away from an obviously belligerently drunk propagandist and then she went on Twitter and deleted her tweets about drinking right before the appearance. This is one of those sort of like, what are people doing? How does anyone think this is a good idea? Fox News brought on after 9:30 Eastern on the night of Trump's parade. Rebecca Koffler to talk about the military parade. And she is obviously intoxicated and they make the call to cut away from her. This is painful, painful to watch. With us now is former Defense Intel Agency officer Rebecca Koffler. Rebecca, what are your thoughts on tonight on the incredible symbolism and the messaging that we saw here tonight from the commander in chief on the army's 250th birthday.
- [52:11]
Rebecca Koffler
I am so excited, Emily and oh God, Lucas Tomlinson, everybody. Like this is incredible. Finally the United States is, is back. I want to really thank all of our Army, Navy and Air Force officers who have been sacrificing their lives, literally. Their families have been contributing to the mission most of the time for the past quarter of a century because of the mission mismanagement of the, the administrative states. They've been fighting these foreign wars. But with our new in chief, Donald James Trump, they are prioritizing.
- [53:13]
David Pakman
How much more of this can you handle? There's only a few more seconds before they cut her off.
- [53:17]
Rebecca Koffler
America first. And I want to thank these officers for all of these sacrifices, vices and all of the hardships that their families have been doing. Lawrence Jones, you are doing, you're, you're rushing man. Like you, you guys and Lucas, thank you. I want to thank, thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you.
- [53:41]
David Pakman
And thank you for your service too. Well, our final thoughts on this now after, after this on air atrocity was over. Rebecca Koffler said that her being cut off had nothing to do with being drunk, that it was because of intermittent connection quality. I noticed not a single connection glitch during that. You know, Pete Hegseth probably watched that and was like, damn, she's lucky. I wish I could still be drinking like that, but I promised I would stop drinking if they made me a secretary of defense. Now she, in a now deleted tweet she had posted with a picture of an open champagne bottle in front of a toaster oven. Well, President Trump is apparently encroaching on my airtime. My hit is moved to 8:20 or 8:30, depending on how long Trump takes. I'm honored. Refilling my champagne glass while waiting for my hit. That was deleted after this fiasco after the appearance went haywire. Sad. Sad. And substance use issues are of course medical issues. Nothing to laugh at. And hopefully she gets whatever help she needs. If she needs help and if she doesn't, then good for her. On the bonus show today, ICE agents could be banned from wearing masks under a new proposal. We've been talking about how Donald Trump has long said the protesters in L. A shouldn't be allowed to wear masks. But. But what about the ICE agents? Well, they might be banned from wearing masks as well, which I don't think they're going to like, to be perfectly honest. The Trump Organization's latest grift is Trump Mobile. They will have their own smartphone. Yeah, and you can also bring your own smartphone to their service, I guess, if you want. We will talk about the latest grift and my pillow founder and CEO Mike Lyndell, known also as Mike Pillow or only as Pillow. Wait, do I have any of his trend Iraqwa? Nope, that's not it.
- [55:52]
Donald Trump
Oh, here we're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines.
- [55:57]
David Pakman
That guy has just lost to a machine. He has lost a $2.3 million defamation case. It is not going well for pillow. We will talk about all of those stories and more when producer Pat joins me on the bonus show. How do you access the bonus show? People go, oh, I just don't know how to access it. You go to join pacman.com and you sign up. I also want to remind you we will soon be relaunching our substack into a much greater and bigger publication. I it's completely free to sign up. Go to David pakman.substack.com and also remember, also remember that you can confront me if you've been desperate to do it, as I know many have. You can confront me on Tik Tok lives regularly. I did one last night. A white nationalist who says white nationalism is good confronted me. We had a conversation. And a Trump voter who says Trump's good confronted me and we had a good conversation. We learned they didn't really know anything. And we'll be publishing those clips to YouTube very soon and to all of our other platforms. So keep an eye on the TikTok lives. We will see you on the bonus show. I'll be back with you tomorrow.
- [57:13]
Mark Carney
Support American made tariff free clothing with American Giant With American Giant they aren't affected by tariffs because their clothing products Never left the U.S. get 20% off your first order when you use promo code STAPLE20@american-giant.com 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 ads go to libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.