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- [00:00]
David Pakman
This was one of the weirdest mornings in politics in a long time. First, Donald Trump's medical report from Tuesday's physical is nowhere to be found. They said it'd be out by Wednesday. It's Friday. We don't know where it is. The longer they wait, the bigger the story becomes. Trump then loses it on Jill Biden because of her comments about Joe Biden's debate performance in a bizarre truth social post and somehow turns it all into being about himself. And meanwhile, Trump's allies are now entertaining the idea of a new $250 bill, which would have Trump's face on it, by the way. This would be against the law. Can't have living people on American currency. And meanwhile, as the ballroom is being built and UFC at the White House and Trump's face on a $250 bill, grocery prices just keep going up in Texas. Republicans are panicking because James Talarico can keep it together. And in his latest appearance, his opponent, Ken Paxton, looks like maybe he's had one too many gummies. And then on top of all of that, we are going to look at why reasonably smart people, reasonably smart keep falling for insane political movements. A hilarious Freudian slip that accidentally reveals far more than intended. What a show we have today, My friends. Texas is going to be a tough one for Republicans, going to be a tough one for Trump, because on the one hand, you've got James Tallarico, who they are trying to assail as Talafrico, who is coherent, he's articulate, he's on message. And meanwhile, we've got his opponent, Ken Paxton, who in a recent appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox News, looks like maybe he took too many gummies. Okay, let's look at these examples. Here is James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Texas Senate, being asked about these new attacks against him. They're calling you Talarico. They're going after you for supposedly being gay, for supposedly being a vegan. He's neither. And Talarico is ready. This guy is firing on all cylinders right now. Ken Paxton, your opponent has taken to calling you Talafrica.
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James Talarico
Well, I think if Ken Paxton is worried about freaks, he should stop giving Epstein style sweetheart deals to pedophiles.
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David Pakman
Oh, boy.
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James Talarico
You know, this is the guy who just released Adam Hoffman from jail and admitted child rapist after one of Ken Paxton's wealthy lawyer friends got involved in the case. Ken Paxton even kept him off the sex offender registry. Adam Hoffman was supposed to serve 25 years to life, but instead he served Less than a month as of this week, he's now back on our streets because of Ken Paxton's corruption. And Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America and it is costing Texans, it's endangering our children, and it must end. I think the Epstein class has no place in Texas. And this November, we're going to come together to defeat Ken Paxton and take back our state for the people.
- [03:06]
David Pakman
If they thought that Talarico was going to take this laying down and just, you know, be happy merely to compete and end up losing his race by four or five points, Talarico may lose. Ok, this is why we have the elections. If you didn't need to do the voting, we wouldn't need to do the voting, but we've got to do it. And maybe he'll win, maybe he'll lose, but Talarico is not going to take this lying down. And it is hard to think of a worse candidate, and by the way, a worse person than Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton, the right loves to claim to be about law and order. Claims claim Ken Paxton is an alleged criminal. They love to claim to be about family values. Ken Paxton has, you know, personal relationship stuff that's antithetical to what Republicans claim to support and want. But also something just seems off with the guy. And here is Paxton appearing with Sean Hannity. And I got to tell you, he looks like he had too many gummies. That's the look on this guy's face. Take a look at this with more. The winner of last night's Senate primary in the great state of Texas. God bless Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Congratulation on your victory. With more, though, it's quite a look, quite a look on Ken Paxton's face. So I think that this is a phenomenal race to get involved in. We're going to talk to Mike Nellis about this race soon. And listen, none of these races are foregone conclusions. That's why we have the elections. Texas is an uphill battle for Democrats. Hasn't been a Democratic senator from Texas for decades. But this must be a moment where Republicans are want Paxton to stop talking and they want Talarico to screw up. And instead Paxton keeps talking Talafrico and all of this stuff. And Talarico is not screwing up. He's ready. He shows that he's up for the fight. And it is going to be a brutal one for maga. And confronted with the childish nicknames that they're assigning him, Talarico goes, listen, the real issues here, they can Call me whatever they want. But the real issues here are corruption, it's wealthy insiders, it's child predators that they're protecting, its preferential treatment for their friends under the law. And I think that there's a danger for Republicans here that Paxton will be a reminder of how this whole we protect the children thing is directly undercut by the people that they vote