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- [00:00]
David Pakman
Today I'm going to talk to you about politics increasingly becoming content instead of actual governance and policy. And I want to explain why the Internet may have fundamentally broken the incentives of democracy, where politicians are increasingly influencers and Congress is becoming a clip factory. Then Taco Trump strikes again. Trump resurfaces, saying Middle Eastern leaders this time begged him. He's so strong. Please don't attack Iran. And Fox News is spinning it to look like Trump is strong. Also today, I'm going to show you the numbers Behind a major YouTube problem hitting left wing independent media, where impressions have collapsed and something is going on. Also, Mark Cuban shows up to the White House with Donald Trump for a bizarre health care infomercial, essentially claiming Americans love his corruption. They just love it. They want more of it. But people around MAGA are increasingly talking about a post Trump future and they're talking about the 25th Amendment. Maybe Robert Reich's idea last week about the 25th Amendment is the most likely way to remove Trump is right after all. And then in an unbelievable news story, new financial disclosures show that Donald Trump spent the last year publicly hyping stocks he had just bought. But he didn't tell anybody until now. All of the corruption and more on today's show. Let's start today with this question. Are politicians and our elected officials becoming more like streamers and content creators than they are policy makers? Hear me out and then I want to hear from you. Modern politics is increasingly following the rules of online engagement instead of the rules of being lawmakers and running the country. And this is because the incentives have completely changed, where spectacle now comes out on top of competence almost all the time. And whether you can go viral beats whether you have substance to offer 99 out of 100 times. And if you look now at how increasingly elected officials have become content shops, their offices are more like content and communication shops than they are policy shops. And I'll give you some examples in a moment. You see that the incentives of what goes viral online have become a major obsession for the average federal elected official, where sounding confident is way more important than actually getting the facts right. And being in conflict with people beats having interesting policy proposals. And the identity that you can craft defeats whatever outcomes you can actually deliver to to your constituents. Now, obviously, Trump is the clearest example, but this is way bigger than Trump. Like, yes, Donald Trump in some way unleashed this back in 2015 when he came down the golden escalator. But just about everybody has followed Trump in this way. Look at what politics now rewards legislative Skill, essentially unnecessary policy expertise. Nice, but not really a requirement anymore. You need clips, you need outrage and to activate people emotionally and to develop a loyal audience. That is influencer culture. the end of the day, that's the culture of live streams and Twitch and TikTok and algorithmic culture. And it has come to define politics. And I don't think that it's a good thing. You've got a lot of the offices of elected officials, and I know a lot of the people that work in these offices. They are functioning like content creators. They are not functioning like policy shops staff for elected officials. They admit it to me, spend the vast majority of their time figuring out, okay, what questions can you ask during a congressional hearing that will go viral? What heated exchange can you generate so that Hannity or Rachel Maddow will talk about it tonight? What sort of phrasing is most likely to trigger the person that you're interviewing? Can we generate moments that will have you dominating social media for six hours? And so the hearings and the speeches and the constituent events and it all becomes content production. These elected officials offices are functioning essentially the same way that content creators sit down with our teams and go, all right, what would be interesting today? What can, what can we do today? Every confrontation is evaluated on engagement. Did it trend? Did it generate outrage? Did it produce good clips for TikTok or YouTube shorts or reels or X? And, and that becomes the metric. And the media ecosystem makes it all the worse because outrage scales way better than governance. I talked about this in the Echo Machine. I talk about it in my forthcoming book, Pay Attention, which, by the way, I hope you've preordered. So, you know, I've had these conversations. You can find. I don't want to call anybody out today. Maybe I should. But you can find interviews with lawmakers on my show where they, they try, I'm talking about Democrats here. They try the same stuff that gets them viral clips. And they say to thinking of a particular exchange, listen, we've got, we've just got to tax the rich. Cool. I say, how do you do it? They go, well, we got to raise the income tax rate. 37% is too low. The thing is, the very rich don't earn income in the sense of wages. They're not subject to the income tax. And they go into, if they're prepared for that, they'll go, well, then we've got to increase the tax rate on capital gains as well. Yeah, but the problem with that is a lot of these wealthy people don't Sell their assets, therefore capital gains never comes up. Okay, well, maybe a wealth tax, right? But the European countries that have tried the wealth taxes saw revenue go down and they mostly abandoned them. Now what? That's it. That's. That's as far as they can go. And so nobody goes viral explaining the implementation differences between raising the top marginal tax rate, taxing unrealized capital gains, a wealth tax, how that works, how that's worked in other countries. Those are complicated policy discussions. Algorithms punish complicated. That doesn't really work. If you're nuanced, you're going to have less engagement being really confident, talking like Ben Shapiro about everything, even if you know nothing about it. That works. And so what this has caused is it has pushed our elected officials to just flatten into tribal signaling and identity performance. And when politics becomes the same as influencing and content, audience capture starts controlling politicians just the same way that it controls influencers. A streamer can't suddenly tell their audience, you know what? My opponents are actually making really good points. Some of us will be charitable to the opposition, and I try to do that. The things I'm describing here, I try to fight against. But in general, your audience will punish you for going, I was kind of wrong about a lot of stuff. And my adversaries are really right. Maybe go listen to them. The algorithm punishes that. And we are seeing that incentive structure trickle down to our elected officials. And so is solving problems the priority. Solving problems isn't that useful for our elected officials. Unless solving those problems translates into interesting and viral communication, that sucks. That's not good for the American people. And so when you look around and you go, man, some of these elected officials, are they even doing any actual legislating? Because they're on podcasts all the time, they're on live streams all the time. They've got a lot of viral moments, but what are they actually delivering here? And this explains why media personalities increasingly become political authorities and also why it has become so relatively easy large content creators to transition into being elected officials. And I believe actually we're going to see way more of that. Is that good or bad? I don't know. But one of the big discussions when I was in D.C. for White House correspondents dinner with, you know, the typical elites, right? The, the agents and the PR people and the advisers. And one of the big discussions was, you know, if you have a medium to large to mega influencer platform, it's quite easy to become a member of the House of Representatives. You've got to pick your spots You've got to make sure you're not running against someone who's super popular. It would be hard to go, hey, I'm a big influencer, I'll run against AOC and win. That's probably not going to happen, but you pick someone, an open seat or someone who's been around for a long time and doesn't, isn't really active in their, in their district, you can take your influencer platform and very easily, much easy, much more easily than at any point in history. Become an elected official. The scary part of all of this is that we increasingly have a system. The digital platforms on which I communicate and many of you consume content. We have a system that naturally selects for the people most willing and able to simplify, to inflame, to, to exaggerate, to emotionally manipulate and to be aggressive. That performs really well. Online governance is slower. It's just like policy can be pretty technical, compromise is usually necessary and it's pretty boring and it doesn't play well in the algorithms, whereas outrage is immediate. And so these incentives have pushed politics to no longer reward the people who are the best at governing and to reward the people who are best at feeding the content machine. Countries still have to function even while the political system behaves more and more like TikTok. And so I believe that this is a problem. I believe that this is a bad thing. But unless something changes, and I'm going to talk later about what that might be, it is not going to reverse because the incentive structure is there. Taco Trump has done it again. Trump resurfaces and shows us just how weak he is. He was about to do a big boy attack on Iran. He was going to do it today, but it's Tuesday and Tuesday is Taco Day. So Donald Trump posts. In all honesty, he posted this yesterday. It was technically Monday, but it was going to happen today. Trump says, quote, I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold off on our planned military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow. In that serious negotiations are now taking place. He's ending the war again, folks. And that in their opinion, as great leaders and allies, a deal will be made which will be very acceptable to the United States of America as well as all countries in the Middle east and beyond. This deal will include importantly, no nuclear weapons for Iran. Based on my respect for the above mentioned leaders, I have instructed Secretary of War Pete Kegseth, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Daniel Kaine and the United States military that we will not be doing, not be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full large scale assault of Iran on a moment's notice in the event that an acceptable deal is not reached. Once again, we're almost there. We were just almost to this deal. Now in week 12 of the war, week 12 of three, it's a three week war. We're in week 12. And Trump wants to portray I'm really strong and they're begging me rather than I'm weak and scared and they're giving me a way out. That's the truth. Trump is weak and scared and they are giving him a way out. Now Fox News buys all of it. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we believe this.
