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- [00:00]
David Pakman
Red alert, as the Trump administration is openly talking about deploying an election integrity army in November to polling places. This is about intimidating people. This is about process warfare, as I would call it. We're going to talk about it. And this is obviously a very dangerous escalation from people who know they can't win elections by convincing people about their policies. So they're going to try to win by, by manipulating the systems. We also have now heard seven times that the Iran war is over. And yet we are into week 11 of what was going to be a three to four week war. And the reason that this is happening, according to Sebastian Gorka, is because we have just won so quickly and so powerfully that the war continues doesn't really make a lot of sense. Also today, Trump officials continue promising that we're just a couple of weeks, a couple of months from complete and total economic paradise, a panacea utopia. Except it doesn't seem to work out that way. And the $7 million contract to reap, excuse me, to repaint the Lincoln Memorial was given with no bidding process to Trump's pool guy. I wish I was kidding. Donald Trump has just admitted that he has a plan to militarize polling places in November. The point of this is just to intimidate people. It's to scare people. People who show up and they plan to vote, and then all of a sudden they're going to see this election integrity army, as Donald Trump is calling it. And Trump is hoping that this will, I guess, scare some people so that they won't vote. Let's dig into the details. But the most important takeaway is one that I've been pointing to for a while and we talked about extensively last week, which is that if you believe that your policies are going to convince people to vote for you, you don't need to do any of this stuff. If you are winning an election by winning the will of the voters because they say, hey, you're doing a good job, or I believe that we're going in the right direction, I believe that your ideas are good, then you wouldn't need to do any of this stuff. They can't. They can't win voters on policies they can't win on. We reduced the price level, inflation, affordability, so they are going to try to win by controlling the election itself and by intimidating people. And that leads to this completely deranged post just hours ago from Donald Trump on Truth Social where he says, quote, palestinian Chuck Schumer is hiring Eric Holder, famous for handing guns to Mexican cartels under the Barack Hussein Obama administration as part of a Democrat led election integrity group that will no doubt try to suppress Republican voters and interfere in our elections. Furthermore, Mark Elias, that's our friend Mark Elias, by the way Trump calls him a terrible lawyer with a horrible track record is also involved. This is the same disgusting individual who was responsible for his fake for the fake Russia dossier from a foreign national to medal in the 2016 election, which I won in historic fashion. The Democrats are totally unhinged and we will not allow them to threaten the integrity of our election. So a lot of Mark Elias hate. And then Trump says, during my historic election in 2024 when I won every single swing state and decisively won both the electoral and popular votes by wide margins, the Republicans had an election integrity army in every single state to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote. We will be doing the Same again in 2026, but it will be much bigger and stronger. All Americans should have their voices be heard by casting a vote. Be assured this election will be fair. This goes directly to the point I I made last week about the difference between winning by persuasion on the issues and winning through manipulation, intimidation, exhaustion, making people distrust the system. If you have a healthy political system, it revolves around convincing people about your ideas and what you will do. Here's my policy, here's why it will help you. If you believe me, you vote for me. If you don't believe me, you might vote for my opponent. What it has become for MAGA is the election is fake. Unless we win, we need an army at polling places. If we lose, there was fraud. And the thing that really should jump out here is that Trump is admitting the Republican strategy is not about persuading people on policy. Trump is casually saying the economy is better than ever. We've ended eight wars, I ended the Iran war seven times, all of this stuff. But they're really talking about using process warfare to try to win. Not we're going to lower your prices or we'll make your life more affordable. He promised that stuff before he failed to do all of it. Instead, it's election integrity army. Republicans must defend fair and free elections and we're going to do it with an army. This is going to get very ugly for them. They know that this is going to get very ugly for them. Gas prices are up because of the Iran situation. Groceries are more expensive rather than less. Energy is up rather than down the 50% Trump promised. We're still waiting for Trump's 2020 health care proposal. I Hope you haven't been holding your breath for that one. And so when they realize we're underwater on every single one of our promises, we. We've been trying to just convince people about it, but they don't seem to be falling for it. What do we do? Well, instead of talking about how you fix cost of living, because you didn't, you talk about, you got to be really careful about this election. You've got to be really careful about whether your vote will count, illegals are voting by the millions for Democrats, stuff that just isn't happening. So then people go, well, if that is happening, we need some kind of system to defend us against it. What about an election integrity army? And that is exactly what they are trying to do. So none of this. Are you better off now than you were, what, a year and a half ago? Because most people would say I'm not better off. The polling says that people believe the economy has gone in the wrong direction and they expect it to be in an even worse place a year from now. You can't win on that. You're going to get crushed. You're going to lose the House, you might lose the Senate. Maybe not. We'll have to see. So you just don't have that conversation. Don't argue with people about that. Instead, say, I'm the only person that can make sure this election can be trusted. And that is a real sign that your movement is in trouble. Again. It reminds me of lawyers often say, if the facts are on your side, you argue about the facts. If the facts aren't on your side, you argue about process and vice versa. Republicans don't have accomplishments to their name and they know it. Because even the MAGA sycophants, when they get interviewed, they go, listen, I voted for Trump three times. I bought his hats and I got one right here. Look at this. I bought his hat and I bought all of this different stuff. And he screwed me. He screwed me really, really badly. And so I am now recognizing that I have to go in a different direction. They realize as a result, they have to run a different election. And that is exactly what they're doing. They are just going to run on. We're going to intimidate at the polling places. No more talk about improving your lives. More talk about controlling the election. We can't let them get away with it. And Mark Elias, who Trump is attacking, is actually doing everything he can to prevent them from getting away with this. Did you know that Donald Trump has powerfully ended the Iran War seven times? Would it shock you to be told that we are now in week 11 of what was going to be a three to four week war. It's kind of weird. Week 11 of three, we all knew that this was going to happen. Donald Trump has announced seven times over the last nearly 50 days that the war is over or ending very quickly. Nearly 50 days ago, Donald Trump said, I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution. Based on all of this, I've told the Department of War, postpone strikes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We did it. Isn't that great? Well, that was 50 days ago almost. And then 10 more days went by and the war was still going on. So nearly 40 days ago, Donald Trump posted. Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait? Time is running out. 48 hours before all hell will rain down upon them. Glory be to God. So 10 days after Trump said it's going to all be wrapped up within a week, he said, I may actually just destroy the entire country because they're not doing what I said. But then that didn't happen. And another week went by and about 33 days ago, Donald Trump said, a big day for world peace. Iran wants it to happen. They've had enough. Likewise, so is everyone else. Lots of positive action. Money will be made. Iran can start reconstruction. We're loading up supplies. I'm feeling confident, said Donald Trump 33 days ago. But it didn't take. And then just over a month ago, Donald Trump said the United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through very productive regime change. There will be no enrichment of uranium. We'll work with Iran will dig up and remove the nuclear dust. And it's all happening very quickly. We're making tariff sanctions, tariff and sanctions relief. It's all been agreed to. At which point I said, wow. Donald Trump is now struggling to get back into a weaker version of the Obama nuclear deal, which he said was terrible. He must be really desperate. And he was, because it still didn't happen then. We are in mid April 18, April 17, we finally hear more about the Strait of Vermouth. Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used as a weapon against the world. It's finally over, folks, after four, five announcements. But it didn't take because then three weeks ago, after Iran hadn't opened the Strait of Hormuz, Trump Again announces. Iran has just announced that the Strait of Iran, which he means, of course, the Strait of Hormuz, is fully open and ready for full passage, except that also didn't really happen. And then Most recently, on May 5, just about a week ago, Donald Trump tacos again, saying, based on the request of Pakistan and other countries, the tremendous military success that we have had during the campaign against the country of Iran, and additionally the fact that great progress has been made towards a complete and final agreement with representatives of Iran. We have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the agreement can be finalized and signed. The seventh time that Donald Trump announced to us, ladies and gentlemen, we did it. And it brings me no joy to tell you that now, another six days later, we have not gotten a resolution. And advisers are increasingly worried that Iran was never close to agreeing to Donald Trump's terms. I hope that on the eighth time Donald Trump announces the end to this war, it will really be over. I really do hope that. But call me just a little bit skeptical now. You might be looking around and saying to yourself, well, you know, he said it was going to be three to four weeks. We're in week 11. Why might this be going on? Could it be because Donald Trump is incompetent? Could it be because Donald Trump's advisers are incompetent? Could it be because he was lied to? Could it be because he was simply lying? Could it be?