for. They've spent years trying to build this idea that Democrats are pedophiles and they've got rings of, of child molesters and all of this stuff. But when you look at law and order, who's protecting children under the law, who's excusing those who have committed crimes against children, it doesn't look good for Republicans. And in that sense, Paxton is a disaster. So we see the clips of Republican officials and their wealthy friends getting sweetheart deals, and we learn about controversies over sex offender registries where they want to keep their friends off of it. And this branding of the Republicans protect the children really starts to crack. Now, there's one other thing that is very noticeable when you look at Talarico in Paxton style on style. Talarico is calm. He never gets flustered. He's direct, he's confident, and he doesn't sound overly rehearsed, which there are some Democrats that are articulate, but they sound very rehearsed. They sound performative. Talarico doesn't. He's confident, but he doesn't sound rehearsed and performative. And sometimes Democrats lose because they sound technocratic and they sound not emotionally engaged. Talarico is not sounding technocratic and he's sounding very emotionally engaged. So I think that, that this is. It's an uphill battle, but he is well suited for the task. The clips are built for virality from Talarico, and he's very good at reframing conversations around the Republican vulnerabilities and also just reframing conversations to remind the average voter. When you look around and you go, gas prices are up and grocery prices are up and jobs are down, and who's speaking to that? Ken Paxton's ranting about Talafrico. The Fox News hosts are ranting about how they don't believe that Talarico really has a girlfriend, about how he's vegan, or as Trump pronounces it, vegan. And they go, that doesn't really connect to the situation I'm experiencing day to day in my household, in my family. And then Talarico comes in and he goes, hey, listen, this is what it's really about they're protecting elites and they're different sets of rules for different people. That resonates. So we're going to fight this one. He may not win, but he's got a shot and he's going to be right in there. I want to remind everyone that the White House still has not released Donald Trump's medical report from his third annual physical in 13 months that took place earlier this week. And in fact, one of the things that they said they were going to do is publish it within a day or so. But as I looked at coverage on Wednesday and on Thursday and this morning, I noticed that a bunch of the medical information that media outlets are putting up on the screen is from an old physical. I'm not saying the media outlets are trying to deceive. It's that they don't have the information from Trump's latest physical. Many media outlets have run with here's Trump's height and weight. And I realized this was going on because just yesterday and today there are news reports that go Trump weighs 224 pounds. Now, put aside for a moment that Trump obviously does not weigh 224 pounds. 224 is what they said he weighed two physicals ago. Now, is it possible that Trump weighs the exact same amount today? It's possible, but it's not the most likely thing. And when you look closely, you see that that data is actually from 2025. Now, why haven't we gotten the report yet? Did they expect that this medical report would take a long time? No. A White House official on Tuesday said about Trump's physical, we expect a report from this physical within a day or so. So within a day of Tuesday would be probably Wednesday, maybe Thursday. It's now midday Friday and we do not have that report. The declaration we have, all we have to go on so far is that on the way home from Walter Reed, Donald Trump posted to Truth social media, quote, just finished my six month physical at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Everything checked out perfectly. Thank you to the great doctors and staff heading back to the White House. President Donald J. Trump. That's all we have. They said we'd have a medical report and we don't. Now, I know many of you are going to ask, many of you are smart and you're going to say to yourselves, why delay a medical report when they can just lie and say it's awesome anyway? They lie about Trump's health all the time. They can just put out a propaganda medical report. And of course, you're correct. But what I suspect could be going on is that they are thinking about how to put out a report that is favorable to Trump but not so bombastic and propagandistic that nobody will believe it. And when you look at Trump, you have reason to suspect that he is not the healthiest person in the world. Now, of course, Trump is not legally required to release the medical report. You don't have to do it. Other presidents always have. Biden did it, Obama did it, Clinton, Bush 1, Bush 2. Ronald Reagan released the report. We have reason to want to know how healthy Trump is. He's clearly declining cognitively. He often makes no sense in public. His ankles are swollen, his hands are bruised. He walks gingerly with a stiff right leg. He can't stand still without waving back and forth. He can't walk straight without carving a very curved line. They talked to us for two months about an MRI that didn't even happen. It turns out that it was a CAT scan. So there are a lot of reasons to be scrutinizing Donald Trump's health right now. Every day that goes by without the report released makes the story bigger. If the