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Brian Tyler Cohen
Telling the New York Post Iran knows what's telling the New York Post Iran knows what's going to be happening soon if they don't make a deal. Any reportedly prepares for a as he reportedly prepares for a high stakes meeting tomorrow with his national security team to consider new strikes inside Iran.
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David Pakman
Brian they just believe it. They're just like, yep, that's exactly what's going on. So here is how we have to kind of interpret this. Trump wants you to see this and go, wow, Trump is so strong. Trump is telling the military what to do. This attack was going to be so destructive that all of the leaders of the Middle east said no, please, sir, Trump, yeah, exactly, please don't do it. But we see through it and it doesn't read like strength if you know how to read between the lines. Trump is pre spinning a retreat. He doesn't really want to do it and he's probably been advised this would be very bad. This is going to make the economic situation worse. This is going to make our relationships worse. It will make it even less likely that the deal is done. So Trump loves to do massive, huge threats, total escalation rhetoric. You'd better not and I'm going to do this and son of a bang and all this stuff. Nobody's tougher than me. And then he backs off and he reframes it as strategic. I made him so scared they were quaking in their boots. And good for Iran. Should be glad that all of these other countries came and said, please, sir, with hat in our hands, please don't do it because we believe we can get a Deal done. Now, there's an obvious contradiction here. If the negotiations have been productive and serious for what, 10 weeks at this point, 10 of the 12 weeks of the three week war. TRUMP says weekly, we're so close to a deal. It's going so well. JD Is negotiating or Jared Kushner is negotiating or whoever, Witkoff, and we're so close, but I might bomb them tomorrow. Wait, why? Why would you do that? That doesn't project that these are productive and serious conversations. It projects that if they're even happening, they're not going particularly well. Now, it may well be true that Middle Eastern leaders are trying to stop Trump from doing this, but they would be doing it because they're trying to rescue Trump from his own escalation spiral. Recognizing that if you have an interest in calm in the Middle east, whether you are Saudi Arabia or whatever country, you also don't want Trump doing this. Not because he's so strong and so big and so girthy, but because you realize it will be bad for your economy as well. Oil shocks aren't good for a lot of these countries that are not involved directly in the war. Shipping disruptions are bad for them. The economic fallout is bad. Regional instability is bad. It disrupts aviation. And Fox News does exactly what Trump wants everybody to do. When they see this post, which is go look at how respected Trump is. He's so respected that these countries come to him very politely and they say, sir, you're, you're Majesty. I'm sorry, Mr. President. He wants them to say, your Majesty, but they say, Mr. President, we would rather you not do this. We know you're strong, but give them a chance. Give Iran a chance. So we have to analyze this going beyond Trump's claimed rhetoric into Trump treats the presidency like real time audience management on social media, constant. Just let me post and see the reaction. Post and see the reaction. Not a diplomatic framework that we are familiar with. And so the emotional performance takes on a big role. The branding of strength is maybe the most important thing Americans are increasingly hearing. He here comes more chaos and more instability. And in fact, earlier on in this conflict, when Trump would make these declarations that maybe we can back off, the stock market would pop. However, the stock market is down hundreds of points today. Even the stock market realizes these apparent detente, these pauses in the conflict or these delays in hostilities, whether they're real or not, we don't know. But traders don't buy it as a reason to be more confident in the American economy because Trump is doing it. Every other week. Pathetic. And it's not working anymore. We have a crisis. I'm coming to you today because independent media is facing a real crisis on YouTube and I want to know what you believe is actually going on. Let me explain couple possibilities and I will, I will lay them out and you tell me what's going on. Left wing independent media on YouTube is crashing. Crashing. Since the beginning of April, YouTube has dramatically reduced performance for the vast majority of left leaning independent media shows. Not every single one, but the vast majority. Importantly, this is not following the same trajectory as right wing content. And to be clear, it is not every left wing channel, but it is ours and it is a lot of them. I've been Farron Cousins put out a video about this a few hours ago. The short version is this Videos that should perform well Videos. People write to me about saying this is really important. Videos that do really well on other platforms are bombing, they're not reaching people. Every single day I get comments from viewers about how they don't see videos of mine in their feed anymore. I had to manually go to your channel, David, what's the point of subscribing if YouTube never shows me your videos? So we started looking at the data. I want to go data first and there's a couple important metrics that we found. One is impressions. An impression is YouTube shows you my thumbnail and title. You might be watching one video and on the side it goes, hey, you might like this, that's an impression. You might click it or you might not click it. Maybe it's an up next, maybe it's on the homepage. The second metric we look at is called click through rate. And that Simply means if 100 people are shown that they could click on my video, how many do? If 5 out of 100 click it, that's a 5% click through rate. If 20 out of 100 click it, that'S a 20% click through rate. Now YouTube has suggested to me that there is simply less interest right now in the sort of content that the left is putting out. Maybe people are fatigued, maybe they're burnt out on politics. Maybe fewer people care about these stories. If that were true, you would expect the click through rate to fall. In other words, if when people are interested, 20 out of 100 click my videos when they are shown them. If people are less interested in maybe only 5 out of 100 click. But all year the click through rate has stayed the same. The click through rate hasn't gone down at all. When people are shown here's a video from David. They are clicking it just as often as at the beginning of the year and January, February, March, a period during which the channel was growing massively. We were getting 15 million impressions a day and the click through rate was close to 8%. And then April and May, click through rate is still close to 8%, but impressions go from 15 million down to 10 million. Hmm. But the click through rate is almost identical. So it appears that people are just as interested in hearing from the left on YouTube right now, but they are not being shown the videos. Now, if this were the entire story, I probably wouldn't even make this segment. But what makes this very