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Donald Trump
Would it?
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David Pakman
What could the reason be? Well, would it shock you for me to tell you that the reason the Iran war is still going on is because we won it so quickly? Hmm? That is exactly what a Trump adviser is now arguing. And I want to talk about that next. Listen, if we just met on the street and we talked about what's going on in Iran, could I convince you that the reason the war against Iran is entering week 11 is it was supposed to be three to four weeks, is that Trump won it too quickly, the military was too good, and we won so fast that it couldn't end. You would probably look at me and say, david, did you just fall on your head? Do you have a brain injury? Are you disoriented and dizzy? Are you taking some new kind of medication? Are you experiencing confusion? But that is what Trump advisers and. And sycophants like Sebastian Gorka are now claiming. Check this out. We've been too effective at the war. And so it continues.
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Interviewer/Reporter
But we did hear a much shorter Timeframe at the beginning of this. Right. Was this an optimistic take, or how do we reconcile the original timeline with
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David Pakman
what we're dealing with now?
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Interviewer/Reporter
Well, look, there is the ancient aphorism, every plan lasts until first contact with the enemy. But there is a very simple answer to your question. We've just been too effective. Along with our colleagues in Jerusalem that have affected numerous Persona strikes, we have absolutely destroyed the leadership, the traditional leadership. Take this one metric, Chris. Where is this vaunted new Ayatollah? Where is Mojtabh really? Is he in charge? How come we haven't seen hide nor hair of him or not one still photograph, let alone a video statement?
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David Pakman
Because they're terrified Trump will try to kill him.
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Interviewer/Reporter
This is a regime in ultimate collapse at the top. As a result, it makes communicating and getting that final deal, that acquiescence, that surrender, a little bit more complicated.
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David Pakman
Understand what Sebastian Gorkha is saying. He's saying that because we were so good at the war, Trump is so good, we were so good at the war that we destroyed everything and everyone, and there's no people left to end the war. From the point of view of Iran, they would be ready to surrender if only they had anybody that could actually sign the paperwork. It's a paperwork issue, is what he wants us to believe. The war is taking longer because we're just winning too hard. Imagine if your contractor doing renovations said the remodel is taking an extra six months because we're doing such an incredible job that there is nothing left to do. What you would say that doesn't make any sense. A football coach says we're losing by 30 because our strategy is working too well. It doesn't make any sense. And in Trump world, every single outcome, whether it's a positive outcome or a negative outcome, has to be framed as a success. This is a key of authoritarianism. This is a key of cult leaders. Even if it seems as though the leader stumbled, the leader was dancing, it looked like they almost fell on their face. But it was a special dance that they did to communicate with us. If gas prices go up, its strategic strength. And. And because we stopped Iran from having nukes, the fact that gas prices are up proves that we're winning in Iran. That's kind of weird. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. If inflation is up, that's because of a transition economically, getting rid of the bad fake jobs from Sleepy Joe to undocumented immigrants. And we need that in order to be positioned for success. If the war drags on longer than you said, we were too effective, we were too good at the war. So what they've done is make reality irrelevant. And I know I've mentioned this before, you know, the right loves to criticize what they claim is the postmodernism of the left. And by postmodernism, what I mean is that any competing theory is equally valid. And that's not even actually what postmodernism said. But there's a degree to it doesn't even matter. They go the Jordan Peterson, these postmodern on the left, they believe everything is the equally valid and it is the right that goes, no, I mean, listen, we promise gas prices down would be good and they're up, but that's good. And we said that we wouldn't be getting into wars and we did. But that's actually a good thing because it means this other thing from over there, they have become these sort of postmodern entities that they falsely criticized on the left. And reality doesn't really matter. It's just how governments end up trapped in endless conflicts is playing out again. Even though Trump and Tulsi promised us this is not going to be the war administration. So we were told three to four weeks, targeted, controlled, really quick, you won't even notice it. It'll be like a little pinch when the dentist just puts in the Novocaine before your whole face goes numb. Just a little pinch. But we're on week 11 of a three week pinch and Trump has declared victory seven times, as we looked at earlier. And every couple of weeks we have a historic announcement. Peace is rising like a phoenix over the horizon and then it keeps going. If the war keeps going after you announce victory, did you really end anything? Trump says he ended eight wars. I mean, he's claimed to have ended the Iran war seven times just on that one. So I, I think I don't have to explain to you that this becomes very dangerous very quickly politically for the Trump administration because Americans have a historical track record of losing patience very quickly once the war seems open ended and Americans get sick of it. And we've seen it with a number of conflicts before and prices were high at the start of Trump's term and they only went up. Oil markets are really unstable. Voters are anxious about the direction of the country. They expect things to be worse economically in a year. So that's why this answer from Gorka is so fascinating, because instead of explaining what is the goal now in Iran, what's the timeline, what does it look like to win? He goes, we're too awesome at war. That's why it's still going on. That's a sort of sit down and shut up and let Trump do whatever he wants kind of statements. I don't think voters, I think even many Republican voters are not going to vote for that. They may not come out and vote for Democrats in November, but a lot of them are going to stay home because they're just not falling for this crap. If you love having quality fresh breads and pastries at home with no hassle, our sponsor Wild Grain makes it easy. Wild Grain is a bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, fresh pastas. Everything arrives frozen and bakes in 25 minutes or less. No thawing required. Simple ingredients, slow fermentation process. It really improves the flavor and texture. 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Start Mail looks and works just like the big name email services you're used to. But Start Mail never scans your mail, never tracks anything about you, never sells your data. Start Mail also includes powerful privacy features you don't get from big tech email providers. For instance, you can create unlimited email aliases so you don't have to give out your real address to anybody, which will reduce spam and phishing risks. You can also send PGP encrypted emails even if the recipient isn't using encryption. And if you switch to Start Mail, it is really easy to migrate your existing emails and contacts in just a few clicks. Go to start mail.com/pacman to get 50% off your first year. The link is in the description. The administration is still pathetically suggesting that any problem that you see in today's economy is Joe Biden's fault. I mean, he was sleepy Joe, after all. Right. The these are truly pathetic people. We are now well into year two of Donald Trump's second term and they continue to insist or imply we took over a mess. If you've identified any kind of problem in today's economy, don't look at Donald Trump, don't look at Republicans who control the House, don't look at Republicans who control the Senate, don't look at the right wing Supreme Court. No, look at Joe Biden who was simultaneously so incompetent and addled while he was president that he couldn't do and didn't do anything, but also responsible for everything. That's a problem in 2026. Wow. How simultaneously impotent and omnipotent Joe Biden is, huh? We're going to go through a couple of clips of this. Here is Maria Bartiromo talking to Trump's economic adviser, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett. And Kevin Hassett is asked again about the price of oil and gas. Now we're going to build to this. They don't always say Biden's name, but they like to structure things as it's a process and Trump took over and it takes a while to wait a second. Didn't Trump make specific decisions that blew up the price of oil and gas? Well, yeah, but can't we just blame it on somebody else? So in terms of the price of oil and gas and this spike, this
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Interviewer/Reporter
has to mean higher cost, cautious costs
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David Pakman
for corporate America and for consumers.