report were truly routine, releasing it would end the speculation. But they are probably between releasing a report that's not so good, doesn't mean Trump has some terminal illness, but it's just not as good as they would like it to be. But it's honest or a propagandistic report that at this point they realize no one's going to believe. That is probably what they are trying to weigh in and figure out what to do. They created the expectation themselves that we would have the report by now. No one forced them to say this report will be out within a day or so. And notice how the information that circulated is old information. Cholesterol numbers, weight, height, all of this stuff recycled from previous reports. This adds to the speculation that they don't want the information to be out. So I don't even really think at this point the issue is whether Trump is healthy or unhealthy. He's an obese 80 year old, almost 80 year old, days from being 80 years old. We know he's not perfectly healthy. The question is what conditions does he have? What is going on? They the the current administration spent years arguing that questions about presidential health were legitimate and important. Those standards don't disappear because it's not Biden anymore, it's Trump. And every supporter who believes that Donald Trump is healthy should want the report released. A clean report would strengthen Trump's position and end the speculation if it were believable, and that, I believe, is what they're struggling with. Let me know what you think. Why did they promise the report within a day or so? And it's been three full days now and we don't have it. Leave a comment Send me an email info@david pakman.com Speaking of Joe Biden and Jill Biden, Donald Trump lost it this morning in one of these rage posts, having a terrible meltdown over the former first Lady Jill Biden, the wife of Joe Biden. Now let me first set up what Trump is so triggered by. Here is Jill Biden speaking on Sunday Morning. This is a clip from a forthcoming interview. This is related to the release of her new book. And she's talking about what happened that fateful night, June 27, 2024, when Joe Biden had a debate performance so bad that it effectively knocked him out of the presidential race. Here is Jill Biden. We're building to Trump's reaction to this. This triggered Trump take a listen to what Jill Biden had to say. Were you horrified as you saw it unfold?
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Caroline Levitt
I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never ever seen Joe like that with the
- [14:11]
David Pakman
COVID Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you President Biden.
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Caroline Levitt
Before or since? Never or since. Yes, or since.
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David Pakman
Never seen them. When?
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Caroline Levitt
Never know happened.
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David Pakman
I don't know what happened.
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Caroline Levitt
I mean, when I, as I watched it, I thought, oh my God, he's having a stroke and it scared me to death.
- [14:42]
David Pakman
Okay, so Trump sees that clip and it sends him for a loop. Just Trump on a bender posting to Truth Social in reaction to this clip, quote, jill Biden is now out there finally admitting that she did not know what went wrong with sleepy Joe during our spectacle, spectacular and highly rated 2024 presidential debate where Joe was not exactly performing to the highest level of debate standards. She said that she thought he was having a stroke and various other really bad things and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do. The only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse. In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple choke, leading to his ignominious defeat, or were other reasons the cause? Nobody knows the answer to that, but I do. Now, I don't want to focus in on this little detail, but it's sort of weird that Trump goes, why didn't Jill Biden rush onto the stage to help Joe. That's very weird. How on earth would her rushing onto the stage have helped him? That doesn't really make any sense. But this is a fascinating post from Trump because he's accidentally revealing his biggest insecurity. Trump says the real story isn't Joe Biden. It's not what was happening to Joe Biden. It's that Trump is obsessed with proving that everything revolves around him. What happened to Joe, Trump says, is that I was crushing him. That's why Joe had the failure that he had. That's the framing Trump wants. I was performing so well. That's the prism through which we have to understand Joe Biden's performance. And this is, in fact, a reminder that Joe Biden got all the attention, because that debate performance was alarmingly bad in its own way. But Trump's performance was a disaster in that he lied the entire debate. He told hundreds of lies. And the narrative Trump sought to craft during that debate had zero connection to reality. That was smothered by Biden's performance, which was, of course, so bad that ultimately Biden had to drop out of the race. But Trump is still insecure in the sense that he wants us to recall it, not as Biden had a bad night and that's it. But Biden had a bad night because Trump was crushing him in the debate. Trump's debate performance was terrible. Biden's was so bad in its own way that he couldn't stay in the race