David Pakman (35:39)
know, as I've said before, this is just not an issue. Trump and Caroline Levitt and others insist transgender transmutilizations, as he wrongly calls them, men and women's sports. These are huge issues to Americans. They're not. When you poll Americans, they're not big issues. And as I said earlier this week, I'm not going to do it again. There are almost no trans athletes. They're just. There just are almost none. The trans community is tiny. Doesn't mean we don't care about the trans community. We want to treat them well, but the trans community is tiny as a portion of the population. The percentage of those that are athletics aged is an even smaller slice. The sliver of those that are in competitive athletics is even smaller. Then you've got to only look at trans women because trans men, they don't care about. If you're a biological woman and you want to play with the men in basketball, all right, go. You might just struggle. So. So we're slicing and slicing and slicing. There are states where the NCAA has zero to two trans athletes. Think about that. And so every time you hear Trump go trans this, trans that, people don't really care about that. A small group that has weaponized it won't stop talking about it. It's not a real issue. The real issues, including affordability, Trump's not dealing with. If you were shopping for a new mattress, I would recommend you start by looking at Helix Sleep, the mattress I've been sleeping on for years, the only one that I recommend, because they custom Tailor it to your needs. I took their sleep quiz. It took a minute or two. I said, oh, you know I like to sleep on my stomach. I tend to feel hotter in the middle of the night rather than colder. I like medium firm and Helix just nailed it. Matched me with the perfect mattress. Most people don't even know where to start when you're looking for a mattress. And Helix just makes it easy. There is really no substitute for the mattress that's right for you. Your body will thank you. Delivery was fast, setup was easy. You do get 100 nights to try it out. They'll even take away your old mattress. Right now. Helix has a special offer only for my audience. Get 27% off everything on their site. When you go to helix sleep.com/pacman the link is in the description Is Donald Trump about to throw a tantrum and quit the presidency? If Republicans get crushed in November, a bunch of you believe that that's exactly what is going to happen. I'm going to show you one example. Check this out. Kelly wrote to me, one of many who has suggested this and said, quote, david, I suspect that if Trump loses the House and the Senate and he can't convince anyone that the election was stolen, he will quit and flee the country. He is the ultimate sore loser and knows he will be in endless trials for both his Epstein connection and massive corruption. So is Kelly right? I'm going to tell you what I think. First of all, Kelly is completely right about Trump's tendencies and Trump's traits and Trump's characteristics. She says Trump is a sore loser. Of course she's completely right. Yes, Trump is an extraordinarily sore loser. Trump is the sorest loser I've ever seen. He won the presidency in 2016 but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. And he still hasn't admitted Hillary Clinton simply got more votes. He can't admit that. That's 10 years ago now. He lost to Joe Biden in 2020, and he still insists that he won. And he still insists it was rigged. He said it just this week at that very confusing rally that he did. Trump won in 2024, the popular vote and the electoral vote, and he can't just leave it at that. He still says if the votes were counted fairly, he'd have won every state, including California. And I think Trump does suspect that it will be really bad if Democrats take the House. Why do I say that? Well, Trump has said it. Trump has said if they win, they'll probably impeach me. It's probably True. MAGA Mike Johnson, who conferences regularly with Trump, has said we could be in real rough shape. The Trump presidency is effectively over if we lose the House in November. And I think that that's probably true. So Kelly is completely correct in assessing a bunch of Donald Trump's traits and kind of personality characteristics. However, it is the very traits that make Trump so terrible that won't allow him to just walk away. Let me explain what I mean by that. One of the key traits of these egomaniacal, self centered narcissists like Donald Trump is that they always believe they can talk their way out of it. They're untouchable, they're the smartest person in the room and they will prevail. And so Trump would be very unlikely to walk away because constitutionally, and what I don't mean legally, that's I just mean like by Trump's personal makeup, Trump's Constitution, he would see walking away as a sign of weakness and he would always believe that he can get one over on whoever. We've seen this a lot insofar as think back to Donald Trump's criminal trial. He and depositions. He always thinks he can just go in there and talk to the lawyers, that he's smarter and that they're not going to catch him in lies or contradictions. Now in depositions, that has gone really bad for Trump. In the criminal trial in which Trump was of course found guilty of 34 felonies, his lawyers were able to convince him do not testify. But even though Kelly's premises are very strong, she's got Trump nailed. As far as the personality. She's correctly assessed that it will be hell for Trump and probably his family and, and certainly the Republican Party if Republicans lose in November. She's gotten all of that right. But Trump's personality is sort of like the most important overarching and overriding factor that will never allow Trump to just go, you know what, I'm getting the hell out of here. JD can deal with this. Frankly, it would also be an unusual move to see a president just kind of do that. You typically only see it when they are in deep doo doo like Richard Nixon was in the midst of the Watergate scandal. That is the level that what Trump, Trump's had like 10 watergates. If we had a different media environment and if we didn't have such a uninformed and kind of propagandized population, if we didn't have fox news since 1996, we might have seen someone like a Trump already have resigned because of any one of the prior scandals the way Richard Nixon did, because Republicans would have come to him and they said, they would have said, it's not tenable to keep supporting you the way they did to Nixon in the 70s. The reason Republicans haven't done that is because there is essentially nothing Trump could do to really lose his base. I don't know if it's 20%, 22, 24, 26%. There is some roughly 1/5 to 1/4, maybe a little more of the population that will never abandon Donald Trump. And because of that and because of Trump's personality and the media environment, I don't think Trump will ever quit. Marjorie Taylor Greene has looked around and is sort of asking, what on earth is Donald Trump doing Now? Marjorie Taylor Greene already broke with Trump, but her continued criticism of the specifics of what Trump is doing, that goes way above and beyond simply a personal dispute or the sort of insider baseball politics that can make strange bedfellows. But then all of a sudden, you're kicked out of the bed. This is bigger than that. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to, to use Trump's word, pound and pound Trump. And now she is saying, why on earth, from a strategic standpoint, why on earth would Trump go into this war in Iran unprovoked? Optional is what she's saying. It's spiking gas prices. Things will get more expensive. It's terrible for Republicans. She doesn't get it. Quite frankly, neither do I. But let's listen to what she had to say. Oh, you are a longtime loyal supporter of President Trump, but you broke with him in part because you felt he was too focused on foreign affairs rather than the America first promises he's made, he made on the campaign trail as we enter day 17 of the Iran war. Do you believe that president's voters can trust him? Well, just to be clear, the President broke with me over the Epstein files, so that that always has to be said. He called me a traitor because I stood with women who were raped when they were 14 and 16. But I do completely disagree where the President has led the country. You know what? It makes absolutely no sense, Pamela, going into midterm elections. Let's remove Donald Trump out of it. Let's just put any president in there. Why would an American president lead his political party into the midterms, waging a full scale major war completely unprovoked on, on Iran, on behalf of Israel? And that's the way most Americans see it. They see this is for Israel, not for America. Why would an American president Do that. Which is forcing gas prices to hike right here, going into spring break, where families are going to be driving out of town, going into summer, declaring and waging a major full scale war that seems to have no end in sight. That is not de Escalating. It's escalating every single day. And it just doesn't make sense. And the American people did not vote for this. This is not what we campaigned for. Pamela, I went to, I can't even tell you, countless rallies all over the country for President Trump, campaigning for him and Republicans because we wanted to win. And we said on every single rally stage, no more foreign wars, no more regime change. It's time to put America first. And this is a complete betrayal of those campaign promises. So listen, it's not news that Marjorie has broken with Trump. This is another example of the degree to which she is really not on Trump's side anymore. She's treating Trump's actions as reckless rather than defending the policy. And it reinforces this MAGA on MAGA split that has taken place when Marjorie calls the war unprovoked. Of course she's correct, but a better word would be optional. Now Trump is trying to insist he had to do it. J.D. vance, Marco Rubio, they're trying to insist there was no choice here. He absolutely had to do it. But the more information we get, the more we realize that's not true. And then she says, look, we're seven and a half months from an election. Republicans stand potentially to lose the House, but maybe even the Senate. That's me saying it based on the data we have, not Marjorie, why on earth would Trump do this? Especially when the American people didn't vote for it, AKA they didn't want it. The American people are looking around at what's going on domestically. They're looking at 92,000 jobs lost last month. They're looking at gas up almost 40% since mid January, just a couple of months. And so the broader pattern here is we are seeing more Republicans go. It's not just a disagreement with the personality of Trump. Those Republicans have been around for a while. It's people who are saying, I don't agree with the policy at all. Now, of course, Marjorie is in a position that is much makes doing that much more plausible because she quit. She quit Congress. And what I would love to see, and I don't know if they have the audacity to do it, I don't know if they have the balls to do it, which is what about more Republicans in power who have table stakes and have something to lose. Who could come out and go, hey you know what? This I don't agree with. This is bad policy. This is bad for the country. And also they could make it self centered. They could make it just about. It's bad for our party. A lot of us are going to lose if this continues. We've got an optional war combined with rising costs. And there's really no way to argue that Trump is helping the average person right now. And instead of defending Trump, Marjorie is building a case against Trump that's based in fact. Good for her for doing that, even if I disagree with her philosophy in most areas. But come on Republicans, are you ready to finally call it like it is? Like I said earlier, will still disagree, but I'll respect you so much more if you're ready to say it. Ever feel like your brain just won't click? Onnit Alpha Brain is a daily supplement engineered to support memory, focus and mental speed. Made with science backed ingredients, Onnit Alpha Brain helps you lock in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. See what your brain can really do. Visit onnit.com and shop Alpha Brain to unlock your next level. That's O N I t dot com the David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to 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 pakman.com Donald Trump does not like getting corrected. And what he doesn't like even more than that is getting corrected in public. And what he doesn't like even more than that is getting corrected in public by someone he sees as a beta, AKA anyone from Europe. And that is exactly what happened with the Irish leader who visited the White House. But it was even worse than that. Donald Trump is also just saying, I might do more things that are against the law. Now what is another crime or two between friends when this is one of the most criminal presidents I've ever seen? I know, just another crime. Stack them up. But Trump was asked by a reporter, you thinking of getting out of Naito? And Trump goes, well, you know what, I can do whatever I want. If I want to get out of Naito, I'll just get us out of Naito. Which isn't how the law works. But we'll get to that in a second. Take a look. Are you rethinking the United States relationship with NATO Possibly getting out House.