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Kevin Hassett
Well, it does in the short run. And you mentioned Secretary Bassett who follows these numbers. You know, he made a lot of money following these numbers of the past and being able to trade. And he says these futures markets are saying that basically once we get the straight open, then there's going to be a gusher of oil release from.
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David Pakman
It's going to be a gusher, all right, Golf.
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Kevin Hassett
And that's going to help put us put prices down relatively quickly. Now, there's a little bit of a time lag from that. We've got to get the boats to move from the Persian Gulf to especially Asia where jet fuel prices are so high. And that can take a month or two. But once, you know, basically the gusher opens that we expect that oil prices
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David Pakman
could drop, it's going to be a nasty gusher like you've never seen. So the story is boomed, even though all the numbers are worse now than under Biden, we are just around the corner from boom times where everybody will be happy and everything is going to be completely and totally perfect. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was asked yesterday, have gas prices peaked? And Chris Wright goes, I'm not so sure about that.
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Interviewer/Reporter
But the all time record high in gas prices was five bucks back during the Biden administration in 2022. It lasted that, that real spike for about eight weeks time with this conflict. You had said last month that prices had already peaked. You advise the President, what are you advising him now?
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Chris Wright
The main advice we're giving right now is 47 year long conflict. The world simply cannot live with a nuclear armed Iran.
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David Pakman
Now remember that this is the Energy Secretary. He is rendering a political opinion about foreign policy and the question was about energy.
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Chris Wright
Everyone in this government knows it. In fact, everyone in the opposition party in our country knows that as well. That is the, that is the overall objective. Not just for peace and freedom, but for energy markets. A nuclear armed Iran could threaten a major oil and gas producing region for.
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Interviewer/Reporter
But you're not, you're not saying you've got to come to a nuclear agreement before the Strait of Hormuz is opened because that could take a lot of time. As you know, nuclear deals are really complex.
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David Pakman
Well, not if it's a one pager like Trump wants.
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Chris Wright
Obama made a complex deal because it didn't end their program. Well, you get to keep the program you keep enriching, but do it a little bit slower and we'll send you a bunch of money. That was clearly a failed thing.
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David Pakman
It was also completely dishonest for Chris Wright to present it that way. They love this. Obama sent Iran money. Obama released sanctioned Iranian money which by the way is in Trump's framework for what he wants to do as a deal. If Obama was bad for releasing sanction money, why isn't Trump bad for doing the same thing? Now I want to remind you that this very same guy, Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary in March was saying that by now, by today, gas prices would be under $3. So no responsibility taken whatsoever. How's GDP going to do this year? Oh boy. Well, that is a complicated one. Kevin Hassett again says we could have 6% GDP growth this year. I'm not a betting man, but I'm going to tell you in a moment why that is not a bet. I would, well, I would bet against that if I were better election. So what kind of economic growth number would you expect for 26 and beyond then? Let's, let's assume that we do get
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Interviewer/Reporter
out of this war fairly soon.
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Sarah Isgur
Soon.
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David Pakman
What kind of GDP growth number would you expect for the US Economy?
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Kevin Hassett
Yeah, and that's the thing that we've been working a lot on lately because of the capital spending boom. Remember that in March, capital spending went up by 3.3%, not at an annual rate. So multiply that by 12 and you're looking at historic capital spending numbers. Because President Trump with his tax cuts, which are getting people to expense, but also on shoring activity, is giving us the capital capital spending boom unlike anything we've ever seen. If you look at how fast the capital stock is growing, that's sort of like how much stuff that we make stuff with. It's between 5 and 8% right now. If you divide that by three, that's about how much GDP growth you get out of the, out of just capital spending. We've got productivity growth at two and a half. I think we really could be looking at numbers north of 4, north of 5, north of even 6, north of
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David Pakman
even 6% GDP growth. Can you imagine that? That is delusional. That is delusional. Now there's two critiques of this. One is they get this wrong all the time. Remember that for 2025, Lutnick and Besson were saying we could do 6% GDP. We really could see 6% GDP growth. And I explained to you know, even in good times, that's really difficult. When you're as large and mature economically as is the United States, it's harder to move the needle. 6% and 2025 GDP growth ended up being 2.1%, a number that when it was under Democrats, Trump said was a pathetically low number. So they've been wrong before. But most importantly, it's not really plausible given how the economy of the United States works. But why bother with facts and reality, right? Except. Except Kevin Hassett is prepared. He is preparing you. He is preemptively blaming blue states if the GDP isn't what they are promising for 2026. You know who you can blame? New York and California because of their terrible left wing policies.
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Interviewer/Reporter
What is your projection right now for
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Sarah Isgur
GDP growth for the year?
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Kevin Hassett
Right. Well, I think we're really, really safely look at like we should have 4% for the rest of the year. But I can tell you that, you know, you went on about Mamdani and the socialists of the Democratic Party. Here's a thing that's a serious drag that has me a little bit concerned. If you look at all the job creation that's happened since President Trump took office. All the positive job creation is in states that voted for President Trump. If you look at states that voted for Kamala Harris, they've had job creators destruction. And in part it's because, you know, people are leaving the states because of the high taxes and so on. And so for sure, in the aggregate, we're looking at 4% economic growth because of all the productivity from AI, all the capital spending and so on. But the drag on the economy is that the blue states are actually hemorrhaging jobs. And so if we disappoint at all, it'll be because of like what happens to New York State, what happens to California because of these misguided policies.
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David Pakman
It'll definitely be the fault of any Democrats we can find. And then dumping the Biden bomb. Hassett says, you know, when Biden was president, all that job creation you thought was happening, it was illegal right to work.