without a doubt. But Trump's performance was a dishonest disaster. He can't simply acknowledge Biden performed badly. It has to be that Trump is the central character of the story. And even if the talk, you know, Trump is, for years, he's been going, the subject should be Biden's health. That's what this interview is about. They're interviewing Jill Biden about Joe Biden's health. And it's not enough for Trump. It still has to be about, I was running circles around Joe. And Trump effectively ends up claiming he knows the medical and psychological reason for Biden's debate performance. Better than the doctors, better than family members, better than advisers, better than Biden. And the most revealing line is in Trump's post, he goes, nobody else knows the answer, but I do. Classic Trump. He presents himself as the sole possessor of secret knowledge that's not available to anybody else. And so it's not really like a president commenting on a political rival. It sounds like someone reliving a victory from years ago. That didn't really happen that way. And Trump can't separate Biden's decline from his own need for validation. It's so revealing about Trump's personality. It couldn't possibly be that Biden just had problems that are independent of Trump. Trump has to be the cause of Biden's poor performance. And there's an irony there, because Trump is spending a long time talking about Biden while arguing that everybody else should stop talking about Biden. And it's another example of this tendency Trump has to explain major events through his own personal influence. If markets are moving, it's because of Trump. If wars are ending, it's because of Trump. He doesn't like to say they're starting because of Trump. But if wars are ending, it's because of Trump. Political careers are rising, falling. People are winning and losing primaries. It can't be because of voters or local issues. It's because of Trump. And if Biden's debate performance was entirely the result of Trump's brilliance, then why were so many Democrats worried about Biden and Biden's age and Biden's cognition? It reads like insecurity masquerading as ultimate confidence. And at this point, everything triggers Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants a new $250 bill and he wants his face to be on it. And he's got his suck ups and acolytes pretending that they're going to help him do it. But I have news for every single one of them. It's not going to happen. It is simply not going to happen. Now here's what's funny. Scott Bessant, they as Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's actual White House press secretary, is on maternity leave. They have a rotating cast of characters doing the briefings, the press briefings. And Marco Rubio has done it. JD Vance has done it. Different people have done it. Scott Besant had his turn yesterday. And Scott Besant was asked, how long do you think it'll be until Trump's face is on the $250 bill? And Scott Besson says a lot of words, but the takeaway is it is never going to happen. Sorry, Scott. Here's what he had to say.
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Scott Bessant
Yeah. How long until we see your signature next to President Trump's face on a $250 bill? Well, again, as Treasury Secretary, I have two mandates for US currency. At present, no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say, in God we trust. So right now there is proposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate to change the first requirement so that a living person, Donald J. Trump, could be on a $250bill. So it's all in the hands of the, it's, it's all up on Capitol Hill. So at treasury we prepare things in advance. So we have prepared in advance that if the legislation is passed, but we will stick to the law.
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David Pakman
Yeah, I couple things here. Number one, you're sitting at home and you're thinking to yourself, I can't afford groceries. They're not cheaper even though Trump promised they would be. Gas is up 65% since January 15th. We're in an optional war. We've got wage problems, we've got job problems. Manufacturing is not coming back. The whole list. And they want to put Trump's face on a $250 bill. Give me a break. That's the American people. Now as far as the legislation, as Scott Bessant acknowledges there right now, the law says only non living persons, they've got to be dead before they go on coins or bills. You would have to change that before you can even consider putting Donald Trump on a $250bill. Now there's a lot of depraved people in the House of Representatives, a lot of depraved Republicans, but you need, and in the Senate, I don't think they are even going to get a simple majority for doing this. I just, I just don't, I think it's dead in the water and it is yet another one of these posturing and self aggrandizing once it's mentioned. You can't dare be the one who goes, Mr. President, this is both a stupid idea and an impossible idea. None of them are willing to do that. So Scott Bessant plays along and he goes, we designed what the bill would look like. We're ready to print it if this time should come. But it's in front of Congress. It is not going to happen. Trump's face will never be on the currently non existent $250 bill. Now, Kaitlan Collins did ask Bessant, is this a good idea? Like I just said, people are struggling with gas prices, people are struggling with grocery prices. Does this make sense? And Bessant goes, well, we should have a 250th celebration, but that's not what it's about.