difficult to ignore are the sheer number of people every single day who say things like the following. I don't get you in my feed at all. We're showing screenshots of people leaving these comments. I don't get you in my feed at all. Pacman, not on my feed anymore. For some reason, I had to search for his videos. You were being suppressed in distribution. I'm not seeing your new videos and I've been subscribed for years. I have hit the bell to make sure I get informed. And another one, Robin, says, this is the first time I've seen a post of yours in weeks. You know, at a certain point, when you hear from hundreds and hundreds of people every single day saying, I've been subscribed, I don't see any of your content. You have to start wondering, is something going on here? Now, I want to be charitable to YouTube here. We've been on YouTube a long time. I think the people at YouTube are generally people trying to do a good job. And YouTube has offered a different explanation. And the argument from YouTube is click through rate is deceptive. You know, during periods of explosive growth, when YouTube pushes your videos to more people, click through rate tends to come down. It actually doesn't really mean anything that click through rate, they have this whole other explanation. However, one of the things that makes me question that is that the content is killing on every other platform. If it were true that people are less interested in left wing political content right now, you would imagine that we would be getting fewer views on TikTok, we would be getting fewer views on Snapchat, we would be getting fewer views on Instagram and Facebook, and the audio podcast would have declined. But every single other platform is doing fine. It's only YouTube, which to me undercuts the idea that there is less interest. Now, I am not arguing that someone at YouTube has flipped a switch and is deliberately suppressing left wing channels. I believe that YouTube's systems are reacting in some sense to what they believe is going to keep people on platform more. And this is sort of a side effect of it. Either way the effect is the same which is that this is an existential crisis for left wing YouTube channels. So independent media survives or dies based on discoverability. So if you actually want to keep seeing the show, there is something very important that you should do right now. First of all, make sure to like this video on YouTube. If you're listening elsewhere, go to YouTube like this video. But the concept is we don't want to rely on AI for recommendations. We don't want to rely on the algorithms. We have to go back to telling the platforms what we want. YouTube defaults users to what they call personalized notifications, which essentially means let a I choose whether to show me David's videos. You have to tell YouTube that you want to see certain videos. So if you're not yet subscribed on YouTube, please make sure to subscribe and like this video. But after doing that, double check that notifications are actually turned on. There is a bell icon. Click it, tap it and select all. There is a very good chance that YouTube has set this to personalized, meaning they're not going to show you the videos. You've got to go in and tell YouTube what to do. This is our best and only shot at reprogramming the algorithm, but also at circumventing it and simply telling YouTube, don't decide for me. I'm deciding the content I want. Also important because we have no control over these platforms. Make sure you're on my substack mailing list because we do own the data there. We have no way to contact our 3.6 million YouTube subscribers if YouTube pulls the plug. We own our list on substack. So go to David pakman.com/substack and make sure you're on that list. But the most important thing like this video. Subscribe bell all and I'll report back to you in two days and see if we can turn this thing around. You use your email for everything. Banking, work purchases, medical information. That makes your email provider one of the most important places to think about privacy. Most big tech email services scan your messages, build profiles about you, use the data to show you ads. Our sponsor, Start Mail takes a different approach. 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Brain FM is a music app designed to support Focus. It's not the random playlists or ambient videos that people often will put on it's music. Built from the ground up for cognitive performance, Brain.fm works with musicians and neuroscientists to create music that will interact with with your brain's natural rhythms. Their patented audio technology is designed to influence brain activity related to attention. This is why Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation. The app includes a number of modes depending on what you're doing. Deep work, Creative motivation. There's a dedicated ADHD mode for people whose brains may benefit from extra support. There's has also been peer reviewed research published showing that their music increased activity in attentional networks and also improved performance on attention based tasks. Try it yourself with 30 days free at Brain FM Pacman. The link is in the description I posted today to my social media that there is a sort of gold rush of corruption happening right now in the Trump administration. They know that best case scenario they've got a little over two years left and worst case scenario? Well, we'll talk about that in a little bit. So they are now figuring out how can we just take money, how can we just line our own pockets? And the latest way of course is this slush fund that Donald Trump has agreed to for dropping his $10 billion lawsuit. There will be a $1.7 billion slush fund to be distributed to Trump's friends and allies, essentially who Trump claims have been unfairly charged or sued or whatever. And Donald Trump is now claiming people love this, that the country loves this. He mentioned this at an event unveiling Trump R X, which is Trump's prescription drug website. We'll talk about that later. Not exactly boisterous applause as the orange leader was introduced. Donald J. Trump.
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Donald Trump
Well, thank you very much. It's great to be here.
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David Pakman
Yeah. You organized the event. It's funny. I'm really honored to be here at this event that I organized. Trump then using random words related to medical. And this is how, you know, he simply does not understand what they're even doing. He doesn't understand the issues with prescription drugs. We know he doesn't understand percentages. That ship has long sailed. But Donald Trump just using random words related to medical.
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Donald Trump
Favored nation agreements I negotiated. We now pay the lowest price paid for anybody in any country. We went from the highest to the lowest. And I think outside of maybe a cure itself, it's the biggest thing to happen to health care. And everything having to do with medical in any.
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David Pakman
If it has to do with medical,
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Donald Trump
this is good way, shape or form. There's never been anything like this. We think of it. We went from the most expensive to the least expensive.