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Kevin Hassett
And we did an analysis when we first got into the White House that showed that almost all of the job creation that happened under President Biden was, was the employment of illegal aliens. And so by securing the border, by reinforcing immigration law, you know, there were some that said that we'd never, we wouldn't have enough workers to grow the economy. You can remember that. But in fact, what is.
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David Pakman
Notice how Hassett is able to smile while telling disgusting lies for this great
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Kevin Hassett
high paying jobs going to American citizens, which is really what the intent of President Trump's policy was, right?
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David Pakman
All of that, that incredible job creation record of Joe Biden, it was just giving jobs to illegals. Now there's no evidence of that. And I'm guessing that most of my audience intuitively would recognize that that doesn't really sound right. But at some point you're not going to be able to just blame Joe Biden. I don't know when that point is. It should have been over a year ago, but at some point, voters aren't going to fall for it. And I believe they might already not be falling for it. And we'll see how that works out for them. In November, Donald Trump stunned an interviewer of a show called Full Measure. As his brain stopped working, he casually mentioned, I'm going to do another invasion. I'm wondering whether the interviewer thought, do I need to call a doctor right now? Trump talking about babies and vaccines again. This is very dangerous territory for Donald Trump. And he talks about pumping babies with a vat full of stuff. Incredible imagery, completely fabricated. And I would not suggest taking medical advice from Donald Trump.
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Interviewer/Reporter
Woman named Katie Talento if I'm saying her name correctly, who recently stated that in 2017, she worked for you and her job was to keep Bobby Kennedy as far from the West Wing as possible after you had agreed to a vaccine safety commission. Did you know about that? She's published on that the last couple of days. She says she's apologizing for that, basically. Did you know that at the time that there was somebody supposedly tasked with keeping Bobby Kennedy away?
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Donald Trump
No, I didn't. He's doing a good job. I think Bobby, people love him. I didn't know about that.
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Interviewer/Reporter
Do you think there should be a Vaccine Safety Commission?
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Donald Trump
A commission on what?
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Interviewer/Reporter
Vaccine safety, something.
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David Pakman
He has no clue what's going on. And you'll. That'll become very evident as the interview
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Interviewer/Reporter
continues to examine something like, I believe
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Donald Trump
vaccines, but I don't believe that, you know, you have to have a mandate for all of them. The polio vaccine is amazing. It's, you know, wiped it out. And I believe in vaccines, but, you know, I think we were up to 88 vaccines. And I really feel that vaccines, if they were given in of spite smaller quantities, they want to cut some out and that's good, too. And I agree with that. 82. So many. If you look at Denmark and other
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David Pakman
countries, you have notice that he went from saying that there are 88 vaccines, he now changed it to 82. But when he used to do this rant, he used to say it was 44 vaccines. It's just made up 12, 14, I think 17.
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Donald Trump
And we have like 82. But I look at these beautiful little babies and they get a vat. I mean, like a big glass of stuff pumped into their bodies. And I think it's a very negative thing to do and I would like to see it. I'm not doing this in terms of Bobby or not. I hope they agree with that, but that's just my opinion. I would love to see much smaller shots, like four visits to the doctor and I think you would have a much better result with the autism.
- [34:21]
David Pakman
There you go. Donald Trump has an opinion that vaccines should be given in four visits to the doctors and no vats of stuff. Now, as usual, they just lie. There are not 82 or 88 vaccines. One of the things they love to do is to mention every single dose. So, like, if you get the mmr, which vaccinates against three things, they call that three vaccines. And then when you need boosters, they're like, it's 88 vaccines. As I've explained to you before, there doesn't appear to be any benefit to separating out. Separating out the vaccines. In fact, if you stick kids more times with a needle, the risk is very low. But in theory, it's a higher infection risk because every time you stick, you could get an infection. I've never seen it happen in anybody I know, but at least theoretically. But the most interesting thing is I have a lot of pediatrician friends who say, you know, parents sometimes have been coming in lately and they go, listen, I want to spread out some of these vaccines. And in general, the pediatricians go, fine, spread it out. Let's do one. Let's do rotavirus today, and then we'll do the MMR in a week or 10 days. Doesn't really make a difference, but they'll do it. But then they have parents asking for exactly what the Trump administration has been saying. Give me just the measles today. We'll come back for mumps, and then we'll come back for rubella that's not available in the United States. There might be other countries where you can get those individually. It's not even a thing. And Trump and others just casually go separated out, do measles, then mumps, then rubella. Pediatricians don't have access to that. And I have a lot of pediatrician friends who are very frustrated that people are coming in asking for something that simply doesn't exist. Donald Trump, of course, asked how much longer on this Iran war? You've ended the war seven times already, sir. She didn't say that, but I'll say it. How much longer? I don't think it'll surprise you to hear that Donald Trump expects it to take a couple more weeks.
- [36:17]
Interviewer/Reporter
So is it accurate to say you think the combat operations are over and done, but they're.
- [36:22]
Donald Trump
I didn't say that. I said they are. They are defeated, but that doesn't mean they're done.
- [36:28]
David Pakman
They've lost, but the war continues. Just accept it.
- [36:32]
Donald Trump
We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target. We have certain targets that we wanted, and we've done probably 70% of them, but we have other targets that we could conceivably hit.
- [36:47]
David Pakman
So if they're completely defeated, how are their targets left?
- [36:50]
Donald Trump
But even if we didn't do that, you know, that would just be final touches. But even if we didn't do that, it would take them many years to rebuild.
- [36:59]
David Pakman
Can you imagine? It's over, but it'll continue. A couple more weeks and they've been totally defeated. But we still have 30% of the targets left. His brain's not working. It's. It is simply not working. And then when asked about the NFL price gouging, Trump complains about the kickoff rule. His brain doesn't cut compute on some domestic issues.
- [37:22]
Interviewer/Reporter
One of them. A lot of people are interested in involving the NFL. Your Justice Department is investigating the NFL for moving a lot of viewers from free broadcast television to more expensive pay programming like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock and YouTube, where the NFL makes more money. Do you think this is price gouging on America's favorite sport? Should the government do anything about.
- [37:42]
Donald Trump
It's a tough. You got no idea. Love football. They, they're great people. They don't make enough money to go and pay this. It's. It's tough. And they could be killing the golden goose. I mean, they have that stupid kickoff thing that you can't watch. It's unwatchable. I hate the games where they, you know, they have the new phony kickoff. I don't think it's any safer. I hope college football doesn't do that. You know what I'm talking about?
- [38:05]
Interviewer/Reporter
I'm not.
- [38:06]
Donald Trump
You're not a footballer. You are not.
- [38:08]
David Pakman
No, I'm just reading questions. I don't understand, sir. Someone else wrote this stuff for me. His brain's not working, folks. It's. He. It's just random free association. Why do they call it a football when it's normally thrown? I think it's nasty. It's absolutely nasty. What's the latest with Cuba? You still invading Cuba? The reporter asks. And Trump goes, well, I think we're going to take care of it after we take care of this other thing.