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Scott Bessant
So we have to prepare in advance. You can't draw something up the day before politically.
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David Pakman
Do you think it's a good idea
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Caroline Levitt
though when people are struggling to afford gas and groceries?
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Scott Bessant
Look, I think it has, I think that it's bifurcated, that. Do you think we should have a 250th anniversary via celebration?
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Caroline Levitt
Well, that's happening anyway.
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Scott Bessant
No, no, no. But Caitlin, it's not happening anyway. It's happening because it's being funded by private citizens, by the federal government, by state governments, by municipality responsible government.
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David Pakman
If you're wondering why he's asking about this, I have no idea.
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Scott Bessant
To celebrate our country. And I don't think that there's anything untoward about having the president United States, the person who was President United states on the 250th anniversary bill.
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David Pakman
I get Besson's not very good at this. And I guess what the point he's trying to make is if we are funding a 250th anniversary of the United States celebration in a bipartisan way, we could also fund a bill with the president, who happens to be president at the time of America's 250th birthday. And that it's kind of the same thing. I would argue they're not the same thing. I would even argue that the celebration is sort of like a question mark. But fine, do the celebration. But Trump's face on a bill doesn't seem seem to follow from that at all. And it's a reminder that Scott Besant is very bad at this. Finally, this is maybe the most humiliating moment of this entire thing. Besant seems to acknowledge that they are working on getting another version of the Iran nuclear deal deal in place that was so terrible that Trump got out of it. And Bessant pretends we've never had anything like it before. But of course, we remembered that we did listen to this uranium and that
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Scott Bessant
they can't have a nuclear program. And to be clear here, that this administration, President Trump has done something that no other administration is able to do. We have gotten the Iranians to talk about their nuclear program and to perhaps commit to not having one. That has never happened before. It had been off the table.
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David Pakman
It actually happened under Barack Obama. It's the jcpoa, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. And Trump said it was so terrible that he got out of it. And then he bombed Iran in June of 2025, and then he invaded Iran in 2026. We had it. Trump got out of it. And now they are desperate, desperate just to get Iran to go back to a weaker version of that very Iran nuclear deal. What is it really about? Barack Obama said it in a clip we looked at last week or the week before, before the reason Trump didn't like that deal is because my name was on it, said Obama. Because it had Obama's name on it. Trump was determined to end it. And now Trump's going, maybe pretty please we could get back to some version of that thing that was so terrible that I was willing to get out of it. Besant is terrible at this, but in his defense, he's trying to defend the indefensible. We are going to keep pushing for democracy and against authoritarianism, whether it's Besant or Trump or J.D. vance June 9th we're doing a one day membership drive. We are going to dramatically discount yearly memberships to lock in our support for the year to come. I would love for you to consider getting a membership on June 9th. Everybody on my newsletter will get an email telling you how to sign up. So simply get on my newsletter David pakman.com/substack it's free. June 9th you'll get an email. It'll give you the coupon code. It'll be a beautiful day for democracy. That I promise. If you run a business, customers can slip through the cracks like grains of sand. Missed calls, forgotten follow ups dropped conversations Quo, spelled Q U O is the communication system built so you don't miss calls. Your team can handle calls and texts from a single shared number with every thread visible. 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But if you've sat down to work and you're checking your phone, switching tabs in your browser, getting pulled into distraction, you know it's not that simple. I want to tell you about our sponsor, Brain fm. Brain FM is a music app designed to support Focus it's not the random playlists or ambient videos that people 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 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. 