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David Pakman
And if you're going, huh? If you're, if you're wondering what on earth is Trump talking about? That's a normal reaction because I don't think Trump has any idea what he is talking about about this event. To announce Trump Rx was really like an infomercial. Like, this is what you would expect to see late at night on Fox News. Don't just fill your prescription, Trump, or exit. Because the strongest nation on earth, America, starts with the healthiest people on earth. Mr. President, back to you.
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Donald Trump
Thank you, Joe. Great job. Beautiful.
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David Pakman
I, I'm Donald Trump, and I don't trust just any diaper. Ask melania trump rx.gov what a strange way to announce something that is primarily, I guess, to save people money. Although my suspicions, and you'll find out why a little bit later in the show, my suspicion is Trump's going to make money from this somehow. Now, Trump did take questions at another point during this gung show event, and one of the questions was about whether this $1.7 billion slush fund is an appropriate thing. And Trump's new line is the country loves it. Really? Because I'm not hearing from anybody about that. I'm hearing from both people on the left, but also people on the right who voted for Trump. All right, this is too much. Trump suing himself and awarding himself a $1.7 billion slush fund. That is nuts. But Trump goes, no, no, no. People like it.
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Brian Tyler Cohen
People like Justice Department has this new fund that was announced today. $1.7 billion.
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Donald Trump
Yeah.
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Brian Tyler Cohen
Why should taxpayers pay for the January.
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Donald Trump
Well, it's been very well received. I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn't.
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David Pakman
I know nothing about it. Even though it came from me, suing me. But people love it. People just love it.
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Donald Trump
Involved in, in the whole creation of it, and, and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people that were horrib. Horribly treated. It's anti. Weaponization. They've been weaponized. They've been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn't have. They've gone back now.
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David Pakman
Notice that Mark Cuban is standing over Trump's left shoulder. That's not a. That's not a minor detail here. I want to get back to that in a moment.
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Donald Trump
Bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed and they turn out to be right. I mean, it was a terrible period of time in the history of our country. And they worked on it. I know the Justice Department. It's really been working on it very hard. There's been numerous other occasions over the years where things like this have been done, but these were people that were weaponized.
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David Pakman
All right, so anyway, Trump goes, no, it's awesome. People love the corruption. People love that I have a slush fund. Let's talk about Mark Cuban in the background there. Many of you might be surprised to see Mark Cuban there. Mark Cuban is not a supporter of Trump's and he did support Kamala Harris. So why is he there? Listen, Mark Cuban is the type of guy who has a sort of very simple litmus test for what he will participate in. If he believes it's good for the American people, he will show up. And I genuinely believe that Mark Cuban, who has been working. He has a cost plus drugs website where you can get discounted drugs. Okay? I genuinely believe Mark Cuban cares about this. And I think Mark Cuban showed up because he thinks this is an important issue and that this is better than nothing. The problem when you do it is that. Excuse me. Trump then starts taking questions and says insane things like, people love my corrupt slush fund. And he has to stand there and take it because he is with the President of the United States. And that is why it is extremely risky to do what Mark Cuban did. Trump then did fall asleep. Par for the course. Sweating and sleeping at the same time
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Mark Cuban
were added 601 more, as the President said, seven times more drugs. And now in this, which means something really important. You should not buy a drug in America without first checking in a America
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David Pakman
not just any, but in America, the
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Mark Cuban
best transparency site ever created for medications to make sure you're not being taken advantage of. You wouldn't go grocery shopping without knowing prices. You wouldn't buy a car without knowing prices, lease an apartment or anything else. You shouldn't do it with the medications that could save your life. We believe that more than half of all the prescription interactions in America are now going to be revealed on Trump Rx. If you wish to use the site in any capacity, this is a time to start. It's a technological feat. It's created transparency with no middlemen, just what the President promised. And for that reason, we ask you today to go look at the site, trumprx.gov, ask us to put you on our mailing list.
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David Pakman
Yes, get on the mailing list now. Trump slept through this. You can tell how important it is. I did go on Trump rx.gov and I looked up the one drug I take, which as many of you know, famously is Lipitor. It's the Lipitor prescription heard round the world and it costs more. I, this, this may be a glitch. I don't know if they figured it out yet, but the, the, the cost is higher if I were to go to Trump Rx. Now, understandably, I do have insurance and Lipitor is free with insurance, but I get, so maybe the concept, oh, and there's a delivery fee, dear God. So that's even actually more expensive. Anyway, I guess if you have insurance, this is not the website for you. But if you don't have insurance, which of course everybody should, maybe you can save some money with it. I don't know. Then Trump bizarrely claims he was cheated out of winning Maryland in the 2024 election. When did a Republican last wing Maryland last win Maryland? I have no idea.
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Donald Trump
And I know Maryland pretty well and I was told that it's automatically a Democrat state. And I don't believe that because I think I did really well there and I don't believe it. But the issue does. You just got caught recently. 5, 500,000 ballots.
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David Pakman
So Mark Cuban has to stand behind Trump, as Trump wildly claims. If the votes were counted fairly, he would have won Maryland. And then finally, Donald Trump dumping a brutal attack on mail in ballots. He says they are totally corrupt. By the way, Trump regularly votes by mail and integrity. So a lot of Republicans, including you,
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Brian Tyler Cohen
are speaking out against a massive mail
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David Pakman
in ballot ballot era in Maryland.
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Donald Trump
Terrible.
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David Pakman
How concerned are you about election integrity as Americans are heading into the midterms?
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Donald Trump
I'm Very concerned about it. I'm very concerned about mail in ballots. We're the only country in the world that's doing mail in ballots. And a mail in ballot is by just the nature of it, it's going to be corrupt. So many people handle it.
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David Pakman
You go by its nature. Trump participated in something corrupt.
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Donald Trump
To a well run voting booth in a certain state, you know, we'll pick a state, but you go into and I mean they look, even me, I went in Florida and went to vote and they said, sir, I hate to do it, I'm so embarrassed. Could I see your identification? I said, really? Do you really want to do that? Please sir, I'll lose my job if I don't do it. I very, sir, I was very proud to enter identification and everything else. I mean, you want to have proof of citizenship, you want to have a voter id, you want to.