- [38:35]
Interviewer/Reporter
What's the latest with Cuba and are there talks underway now?
- [38:38]
Donald Trump
Well, it's a failed country. It has been for years. And we'll take care of one before we take care of the other. But no, it's a failed country, Cuba,
- [38:46]
David Pakman
and we'll take care of one before we take care of the other. I guess he is still planning to invade Cuba, the anti war president. And then finally, Donald Trump tells so many lies, he forgets about them. You might remember that Donald Trump proudly said, we will audit Fort Knox with Doge and Elon Musk. Trump forgot about it. So the interviewer makes a huge mistake. She's following up about something Trump promised. You never follow up about something Trump promised because he forgot about it.
- [39:15]
Interviewer/Reporter
What happened to the audit of Fort Knox?
- [39:20]
Donald Trump
Which one are you talking about?
- [39:25]
David Pakman
Oh, that's genius. The look on this moment right here is when Trump goes I don't know what the hell she is talking about. Which, which audit?
- [39:36]
Interviewer/Reporter
A Fort Knox.
- [39:40]
Donald Trump
Which one are you talking about?
- [39:41]
Interviewer/Reporter
I think when you first got into office, you and Elon Musk talked about auditing.
- [39:45]
Donald Trump
Well, we wanted to go knock on the door. Fort Knox, very thick door. And to see whether or not we have any gold in there because we take a look at. It's a very interesting question. Yeah, we played with that. I wonder if they left the gold in Fort Knox. They steal a lot.
- [40:02]
Interviewer/Reporter
No need to really do that though.
- [40:03]
Donald Trump
Well, I don't know. I think it's. I do want to go to Fort Knox. I want to see.
- [40:09]
David Pakman
What you're forgetting is we actually just said that. I didn't understand that at the time. I was trying to distract from six other things that were going wrong and I thought it would make a nice, you know, like when I went to McDonald's we would just knock on the door at Fort Knox. But I don't know that we really need to do that. He doesn't even remember. And we were supposed to believe Joe Biden couldn't do the job. I don't have a cat myself but I have spent enough time around friends cats to know that there are picky cats when it comes to food. They don't like it, they won't eat it. But one of my friends has had a ton of success switching to Smalls cat food. Before Smalls mealtime was very hit or miss. The cat gets excited. Now our sponsor Smalls is fresh human grade cat food made with real ingredients, no fillers or artificial stuff. High protein, gently cooked, promotes digestion. Delivered right to your door. My friend did a side by side with the old food and Smalls the cat went for Smalls. Your cat deserves more than a bowl of processed shortcuts. Try Smalls. If your cat doesn't love Smalls, you get a full refund for for a limited time. My audience gets 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you go to smalls.com/pacman. The link is in the description. Hearing aids have gotten shockingly expensive. Paying thousands of dollars for basic hearing aids does not add up. That is what our sponsor Maryland Hearing is here to fix. Maryland Hearing offers rechargeable digital hearing aids for less than 10% of what you'd pay at a traditional hearing hearing clinic. Maryland Hearing's new Neo model fits inside the ear. It's nearly invisible. The Neo Xs is their smallest hearing aid ever. No bulky hardware, no learning curve. Family friend of mine has used MD Hearing for years now. She loves the affordability. She thinks the virtual appointments are so convenient with MD Hearing's team of audiologists to help with the device from home. Maryland Hearing has sold over 2 million hearing aids, with customers consistently saying they outperform devices that cost up to 10 times more. Every purchase comes with a 60 day trial and a 100% money back guarantee for a limited time. Maryland Hearing is giving my audience a pair of hearing aids for just $247 plus you'll get a free extra charging case a $100 value. Go to shop MD hearing dotcom use my promo code Pacman. The link is in the Description Today I'm going to be speaking with Sarah Isger, the editor of SCOTUS blog, host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions, and also a legal analyst for ABC News. She's author of the new book Last Branch Standing, a potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey inside today's Supreme Court. Sarah, really good to have you on.
- [43:13]
Sarah Isgur
Thank you for having me. I'm pumped.
- [43:15]
David Pakman
So the first thing I want to ask you about came up recently and I want to get your take on it. You know, on the one hand, there are those who claim that saying that the Supreme Court is political is not really accurate in the sense that to some degree the justices are simply applying law, precedent and the Constitution to the facts of a case. And, and it's sort of like a mechanical process in a way. In go the facts, you smother them with the law and then just out comes a sort of decision. And intuitively we know that that can't possibly be the case because decisions do seem to be grouped roughly along what we might call the liberal and conservative justices. Although I know you argue that there might be a different way that that we might divide them up, which maybe you'll tell us about. Democratic presidents want to choose certain justice, certain judges to become Supreme Court justices. Republicans, same thing. So intuitively it seems as though it is political. Explain how we might better understand this.
- [44:21]
Sarah Isgur
Yeah, so I think both of those miss a lot of nuance. This idea that it's politics and it's the same as Congress and the red team votes this way and the blue team votes this way. Yeah, that is just not borne out by the data. You know, last term, 15% of the cases were 6, 3 or 5, 4 sort of those closely divided cases with all of the liberal justices and dissent. So that's what we'd expect from a 6, 3 court. Right. That was only 15% of the cases, though. 15% of the cases, the exact same number were decided 6, 3 or 5, 4, with all of the liberal justices in the majority and only conservative justices in dissent. So I don't think the, you know, the team sports tribalism thing works at the Supreme Court. At the same time, this idea that there is some sort of mechanistic formula, as you say, right? The facts go in and the law comes out in this, you know, delicious little tasty meal. That's obviously not true either. Of course, the judges come with ideological priors. They overturn precedent of previous court. We wouldn't see that happen if it were this mechanistic right and wrong process. Though it is interesting to note that this court is overturning fewer precedents per term than any of the previous courts in modern history. The Warren Court actually takes the cake for that one. I would suggest a little more nuanced things somewhere in the middle of this. Right. Number one, the judges obviously have ideologies. Those don't map on particularly well to our politics. And we know that because the judges are at best a lagging indicator of our politics. You know, Justice Thomas has been on the court for 30 years. He's far more likely to reflect whatever it meant to be nominated by a Republican president in 1992 than by Donald Trump when the Republican Party now stands for totally different stuff than it did 30 year, 30 years ago. Yeah, but they have ideologies. They are, as you say, conservative or liberal. And what comes with that is a way to apply the law to facts. You know, are you a judicial minimalist? Are you an originalist? Are you a textualist? Are you a practicalist like Justice Breyer? So that's like one important part of this, this ideological thing is true, but it's not partisan. A second thing that I think would be helpful to bring to bear is, is what about those other, you know, 85% of the cases, if only 15% of them were decided along ideological lines like we'd expect what's going on Everywhere else? So 42% were unanimous and the rest were, you know, cats and dogs all over the place where they're not deciding things based ideologically. And the pushback I get is like, well, what about the big cases, first
- [47:15]
David Pakman
of all, in other words, that the ones that really matter are not in
- [47:18]
Sarah Isgur
those 42%, Sarah, you're just picking, you know, the 15% are the important ones, the big ones. And the other 85% are like, yeah, some contract dispute that nobody, you know, there isn't an ideological prior to bring to it that's just not true. At the Supreme Court, you can find an ideological way to look at nearly every case, even the sort of weirdest contract cases. It's like, well, what about state? What about how we read the contract? Is it based on the text? Who defines these words? All of that can be conservative or liberal. But I offer this other way to think about the justices for those 85% of cases, which is institutionalism, where you end up with Justice Kavanaugh, for instance, much closer to Justice Kagan, a Justice he was more likely to agree with than Justice Gorsuch, who is just as conservative as he is to Justice Kavanaugh, was more likely to agree with Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor last term than with Justice Gorsuch. Justice Gorsuch, much closer to Justice Jackson. Along this spectrum, that isn't ideological. It's about how you view your job as a justice, how you view previous courts decisions, whether you're one of nine or it's a single group project you're turning in at the end of the day and you just contribute your piece. So, you know, that's a whole lot to throw at you. But the point is, I think both teams who try to make this, like, very easy, simplistic way to think about the Supreme Court, it's all politics. It's not politics at all. Surprise, surprise, neither of those are right.