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Or get a Substack Premium subscription@substack.david pakman.com and remember that on June 9th we're doing a one day membership drive. It will be massive and it will be really to support the program into and beyond these upcoming elections and to reinforce our strength. If you're interested in getting that June 9th discount, get on my newsletter at David pakman.com/substack and on June 9th you'll get an email telling you what to do, what do to, when to do it, and maybe most importantly, how to do it. All right, I have news for you. You might like this, you might not. Don't kill the messenger. Grocery prices are never going back. They probably aren't even going to come down overall, but they are definitely never going back to the prices that there are people still waiting for. Now I will explain. If you disagree with me, let me know. But I believe I am going to convince you. One of the biggest misunderstandings people have right now is the idea that grocery prices are supposed to be much lower. And some people are thinking about what they were before the pandemic or at the start of the pandemic, because that's when this sort of price reference that we have in our minds goes back to. So there are people still thinking that the right price for groceries is 2019 or 2020 pricing. That is not how economies work. Prices generally rise over time. It's normal in a healthy economy. Wages ideally also rise and prices go up, not down. Now, back in 2019, people weren't demanding prices should be the ones from 2013. In 2016, people weren't saying prices should really be what they were in 2009 or 2010. But something happened psychologically during COVID and after Covid. And I think it's because inflation happened so fast and so aggressively that a lot of people, millions of people, are still comparing today's prices to pre pandemic prices. That has changed the expectation. Now, in a way, it makes sense. What normally would have been maybe 10 years of gradual price increases got compressed into just a couple of years, two, three, four years. So now people walk into the grocery store in 2026 and they're shocked that, you know, the big chip bag is 8 bucks or cereal is $7. You spend $90 and it feels like you got barely enough for a couple days of groceries. The issue isn't only that prices went up. Prices almost always go up over time. Like I said, the issue is, for a while, incomes didn't rise enough to make people feel, feel secure again after that big Covid price spike. And so life kind of became permanently more expensive. Now, here's the part a lot of politicians won't tell you, mostly Republicans, but a lot of Democrats won't say this either. If grocery prices across the board really started to dramatically fall, it would probably be worth panicking over. Broad falling prices usually signal a recession. They signal demand has collapsed, People are getting laid off, and there's not enough people who can even afford to buy this stuff. There's deflation. It's an economic contraction. Healthy economies are not usually defined by prices going down. It's. It's unusual that you see that in an economy that's doing well. They're defined by prices rising slowly and predictably with wages that more or less keep up. That would be the ideal scenario. There's another reason people feel like they're being scammed. And in some cases, they are being scammed. A lot of companies did realize during COVID and the inflation crisis that came with it, that consumers would tolerate way Higher prices if everybody raised them at once, this isn't necessarily legal. And I'll get to that in a moment. Now, initially, there were reasons why all of the prices were going up. Shipping costs are up, fuel costs are up, there's labor shortages because of COVID There's supply chain problems. Then there was bird flu, and, you know, more recently, we've got tariffs. There were all of these reasons why people said, I understand why prices are going up. I tolerate it. Once consumers adjusted to paying more, a lot of companies figured out, we can just keep prices high even after some of these pressures ease. And so the emergency period ended, the prices stayed high, and then we started to see on top of it, some shrinkflation where prices stay the same, but now the cereal box is smaller. By the way, I apologize for a popcorn interjection, if I may. The other day I bought a beautiful cheddar dusted popcorn. The bag was less than half full. It was puffed up with air. So when you grab it, you go, wow, thick and girthy bag. You open it, totally flaccid contents. Okay, so I'm with you on the shrinkflation. But the point is, chips, bags have less stuff inside, and paper towel rolls are thinner and all that stuff. Okay, so, so you're paying the same and getting less. Sometimes you're paying more to get the same. Over time, this just continues. And so what companies have been able to do is