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David Pakman
So it will not surprise you to hear that Donald Trump has one set of rules for himself and another set of rules for everybody else. Donald Trump regularly votes by mail. It is so corrupt, it's inherently corrupt for other people. Of course they are demanding Donald Trump's removal. Right now. Republicans and right wingers are openly saying it's time. Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Scaramucci, John Brennan, anti Trump Republicans, some media figures, they are now openly Talking about the 25th Amendment, Trump's instability, Trump's unhinged behavior, President J.D. vance as a replacement. And I believe that the most critical element here is not whether Trump is going to be removed. I don't think he is. And, and even the best case scenario outlined by Robert Reich is a 30% shot, meaning 70% chance he's not removed. To me, the real story is that people who have been in Trump's orbit and in the MAGA orbit for a long time are imagining a post Trump future and thinking about it as something better than the status quo. And that's a major change to how these people are conceiving. Even the ones who privately didn't like Trump often shut their mouths and got in line and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Trump, we got to vote Trump. And of course you've got people on the left who have always said this guy is non compost mentis. This guy's got to go, he can't do it. But we are seeing a significant change in the movement here. Now the mechanism that was outlined in that viral Robert Reich post last week that we looked at was JD Vance starts to think to himself, hey, you know what? I could get out ahead of this thing and I could end up being president if we get them to 25th Amendment, Trump, and then Vance goes to Rubio and goes Rubio, your Secretary of State. If you sign on to this, you could become vice president. And then they go together to their Republican leaders in the House and in the Senate and go, we already are on board. What about you? This sort of cascading chain of influence is what Robert Reich outlined. I don't know that that is any more likely to happen right now because it doesn't seem as though anybody in Donald Trump's cabinet is turning on him. But the fact that you are seeing more right wing voices like the ones I mentioned say, this is too much, this has to stop. It is time to remove Donald Trump. They are sort of going beyond, I care if this affects my career, I care if this affects me publicly. They've also, I mean, listen, they've probably also calculated it's not going to affect them. That, that's another aspect to this. But it is very important to consider that while the cabinet may not turn on Trump because he still offers them positions of power and being adjacent to power and all of this stuff, the, the voices that are saying this is enough are not people I would have imagined would have done so previously. And if you look around, there's a very simple explanation as to why Trump increasingly functions not so much like a president, but a mascot for maga. And so think about the incentives. If you are in Trump's cabinet, Trump, not as president, but as a mascot for maga, is maybe kind of a good thing for you. Trump being erratic can be good for you because it allows you to do whatever you want. It allows Pete Hegseth to play general, and it allows Marco Rubio to play top diplomat, which the Secretary of State is supposed to be. But Trump doesn't ever want to play second fiddle to anybody. But Trump's so distracted with the chaos and the nonsense. There are people in Trump's cabinet who are probably happy that Trump is so incompetent. But then you've got the people outside the immediate movement as I'm talking about Candace Owens, Alex Jones, people who have suffered in different ways and for different reasons as Donald Trump's presidency has continued. Trump saying, hey, Candace Owens has got to knock off this stuff about Brigitte Macron as a man. And Alex Jones has completely lost his platform while Donald Trump has been president. So think about the incentives here. The chaos is a great feature. If you're in Trump's Cabinet. The chaos is not so good if you are someone increasingly on the outside, like a Candace Owens or like an Alex Jones. So the question that ultimately I believe is going to determine whether Donald Trump is removed early is, well, does he stay alive? But that's not what I'm addressing here. The question that will determine what happens with Trump and whether anybody really moves to remove him using the 2015amendment is, is Trump more useful as this demented figurehead who doesn't do anything, or is he more useful to us out of the movement? If he's more useful as a chaos agent that gets out of their way and lets them do whatever they want, then they're going to keep Trump in. And it wouldn't surprise me to see that that's what happens. You know, the United States started as a rebellion against a monarch who claimed divine authority, and the founders followed that by creating our secular constitution. No references to a deity, no religious tests, clear separation between church and state. That was on purpose. It was designed to protect pluralism and individual conscience and religious freedom for everybody. But today, we're seeing increasing efforts to challenge that Donald Trump's America Praise event on May 17, which aligns government with Christianity. That raises major constitutional concerns. Our sponsor, the Freedom From Religion foundation, works to protect separation of church and state because it protects you and it protects me. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, the question isn't just what we celebrate, it's what do we defend? Visit ffrf.us/david or text my name, David, to 511511 to learn more or to join. Because protecting that separation protects our rights. The info is in the description text. Fees may apply. Don Lemon is here today. Journalist and host of the Don Lemon Show. He was arrested Jan. 29, 2026, on a couple of charges, which we'll talk about. Don, you know what's so interesting and horrifying is in January, we were all in the independent media space saying they're going to get someone. Like, it's very clear that there's an appetite to go beyond suing Paramount and Jimmy Kimmel and this sort of thing. And then news comes out that you've been arrested. Were you shocked in general that they were looking to go after someone in independent media? And then, you know, there was some talk of this before the actual arrest. And then we found out a judge didn't sign off on it. Were you also surprised that ultimately they did come for you?
- [44:39]
Don Lemon
Not. No. Yes and no.
- [44:41]
David Pakman
Okay.
- [44:42]
Don Lemon
For you. For you to introduce me and say that, you know, is arrested is still very Odd to me. And when I look up, I sometimes I'll watch legacy media and I'll see, you know, enemies list indicted. And there's my picture. I'm not surprised that they came after independent media because you and I have been talking about, I think, others as well, because we are, we're the only place right now in media where that's not restrained by the gatekeepers.
- [45:07]
David Pakman
Right.
- [45:08]
Don Lemon
And because they have completely pretty much neutered traditional legacy media, I was surprised by the tactics that they used and that they still, you know, say to me or they still write, the government and conservative news organizations will write, don Lemon led a mob. And it's like I didn't lead a mob into anything. I was reporting. Reporters go where the news is. That's what we do. Journalists go where the news is. But I was quite surprised by some of the heavy handed tactics, David, that they used. And I shouldn't have been considering how they treated people on the streets, dragging them in without due process. And so now I have a better understanding, which in an odd way is better for my reporting because I understand the injustices and that people were dealing with.
- [45:58]
David Pakman
I want to talk in a moment about the difference between reporting and activism, which is very central to the case. But first, just for people in the audience who may not know, how long were you in custody? What were the conditions? Were they generally respectful and nice to you during that time?
- [46:16]
Don Lemon
Well, I look a lot of it, I can't really talk about what. But what I will tell you is about 12 hours. And what I can say, David, is that not all Department of Homeland Security officers are created equal. And there are some of the folks that I encountered did not like being associated with the people you see out there dragging people by their collars with 47 days of training because they're in every profession, there are professionals, there are career professionals who understand what their mission is. And that mission is justice. And I think in many ways some of the people, many of the people who work for the Department of Homeland Security and for the Justice Department are embarrassed about what is happening right now. That's all I'll say. I think you can understand, you can gather much what I'm saying.