- [48:50]
David Pakman
What about the distinguishing sort of aspect of seeing the Constitution as something to be interpreted literally, sort of the originalist, textualist approach, and then, no, it's a living document and we have to sort of adjust our interpretation for 2026. Is, does that, does that map more cleanly in some way?
- [49:12]
Sarah Isgur
It used to. It used to be the case that conservatives wanted to adopt this quote, unquote, original meaning of the Constitution. Yeah, of course. Like footnote here. What does it mean to adopt the original meaning of the Constitution? What would the founders think of geolocation devices in our pockets that we carry around with us and whether the police can access those without a warrant or exactly what kind of warrant they would need? What is the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment in that case, and how do we determine that? That is a tough question that originalists, conservatives on the court wildly disagree on. So even among conservatives, you're going to have huge, interesting, fun disagreements about what it means to even look at the, quote, original meaning and then the living Constitution, the idea that we just want these nine people to, you know, apply their best judgment. You're smart people. That's why we put you here. Do your best to think through this problem and what would be best for society using the Constitution as a, I don't know, a guidepost, but you're not bound by that. That was considered the more liberal interpretation. Of course, that led to its own problems. As Lyndon B. Johnson once said, it takes two thirds of Congress and three quarters of the states to amend the Constitution, but Justice Douglas can do it in an afternoon. Of course, people then stopped amending the Constitution and they started fighting over who these justices would be, because why go through this really hard process when we can just have knockdown, drag out confirmation battles? But there's something else interesting going on here, and we saw it. I'll just pick out the birthright citizenship case. President Trump, of course, on his first day in office, signs this executive order redefining what birthright citizenship in the United States was going to mean. And all of a sudden you see the Trump administration adopt this living constitutionalism, this idea that, like, look, I mean, it doesn't matter that much what people thought the 14th Amendment meant. Let's, you know, be practical about this. We all know we've got a big immigration problem. Let's, you know, apply some wisdom and some common sense to this. And you saw the liberals say, no, no, the 14th Amendment says what it says, and by God, we're gonna look at what they thought they were agreeing to when they ratified this. And so I think what you see is that it's not a conservative versus liberal distinction. It is a in power versus out of power. If you are out of power, you want the Constitution to be a binding contract. And if you are in power, you want your people to get to redefine what we're doing here today. So the Warren Court at sort of that, you know, post fdr, they had nine justices on the Supreme Court. Liberals really wanted a living Constitution. Now that it's more conservatives on the court, liberals are the ones who are like, no, no, not living constitution. Because I don't want these people deciding what the rules are. And so I hope that people realize and get back to this idea that, no, no, we want the political process to do this, whether you're in power or out. This is the beauty of our Constitution, is that it has a process for this. And this is how we protect minority rights, free speech, religion, criminal defendants. It's all about having the Supreme Court as a counter majoritarian institution that says no to our current politics.
- [52:38]
David Pakman
What do you think happens with the birthright citizenship case? And I think right now, I mean, we don't really have polls for this sort of thing, but like the betting market, odds have it at under 10% that Trump wins a on this.
- [52:51]
Sarah Isgur
Yeah. And that feels a little high, frankly. I don't think the question is whether Trump wins or loses. I think the interesting question for legal folks who are following this closely is which way does Trump lose? Does he lose on the constitutional question, which would mean this question is done forever. The only way that you could change birthright citizenship moving forward would be to amend the Constitution, which. Which, as we've said, is a very hard process to do, that no one seems to believe we still can do. But we can and we should. But there's another way he can lose. That's a more minimalist way. This gets to my institutionalist point. Some justices want to only decide sort of the narrowest questions before the court, leave everything else for another day. They could simply say, look, I don't know what the Constitution demands here, but I know that only Congress can pass a law about this. We sure ain't doing it by executive order. So Congress feel free and we'll review the constitutionality of that when you do. But until then, no, Mr. President. For the same reason that you couldn't do tariffs. For the same reason you couldn't federalize the National Guard. For the same reason Joe Biden couldn't do student loan debt forgiveness or the eviction moratorium or the vaccine mandate. Presidents acting alone are not going to have these powers without Congress passing a law.
- [54:10]
David Pakman
I want to go back to you were talking sort of, if we put all nine justices kind of on a spectrum, that you would actually have some conservatives on some issue that are closer to some liberals. You know, I've seen Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will occasionally rule against what Trump wants, for lack of a better term, is the way we might say it. Trump seems especially triggered when it's Amy Coni Barrett. And as an observer from the left, I see that when Trump talks about low iq, it tends to be a black woman that he applies that to. What do you mean? And what I'm going to is, is there something about the female Supreme Court justice he picked, ruling against him that you think really bothers him? Or is it about the decisions?
- [54:52]
Sarah Isgur
I'm so glad that you're making me feel not crazy. So I actually wrote many bios of each justice in my book, and for the bio about Justice Barrett, I write about this thing where when conservatives are mad at her, they talk really differently. And I shouldn't say conservatives. When Republicans who support Donald Trump are mad at her. They talk really differently. They are not conservatives in any way, shape or form by my definition. And it's very gendered and it's very different than the way they talk about the Chief justice when he rules against them. Or as you point out, Justice Gorsuch in a very famous case in Bostock, he ruled against, you know, what the right wanted. But when it's her, it's not gender undertones, it's gender overtones. So I absolutely think you're onto something. And of course, the great irony is that Justice Barrett is like the epitome of femininity by any definition, right? She's got seven kids, she can play Bach. She makes pasta carbonara like she is the Jane Austen in apotheosis of a woman. And that's what, of course, this right wing in the Republican Party says that they're in favor of. But when she doesn't agree with them, they are triggered in a way that is really hard to, to come up with an explanation otherwise. The one thing I would note, though, is that Donald Trump, there's this narrative out there that Donald Trump keeps winning at the Supreme Court. He is not every major policy initiative that the Supreme Court has decided, not just like on an interim basis of what's going to be the rule while the case is pending. So Alien Enemies act, that was immigration, he lost federalizing, the National Guard, which I mentioned. He lost tariffs, he lost birthright citizenship. Again, I think 10% is too high a chance for him to win at this point. He is almost certainly going to lose on the, the Federal Reserve and removing the governor from the Federal Reserve. So I think it's really weird that the left wants to make, you know, a fetch happen with Donald Trump keeps winning at this Supreme Court. Donald Trump sure doesn't think he's winning. And really, no matter how you look at it, if anything, he just keeps losing and losing and losing. Which I don't think tells you like, oh, these justices are betraying the right. I think it tells you that Donald Trump is not a conservative, but he appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
- [57:22]
David Pakman
Last thing I want to ask you about. I've had Donald Trump's former deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews on the show a few times and have sort of talked to her about like, are you still a Republican? What sort of candidate would you like to see in 2028? Or would you consider voting for a Democrat? This sort of thing. I see you sort of as like a moderate Republican. You can tell me whether you agree with that. Characterization or not. But what would you like to see in a post Trump Republican Party in 2028, for example?