rewire global supply chains. And so even if and when Trump's tariffs go away, businesses have changed suppliers, they've signed new contracts, they've shifted around manufacturing, they've diversified away from China. In some cases, that's baked in. Now that, and this is one of the warnings we've had about Trump's tariffs, that doesn't end if the tariffs stop. Corporations rarely voluntarily reverse price increases once consumers have proven we will pay it. And that's why what we are experiencing right now is not temporary. Does this make Trump's promises of drastically lower grocery prices extra dishonest? Of course, but that's Trump. That's not new. The whole point here is people want to feel less stressed when they walk into a grocery store. They want a quick grocery run not to be, wow, I just spent $120 and, and I got nothing. And increasingly, people are going to have to realize the prices are never going back. The best case scenario would be that grocery prices rise more slowly than wages rise and that this will allow people to catch up a little bit. But if you hear them say, we're going to get the prices on these groceries way down. You should be equipped with the knowledge that it's not going to happen. What do you think? Did I convince you or do you think it's reasonable to expect grocery prices to go down on average? All right. It is time to end the health care cover up. And you know who's right about it. Fox News is right. Caroline Levitt is right. Peter Doochy is right. David, did you suffer a brain injury? What are you talking about? Well, the videos might surprise you. What I'm going to tell you might surprise you. Watch to the end and let me know. Right now there is a health cover up happening of Donald Trump's health. We know that three annual physicals in 13 months, multiple bizarre dentist visits, scans that Trump doesn't even understand, propaganda letters about Trump's the strongest and healthiest of anybody. We know that they're covering something up. We see the explanations for visible phenomena on Trump's body that don't make sense. And you know who has the right analysis here? It's Fox News. It's Caroline Levitt. Hear me out. Here is Caroline Levitt. Listen to the principles of what Caroline Levitt is saying.
- [38:44]
Caroline Levitt
And he's demanding answers. And one of the things he is going to continue to push for answers on is who the heck was running the country over the past few four years. And you just talked about it in your monologue. And I'm glad to hear it because this is truly the greatest political scandal our country has ever seen. We had unelected radical left White House staffers who nobody knew their names running the most powerful country in the history of the world. And the Democrat Party was in a complete alliance to cover it up. And the mainstream media was right along with them. They were asking Joe Biden decided what his favorite ice cream was rather than asking him whether or not he was suited to run the country. And so we need answers on what took place over the past four years because look at the consequences of having these unelected radical left wing staffers in the West Wing running the country.
- [39:33]
David Pakman
So you probably noticed that Caroline isn't talking about Trump in that video. She's talking about Joe Biden. And this video is from about a year ago, a year ago almost to the day from when we learned Joe Biden had stage four metastasized prostate cancer. But on the principles Caroline Levitt is completely correct, we do need answers about Donald Trump's health. Who is running the country right now? Why can't we get the truth? They're completely right. It's just they're talking about the wrong guy. Here is Peter Doocy and Caroline Levitt again asking a good question. We need to know what the first lady knew. We need to know what the people around the president knew. Except it should apply to Trump. But in principle, they're completely correct.
- [40:25]
Scott Bessant
Folks in President Biden's inner circle who are now in talks with Republicans in Congress to give interviews about how they may have handled President Biden's decline. Is the president satisfied with AIDS only sitting for these transcribed interviews, or would he also like to see some kind of testimony from the former first lady, Dr. Biden?
- [40:47]
Caroline Levitt
I think frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to her husband and when she saw it and what she knew. Because I think any.
- [40:58]
David Pakman
I agree.
- [40:58]
Caroline Levitt
Body looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover up. And Joe Biden, Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover up. There are docu, there's documentation, video evidence of her clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras that were just on the View last week. She was saying everything is fine. She's still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they're going to believe her lies. And frankly, it's insult.