- [47:08]
David Pakman
This is a very Jewish grandma question before we move on, but did they give you food? Would you, Were you given something to eat?
- [47:15]
Don Lemon
I wasn't given a phone call. And the rest, I guess maybe one day I'll write about it or I'll do, I don't know, I'll write something for an organization or perhaps I'll write a book. But I did not get any food or anything while I was there. But at the, you know, getting close to the time when I was supposed to go and finally see a judge, I was offered something. Yeah.
- [47:41]
David Pakman
What's at issue here essentially is that you were with demonstrators at city's church in St. Paul and you are accused in the charges of essentially having been part of what took place place, which is alleged to be interfering in people's right to religious freedom in the sense that you entered the church with demonstrators while there was a service going on. There's a misdemeanor charge.
- [48:08]
Don Lemon
Real quickly, I didn't enter the church with demonstrators. Demonstrators were already there by the time I got there.
- [48:12]
David Pakman
They were. You entered after the demonstrators. Fair. Okay, good, good. Correction. There's a misdemeanor that really seems to relate to, like, blocking an entrance, which is using physical obstruction to interfere with people going in. It seems highly technical, but at the core of it, the question seems to be, and you tell me how you're being advised by your lawyers, the question of whether you are there as an independent observer of events that are taking place, something we might call journalism and reporting, or whether you are there as a participant or possibly even fomenting what took place, which would make you a protester. Is that the core of these charges?
- [48:51]
Don Lemon
I don't think that's the core of the charges. I think the.
- [48:53]
Donald Trump
The.
- [48:54]
Don Lemon
I think the charges are bullshit because.
- [48:57]
David Pakman
Well, yeah, of course, but I mean, what's the issue here was what capacity were you there in?
- [49:05]
Don Lemon
Yes and no. I don't think that they think that. I think that regardless of what capacity I was there, they feel that anyone who is, I guess, documenting this should be arrested, which would mean that many of the. The church worshipers should be arrested as well, because they had their own cameras out and they were recording it. And so I think that. I don't think that they really know why they are charging me or what they're charging me for. I think that they're coming up with things. And so I'm not an attorney, but what I do know is that from my recording and from other recordings, it shows no blocking of anyone. No, not trying to stop anyone from being able to participate in their right to. To worship. None of that happened on my part. As a matter of fact, it was just the opposite. I was there chronicling it. And when people said, okay, I don't want to talk to you, I would say, thank you very much, or they would say, are you. You know, I Don't understand why you guys are here. And I would say I'm not here with them, I'm here reporting. And if they didn't want to answer my question, they were free to walk away. And many of them, most of the people stopped and talked to me on their own accord. They wanted to talk to me. It's not like I am bushed them to talk. And if you're a journalist, you want to speak to the people who are there. I spoke to the pastor, I spoke to the protesters, I spoke to the congregants and that was it. So legally, I don't think that they really even understand what they're trying. They're what, they're what they're charging me with, which was something I guess used to protect women's rights to be able to have an abortion.
- [50:41]
David Pakman
Do you worry day to day, are you losing sleep about this possibility that what's in the law is that if you were to be convicted theoretically there could be 10 years in prison here? From what I'm reading about that particular statute, is that an active and present concern to you?
- [50:59]
Don Lemon
No. Yes and no. No. Yes and no. Because even if that does happen, I'm doing the right thing. I never have any qualms about doing the right thing and whatever that means and I'll, I will suffer the consequences of it. Just as, as a journalist, if someone asked me to give up a source and, or you know, if they, if they, you know, if I was ordered to do that and the choice was to give up the source or go and, and be put in custody somewhere, I would go and be put in custody because I believe that's what journalists do and I believe that that is protected under the First Amendment. So am I concerned about that? Not really. I just think that these charges are ridiculous. The thing, as I said in the initially that, you know, the punishment is the process is the punishment. Now in the back of my head, do I think about what you said? Sure, who wouldn't? These are very serious charges. Yeah, but they're also ridiculous and bogus charges. I mean, think about all the people who go out and cover news events and if someone happens to be hurt as a new at a news event, is the press responsible for that? There's a police officer who's there to do his job and to stop that event from happening. Are they responsible just because of their mere presence? No. So I just think it's a ridiculous case that will eventually be thrown out.
- [52:17]
David Pakman
One of the greatest hypocrisies I find in all of this is that if you go back to January 6th of 2021 during the Capitol riot, we had a situation where the DOJ deliberately avoided charging independent or accredited journalists, both categories, independent or accredited, who were with the crowd in the building. And one of the reasons we have so much video from that horrible day is because there were people there doing that. And it was. They are documenting. They are livestreaming the events. They're not engaged in violence, they're not engaged in property damage. They're not involved in theft. It seems so analogous to what you were doing. And yet the partizan difference seems to be the explanation for why these were handled differently, as far as I see.
- [53:00]
Don Lemon
Yeah, as I said before, David, journalists go where the news is happening. That news can be happening in a cave with Osama bin Laden. It doesn't. Doesn't make you come out. Out of that cave after you've reported about it, as John Miller did when he worked for cbs. It doesn't make you a terrorist. It makes you a journalist who's chronicling it. It happens at churches, it happens at synagogues. It happens in movie theaters when people shoot up movie theaters. Sadly, if there are gunmen who go into schools, if you go into a school to report on it, does that make you one of the people who's responsible for the shooting? No, it makes you a journalist. So, you know, we go where the news is, and if sometimes that news is inside of a Capitol where there are insurrectionists who are desecrating the Capitol and who are basically burglarizing the Capitol. So, no, you know, I agree with you. I agree with you on that. But that's what we do. We go where the news is. And that's how it should be the moment, David, that our government and the powers that be start dictating to us, who can we. Who we can report on? Where can. When. Where can we report? How. How we can report, then the whole thing is over. The whole First Amendment is over. Not just the freedom of the press, but the freedom of speech as well. It is the. The First Amendment is the bedrock of our Constitution. And if. If we allow this to happen, everything else crumbles. This is important not just for Don Lemon. This is way bigger than Don Lemon. This is. Has ramifications for David Pakman, for Brian Tyler Cohen, even for. If you. You know, anyone who is in this independent journalism space. Yeah, this is ramifications for that. Anyone who's in broadcast media, print media, and even in the publishing industry, if they can start dictating that Then we're over. This grand experiment about a more perfect union is over.