- [57:57]
Sarah Isgur
So I think at this point I've probably voted for more Democratic candidates for president than Republican in my lifetime. I would not say that I'm a moderate Republican. I probably reject both of those terms in some ways.
- [58:10]
David Pakman
Wow.
- [58:11]
Sarah Isgur
I don't think I'm a moderate conservative. I am a conservative. I'm very conservative on some stuff. But that doesn't map onto either political party right now. Donald Trump defeated the Republican Party before he defeated the Democratic Party in 2016. He's not a conservative. We're not arguing over the size and scope, the proper role of government anymore. We have two big, you know, spending government parties. They're just arguing over what to spend the money on, what to use the power for. So really our elections right now are over power, which isn't working very well, in my opinion. So if you're asking what I'd like to see, I'd like to see two functioning political parties right now. I think at most we have about a half a functioning political party. And I'd like to see an argument over who's going to make Congress function again, who's going to actually give power back to voters to have their say, you know, in a legislative branch that negotiates and compromises and passes real laws that maybe aren't exactly what anyone wants, but are something that we can have stable agreements on some of these culture war issues on. How about a Congress that says no more partisan gerrymandering? That's allowed, but nobody's even talking about that. Instead they blame the other side or they blame the Supreme Court. All the Supreme Court said is we need guidance from Congress on how we would litigate partisan gerrymandering. Where is the conversation about Congress getting back in the game? That's the political party I'm voting for.
- [59:38]
David Pakman
Is there anybody who you think is aligned with that right now? Like, if you said, oh, well, you know, if Mitt Romney came back and said, like, is there anybody?
- [59:47]
Sarah Isgur
Sure, yeah. Mitch Daniels, I think would be my number one pick. I think you'll hear that name from a lot of former, like, conservative Republicans or whatever. Because he was the governor of Indiana, a lot of us thought he would run for president. He then becomes the head of Purdue University, where I think he navigates all sorts of things really beautifully at Purdue. That this is a weird thing to say, could be mimicked at the federal level, but he has this kind of Calvin Coolidge vibe of like, look, I'M here. If I come here, I'm just making Congress work again. Like, I don't. I'm not doing government by executive order and that's what we need. And I don't hear a lot of presidential candidates who tend to be narcissistic, sociopath adjacent. At least they're not all saying like, ooh, ooh, I don't want this power, let's give it back to Congress. Instead, they're just telling you which executive orders they would sign that either will be unconstitutional, that the Supreme Court will strike down, or that the next president will get rid of on day one. So if you care about climate change or immigration or anything else, we ain't going to solve it in executive orders and in four year increments. You have to have Congress in the game.
- [60:57]
David Pakman
Agree with that. That's for sure. The book is Last Branch Standing, a potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey inside today's Supreme Court. We've been speaking with Sarah Isger. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.
- [61:08]
Sarah Isgur
I am so grateful that you had me on. Thank you.
- [61:11]
David Pakman
The David Pakman Ryan Reynolds here from IT Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities so so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do.
- [61:29]
Sarah Isgur
@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms.
- [61:41]
David Pakman
@mintmobile.com show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support support the show is by becoming a member. @join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com you should be outraged because Donald Trump was just caught funneling millions of dollars to a friend in a no bid contract in using a fake emergency declaration for the Washington Memorial Reflecting Pool. And it is backfiring primarily because it looks like absolute crap. I mean just it looks like dreck. This all started with Donald Trump in the middle of a war, in the middle of gas prices up 66%. Apropos of nothing, saying, you know what, it's urgent that right now we repaint the bottom of the reflecting pool so that it'll look Bluer, and it'll look better. And in fact, Donald Trump posted a picture to Truth Social of what it was going to look like, which we have up right now. And it, like, it sort of looks maybe okay. I mean, like, it's a weird blue, it looks very fake. I don't know. But it at least is sort of like, okay, if that's what it's going to look like at the end of the day, it's not urgent. It's not important. But if it came out like this, you know, it's the blue of, like, toilet bowl cleaner, but at least it's passable. But it's definitely not an emergency. And you know what? Trump might have been able to get away with it, except then people saw pictures of the progress which we have up on the screen now, and it looks like trash. It just look. It looks. It looks like what happens when I decide to paint the entire living room and I get half of one coat on one wall and. And it looks terrible. And I go, this was a bad idea. Let me call somebody. And people started asking questions. People saw how terrible it looked, and so they said, wait a second, why are we even doing this right now? Who is being paid to do this? Are they competent? Is this a good use of my tax money? And that's when it was revealed that the $6.9 million contract for this was given to take a guess. You all know, right, it was given to Trump's own pool guy with no bidding process. Now you might say, aren't you supposed to do a bidding process? Trump goes, I've got a pool guy who's unbelievable at swimming pools. That's a quote. Trump said that in April to the Press. But for $7 million government contract, we're going to bid this out. Who's going to give us a good price Price? Who's competent? Who's done similar projects in the past? Submit a proposal, prove that you can do it. They didn't do that. How did Trump get around the requirement for a bidding process for government contracts? Well, because there's the little rule that says if it's an urgent project, you can skip the bidding altogether and just get someone working on it right away. The next question I know you're all critical thinkers would be, how is an urgent project defined? Well, certainly not this. It only applies when you are trying to prevent serious injury, financial or other, to the government. Not painting the bottom of the reflecting pool would not cause serious injury, financial or other, to the government. It would just look the way it's looked for a really long time. And so Donald Trump faked urgency to skip the bidding process and hand out a no bid $7 million contract to his pool guy. And if it didn't look like crap, he might have even been able to get away from it. Now this, this is $7 million. And you might be listening and saying, David, we have $70 million problems, we have $700 million problems, we've got billion dollar problems like the war in Iran. That's right. But the important thing here is the anti corruption platform. I've been explaining now for a really long time. We have what, what I believe is the greatest opportunity to win over voters from the middle and from the right is to say, listen, we can disagree on abortion, we can disagree on taxation, we can disagree about AI and vaccines or what, we could do all that, okay? But we need to do that disagreement with people who are not simply in this for corrupt practices to enrich themselves and their family members and their friends. And so I laid out this anti corruption sort of program, this anti corruption platform that I believe could be the best and most effective way to bring over disaffected Trump voters who go, you know, I'm nominally right wing or I am actually a conservative and I'm not sure whatever, right? Wherever they are in the political spectrum, whether