- [54:53]
David Pakman
One of the incredible things is that your situation is, on the one hand, terrifying. And like we said, there's this possibility of 10 years in prison. On the one hand, that's terrifying. And it is indicative of people who, at the end of the day, can say whatever they want about the First Amendment. They don't really respect the First Amendment. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, it is incredible that independent media has grown so much and become so important that this is now something that is on their radar. I mean, Caroline Levitt Dunn Jr. And Steven Chung have retweeted attacks against me over the last six months. This, in a sense, we should be, I guess you tell me, both terrified but incredibly inspired that we're making an impact such that we're even on the radars of these people.
- [55:42]
Don Lemon
Yeah. Yes. And I believe. I truly believe that if Don Lemon was not in that church, that this would not be such a big deal. I think that they figured out, oh, this is a person of name. This is someone we've been going after forever. This is someone we don't like. This is someone who has not reported positively on the presidency, on the administration. So this is a good one. And so I do. I believe that had I not been there, this would not be such a big deal. Do I believe that the people would be charged? Possibly. But I find it interesting that in almost every article that is written, it is written about me being a protester or an activist. And by no means am I a protester, and no means that I'm an activist. There is a difference between being an activist and being a journalist. There's a difference between being a protester and a journalist. Now, there are activist journalists, and that is a legitimate part of being a journalist. But I'm not an activist journalist, nor am I a protester. So when people say, why did you go and protest in that church? I say, I didn't go into protest in that church. Not once did I protest anything. I went in to be to do journalism, and that's exactly what I did. And the rest is that was my intention of going into that church, and the rest is history. That's what it is. I find that people don't understand it because especially the conservative media, they intentionally twisted to make me out to be a protester or an activist, and I am not.
- [57:09]
David Pakman
When it comes to the next couple of years. And this now just zooms out from your case, there's this scenario where Republicans really get crushed in November, certainly losing the House and we'll see what happens in the Senate. But then it puts Donald Trump in a much more acute sort of lame duck situation where legislation is impossible. Do you think that a scenario like that is more dangerous for the media in that it will put the attention of the administration on what they can control, like, for example, arresting people, or do you think that it may be such a disappointment to Trump to have that sort of power taken by losing, that he may just go play golf and it will actually be a less risky situation for those in media, wherever
- [57:52]
Don Lemon
it puts the attention. I think what's best for the country is that Donald Trump and MAGA is, are out of power. And the people we have in place right now, like the Justice Department and, and the, the Defense Department and such, I think it's, you know, the attorney general, all of it, I think it would be, it's what's best for the country is that these people who are unqualified, who are terrible at their jobs, who are flawed and it's the only reason that they are there, the people who are breaking laws, who are breaking norms, I think it's best that they have as little power as possible, and the best scenario is that they have none. So wherever it puts the attention of this administration, this, the superseding thing is that they should be gone. And that's what's best for everybody.
- [58:40]
David Pakman
Don is live weekdays, 10 and 5 Eastern. It's a lot. Don, what's the next relevant date for the court case?
- [58:49]
Don Lemon
There's no, not nothing yet.
- [58:50]
David Pakman
Nothing yet.
- [58:52]
Don Lemon
We're in motions and we're just in that process where motions and look publicly, you know, there was a ruling by the judge just recently who they really, the judge admonished the government for not turning over discovery on time and for doing things that he deemed to be, I guess, unlawful or out of the norms. And so it gives you an indication of the, the, I guess the stability of this case and their ability to be able to prosecute this. But I will tell you what's more, because look, this will work itself out, whatever it is. You asked me if I'm concerned about. Sure. Very serious charges. Would I like to go to prison for 10 years? No. Do I think that's going to happen? No. But could it? Sure. Look, anything is possible now. But I tell you what's most important, David, is that people support independent journalism and journalists. And here's my concern, because having worked in this business for a long time, whether it is in corporate media or in independent media is that people in the summer, they, you know, they go outside, right? They are not as engaged and they're not as involved and they tend to forget about things and they put it off until the fall comes. That cannot happen with us. We do not have big corporate sponsorships and big money supporting us. So it's important, all of that engagement, it's important for you to engage with us, to support us. Your generosity is what keeps us on the air. And just to be a big fan, a fan of independent journalists, that's what's really important right now. That's the only, the only date that I am concerned about that's on my radar is the November of 2026 midterm elections. That's the big important date for everybody. So keep supporting all of us. David, me, everyone who's an independent journalist.
- [60:36]
David Pakman
Don, thanks so much. Good to talk to you. We're going to follow it very closely.
- [60:39]
Don Lemon
Thank you, David.
- [60:41]
David Pakman
The David Pakman 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 Donald Trump has been caught pumping and massively dumping. It's not, it's not what you think, but it is very bad. Let me explain. Judd Legum from Popular Information analyzed the more than 100 page financial disclosure of Donald Trump that was recently published and what Judd was able to do, and this is excellent work, is look at the timing of Donald Trump's trades, stock market trades, and contrast that with Donald Trump's public statements about companies that it turns out he was actually an investor in without him having revealed that to the American public. And what we have learned is that Donald Trump was just pumping and pumping and pumping off these companies to try to raise their value for his own benefit. I will explain. Judd Legum with his first tweet. On March 11, Donald Trump toured a Thermo Fisher scientific facility in Ohio and repeatedly praised the company. On the same day, Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of Thermo Fisher stock. The purchase was unsolicited, meaning it was requested by the customer, not recommended by an adviser. Here is Trump at Thermo Fisher singing their praises and talking about how great a company this is.
- [62:39]
Donald Trump
Some great information about this incredible company, please.
- [62:43]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, we produce 1.3 billion doses of annual medicine and over 70% of that goes right here into the US for US based patients. We have a wide var variety of therapeutic areas, cardiovascular oncology that we support out of this site. When products are complex or difficult to make, they come here, which means it's reflective of the technical expertise and the workforce that we have here.
- [63:12]
Donald Trump
We are, we're taking this away from a lot of countries from all over
- [63:17]
David Pakman
the world that are making so Trump, rah, rah, rah. This is so great. We're bringing in business from other countries and of course, this sort of thing, a presidential endorsement of sorts, can serve to raise the value of the stock. And it turns out that Donald Trump was investing in that very stock. It continues. We go back to Judd Legum's tweets about this. Three smoking guns in Trump's new 113 page financial disclosure. Trump purchased between 50 and $100,000 in Micron stock on March 25th. Also unsolicited. The next day he called into the Five on Fox News, said he had just met Micron CEO and it is one of the hottest companies United States.
- [63:58]
Donald Trump
It's I just left the head of Micron. It's one of the hottest companies.
- [64:02]
David Pakman
But another example, we now learned that Donald Trump was trading in these stocks and he is promoting them on television. Hmm. Back to Judd Legum. Trump purchased between 1 and $5 million worth of Dell Technologies stock on February 10th. Nine days later in Georgia, Trump tells the audience, go out and buy a Dell computer, saying they make great products. Here is Sweaty Trump saying that newborn baby.
- [64:37]
Donald Trump
I also want to thank Michael and Susan. Dell, Dell. Go out and buy a Dell computer because they don't care about that. They care about this. They make a great product. They're not looking for any publicity. I give them publicity. They say, well, well, thank you very much, but it's okay. He put up, they put up 6,250,000,000. He started making computers on his bed. All of a sudden he's got Dell.
- [65:04]
David Pakman
Dell is great, by the way. I bought one to five million dollars worth of Dell stock, but we're not going to mention that. Here it is, brazen pumping of stocks that Trump owns. Kind of a funny moment. Jim Cramer, a fan of Trump's on cnbc, lost the ability to use language when he was confronted with Trump's trades. He quite literally glitched out.
- [65:28]
Donald Trump
Yeah, yeah.
- [65:29]
David Pakman
Citi today takes it to 130.
- [65:30]
Donald Trump
Yeah, but you know, the president, US government got in, he could sell it.
- [65:35]
David Pakman
And yeah, and according to the filings,
- [65:37]
Don Lemon
the president's been trading some intel in the Quarter.
- [65:39]
Donald Trump
Yeah, yeah.
- [65:44]
David Pakman
Got nothing to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Don't worry. We're not having technical difficulties. Quite literally so corrupt that it caused Jim Cramer to lose his ability to synthesize ideas into language. Think about that now. Will there be any consequences for this? How quaint. How naive. No, there will not. There will be no consequences for this. We all know that. But it is Donald Trump revealing that he is trying to line his pockets at any opportunity. Now, you might say, well, Trump's got billions of dollars. Why would he bother with 100 grand? Wrong question. People like Trump who want to line their pockets at every opportunity, I don't think Trump will bend over to pick up a penny. But even comparatively small amounts of money, they are looking to use their power and the bully pulpit to enrich themselves and their families and their friends as much as they possibly can. And that has been the theme with Trump. It's always, what can I do to help myself? And meanwhile, people around the country can't afford an unexpected $400 expense, and people can't afford gasoline, and people can't afford heating oil and their electricity bills. And Trump is pumping the stocks that he is investing in with the power of the presidency. If this doesn't disgust you, I don't know that anything will. Trump has something that almost nobody in MAGA can replicate, which is he has a sort of charisma wherein he sounds authentic while saying completely inauthentic things. And we do a lot of criticism of Trump on this show, but the truth is that he has developed a sort of charisma that has been effective politically. And I don't think any of the heir apparent to the MAGA throne have that charisma. For example, JD Vance is one of the possible replacements for Trump going forward in MAGA. And J.D. vance, you know, in a sense, has studied Trump very much. But when J.D. vance tries to be jokey or charismatic, it just falls very flat. Here is JD Trying his shucks routine, talking about his mama and papa, and it just doesn't. It just doesn't work. It is not the Democratic Party that my mama and papa belong to. It is not the Democratic Party that. That my mama and papa belong to. This whole shucks thing that JD does seems completely inauthentic. And in fact, the more we learn about J.D. vance's upbringing, the more we realize it is completely inauthentic. Trump appears to be more authentic, and it is a form of charisma that has worked really well to pull people into the movement who maybe weren't even voting before now. Part of Trump's charisma comes from violating some of the established communication protocols. You know, Trump will ramble and he'll exaggerate, he'll insult people, he'll repeat himself, he'll go off script, he'll say disgusting and vile things, and it is the type of thing that comes off as authentic. And it's a form of charisma that people tend to like. Supporters read it as honesty, even when it's completely false. I am against abortion. No, you're not, dude. You were. You were 68 when you changed your mind about abortion. I'm very religious. No, you're not. You were 68 when you became religious. Give me a break. But Trump discovered something psychologically powerful, which we talked about at the top of the show, which is that if you sound confident, it can come off as a form of authenticity, and it doesn't even matter if what you're saying is nonsense. Hegseth is another one, less considered an heir to the Magathrone, but still the type of person that is in the orbit. And here he is doing a Trump impression, and he seems so stiff. It's all so forced. He has a lot of the same wacky MAGA ideas. But Hegseth doesn't have this sort of charisma that Donald Trump has. When he first offered me this job,
- [69:57]
Donald Trump
he said, pete, you're going to have to be tough as shit. Sorry
- [70:07]
David Pakman
he did. You ready? It's not going to cut it, Pete. I'm so sorry. It's just not going to cut it. And so the MAGA movement is sort of learning a lesson, which is you can copy Trump's words verbatim, you can copy his hand gestures. You can mimic the populist rhetoric, which is, of course, fake populism. You can try his cadence, you can try his form of speech, but he can't transfer this very strange but effective form of charisma to you. He just can't do it. And this is why one of the things we've been talking about a lot, I talked about it with Tim Miller from the Bulwark and so many other people, Mike Nellis and others, is that there is a good chance. It's not a guarantee, but there's a good chance that when Trump is finally gone, on that fateful day, when Trump is finally gone, a lot of these magazines just go back to not even paying attention to politics, and it will take a new charismatic figure. I don't think it's going to be J.D. i don't think it's going to be Pete. I don't think it's going to be Marco Rubio. It'll take someone new to try to bring them back in now. But here's just a bonus. Here's J.D. vance saying that Trump's slush fund of $1.7 billion. He J.D. vance talking about how fraud by the government is bad, but not addressing Trump's theft of 1.7 billion. When somebody steals $1.4 billion from the Medicaid program, that is theft from you and that's theft from people who deserve to be able to go see a doctor. When people steal billions of dollars from the Medicare program, that is theft from you. And it's also theft to the people who use the Medicare program to pay their bills. All of that theft is really bad. But by the way, taking 1.776 billion of taxpayer money and giving it to Trump and his five designated board members for a slush fund, to people like the rioters from January 6th, that's not fraud. That's very cool. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. We'll talk OpenAI Kamala comes out swinging Trump's corrupt stock trades. We'll delve more into all of it and more. Get a membership, folks. Sign up@join pacman.com I'll see you on the bonus show.