they were political before Trump or not, they voted for Trump, but they recognize this is not the way government is supposed to operate. I'm getting screwed. Trump asked me for my vote, he asked me for donations. He's collecting my tax money as the President of the United States. I pay my taxes and no bid contracts to his pool guy. That is too much. Let's go back to where we can just disagree about policy rather than this stuff. So I think that there is a real opportunity here by pointing out that this is going on. You might have disagreed with Joe Biden on policy, but Biden wasn't doing stuff like this. And Obama wasn't doing stuff like this. And John McCain I don't believe, had he won in 2008, I don't believe he would have done stuff like this. We would have disagreed politically for sure, but it wouldn't have been like this. So we need to use that anti corruption platform to try to unite. We're not going to get everybody. There's tens of millions of people who voted for Donald Trump three times. They're in the cult. We're not going to get about with this, but some we can get out. And 7 million. My pool guy's the best at Painting the. But, wow, that looks like shit. I think that it is a reminder that your tax money is being squandered on the Iran war. That he said he wouldn't get into the reflecting pool that his buddy is now cleaning up 7 million from. We have to put a stop to it. Let's end the corruption. I think it's a powerful message. Hey, so I. This is. I'm going to tell you about some medical tests I just had done, and it was because of messages I got from viewers. And this is. This is a wacky, wacky story. I've had situations before where people write in and they have some medical concern, and it's very obviously not a real concern, and I just ignore it. But a little while ago, someone. I'm going to tell you about two medical concerns actually, that came up from viewers on the show. And I went and got tested, okay? Someone wrote in and said, hey, you know, David, you seem to have a swollen thyroid or goiter. And you got to get that thing checked out because it's happened before, that someone notices it on tv. There's this guy Tarek El Moussa from, like, a real estate show. He had thyroid cancer. And it was diagnosed because someone saw it on tv. You got to go and get this thing checked out. And I wrote to my doctor. I was. I was looking at the videos, and you know what? I do see this thing here. As I talk, this thing is moving up and down. But I said, I think that's my Adam's apple. I think that's my cartilage. But I wrote to my doctor and I said, doctor, listen, someone wrote to me. They're talking about thyroid cancer. They're talking about goiter. Can you look at some of my videos? Because I went back and I looked. What did my neck look like five years ago? What did my neck look like 10 years ago? And I thought it looked the same, but I've been in different studios. The lighting changes. I don't know. And my doctor looked at it and he goes, david, I think that that's what's called the cricoid cartilage. It's the cartilage right below the Adam's apple. I think it's just moving up and down. You know, in thin people, sometimes it's very noticeable. I don't really think it's anything. But you want to do a thyroid ultrasound. I mean, it's no radiation. Now, at the time, this is. It's so wild. I was in D.C. running around interviewing senators and doing all this Stuff, and on the phone with my doctor, do you want to get an ultrasound? And I was like, no, it doesn't sound like I need to do it. I mean, if you're not worried. And then that little thing in the back of my head started up, and I said, imagine if I'm turning down a test that could reveal something. And if it's thyroid cancer, you want to get it early, you just. You treat it. And I guess I should just go and get this ultrasound now. I book it. I don't think much about it. And then the day before, I'm going, oh, my God, what is. What is this thing in my neck? And the whole thing was working, so I go in there, and it's. This is like a moment out of Breaking Bad. I'll explain in a moment. They sit me, lay me down on this table, I guess, to get the thyroid angle right. The ultrasound technician put, like, a pillow under my back so that my neck would be back and my thyroid. And at a certain point during the test, I just kind of glanced. It was taking what I thought was too long. And I know people. The tech is not reading the ultrasound. I understand a radiologist will do it, but in my head, I'm like, these techs do this all the time. They probably realize if there's something weird at some point as this thing is going on, I just look over to the right, and I see her drawing a circle on the screen around some pulsating red thing that appears to be on my neck. And at this point, I go, oh, my God. What is that? What? That does not look normal. And it reminded me of this moment in Breaking Bad where Walter White is having his lung cancer scan, and he just looks over, and there's this huge white thing on the scan, which he believes is lung cancer. And then later, he is told by his doctor, oh, that's like. From coughing. It's like inflammation or who knows what it is? Who knows if that's even a real depiction of medicine, but it reminded me of that moment. I'm looking at this red thing going. This is completely effed up, up. I leave, And I think 40 minutes later, the results come in, and it's, like, completely normal, symmetrical, beautiful thyroid. Trump's doctors would have. They've. Trump's doctors have never seen a score this high on a thyroid ultrasound. And I was able to get it out of the way, but I quite literally went and got tested, because there's another story. I think it's from hockey, where a nurse had seen a player who had something on his neck and like held up a sign, and the guy had thyroid cancer. So I went and I got tested. Is that crazy? Now let me tell you the next one for which I didn't get tested, but I did write to my doctor a couple of months before that. Someone wrote to me and said, david, I think you've been having mini strokes while you've been doing the show. And this was like, not an A list celebrity, but a relatively well known person that watches the show. And they said, and there's a couple things going on. You seem to be saying things that make no sense and not realizing it. And when you speak, your mouth is asymmetrical, like you've had some kind of paralysis to the face. Now, again, I asked them, what do you mean I'm making no sense when I speak? Tell me what you mean by that. But I went back and looked, and it is true that sometimes when I'm gesticulating wildly, my lip opens, my mouth opens in a not totally symmetrical way. But I went back and looked, and 10 years ago, it was the same thing. So I go, what do you. What do you mean I'm making no sense? And they said, you know, you were just talking and you said, God bless the United States. And you didn't even seem to notice that you were doing that. And at this point I just start laughing. And I explained, no, no, I'm. I know I'm doing that. I'm mimicking when Donald Trump had some kind of dental malfunction and he said, God bless the Palestinians and God bless the United States. And at this point, we had a laugh. But I still asked my doctor at my physical, hey, have you noticed that when I talk, my mouth moves sort of asymmetrically? And he goes, you're fine. You don't. You don't need to worry about that. So multiple. And you know what? After 20 years of doing this, maybe two medical explorations based on viewer mail is not really that much. On average, that's like one every 10 years, even if they have both been in the last few months. But I got my results. The Internet tried to diagnose me, so I got tested and I was fine. Thankfully, we've got a great bonus show for you today. The chaos around the redistricting simply won't stop. We will talk about voters who believe the election will be stolen, but by whom is the question. And we are seeing threats that there will be passports revoked if you owe child support. Is that even legal? All of that and more on today's bonus show. Sign up@join pacman.com make sure you're getting my daily newsletter. It's free, and I'll keep you up to date on everything that's going on. Go to David pakman.com substack to get that newsletter for free.