- [41:27]
David Pakman
All right, so of course, this was a year ago. They're talking about Biden, not about Donald Trump, but they're right in principle. What does Melania know? I know that she's basically estranged from Trump, but she must have a sense of what's going on with Donald Trump and she hasn't opened her mouth. She's probably under an NDA. I'm speculating. Who knows? The people closest to Trump at the White House must know what is going on and they should be speaking out. They should be interviewed. Melania should testify before Congress. Imagine that they are completely correct in their principles. They're just not applying them to Donald Trump. And I wish they would. Now, just as a reminder to show you the level of disgusting, the disgusting nature of the people we're dealing with here is Trump when Biden was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. Remember this? He's a, he's been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime. Not a smart person, but somewhat vicious person. I will say. If you feel sorry for him, don't feel so sorry because he's vicious. What he did with his political opponent and all of the people that he hurt, he hurt a lot of people, Biden. And so I really don't feel sorry for him. So listen, I don't know whether the people in my audience feel sorry for Trump for what's going on. The ankles like tree trunks and the swollen hands and the inability to stay awake during the day in public and the confusion, the verbal limitations and the vocabulary thinning out like male pattern baldness and all. I don't know if you feel bad for Trump or you don't feel bad for Trump, but remember what they said about Biden, remember what they demanded about Biden, and then ask yourselves whether they are living up to that very same standard. So let's just keep them to their own requests, just make them apply them to Donald Trump. Identity theft usually does not start with some movie version of how hacking takes place. It's boring. Details that are easy to find. 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One of the most dangerous things happening in politics right now is that some of the craziest people in media are getting really good at identifying real problems. I will explain why it's dangerous, because maybe you're kind of like, well, isn't that a good thing? If even the craziest people are getting good at identifying problems, isn't that a good thing? Thing? I believe that if I do a good job, by the end of this story, you will agree with me, or you might never watch one of my videos again. It's a risk. It's a risk, but I'm willing to take it. Okay. If someone says, let me frame this up. If someone says something completely disconnected from reality, most people tune it out immediately. So you turn on some right wing nut and they go, purple lizards are the reason Trump won or whatever. You go, all right, I'm moving on. But if you hear someone correctly identify a pain, point of frustration, maybe a corrupt situation, an economic anxiety, elite hypocrisy, or an institutional failure, now people listen and they go, okay, that, that sounds like a real problem. Tell me more. And what's happening with parts of the far right, parts of the online populist movement, even some people on the pseudo left, is that they are using very similar anti elite populist sounding rhetoric. Now, I've talked before about the trap of populist rhetoric, and the trap of populist rhetoric is that it's not policy, it's a rhetoric. And so the rhetoric can sound very similar no matter who is espousing it. And only when you get to their proposed policies do you realize, whoa, this makes sense. But this other person who sounded very similar sounds completely whacked out. So this is. This is like the danger of populist rhetoric. Trump's an example of that. I understand the plight of the common man. And here are the problems, including Mexican rapists. And it's like, hold on a second. Mexican rapists are the reason that the average person isn't doing well in the United States. That's the danger of falling for the populist rhetoric. Cool. The way it usually works is they start with observations that sound reasonable, you know, the middle class is getting crushed. That's true. Corporations have too much power. Absolutely. Antitrust isn't being enforced. It's not. Americans feel alienated and disconnected in many ways. Absolutely true. Elites manipulate Institutions for their own benefit, often true. The pivot is where the insanity appears. Tucker Carlson is one of the best examples, I would say. He will talk about stagnant wages, for example, the deconstruction of local communities, opioid addiction, corporate greed, financial elites hollowing out local towns. And people hear it and they go, finally, someone really understands what's happening. This is great. But then you get to Tucker's solutions, and they're completely detached from reality instead of focusing on, well, listen, we got to look at labor rights and health care and go after monopolies and tax policy, and unions need power and housing. No, it's like, hey, Brown, people will take your house or your job or your girlfriend, and they'll make the country worse. Whoa, hold on a second there. Or to pick another example, trans people or DEI or college professors. Or they'll come up with some real. They'll scapegoat someone. They'll find someone a scapegoat. And the truth is that, of course, the economic pain is real. But the diagnosis is increasingly, by these right wingers, a form of cultural paranoia. Nick Fuentes does the same thing. It's different in its details, but it's essentially the same thing. Nick Fuentes has identified, correctly, that a lot of young men feel isolated. They're economically insecure, they're disconnected from institutions, or they think institutions don't serve them. They're pessimistic about the future. Why wouldn't they be? They're unable to afford homes. They're skeptical of elite power. A lot of the mostly heterosexual men that are in that movement are involuntarily celibate. They can't find a girlfriend, for lack of a better term. That stuff is all real. But then in comes the reason why is the Jews. And this takes a million different forms of it's the Jews. I don't think I have to explain all of them. But that's where it's incredibly dangerous. Once you are feeling emotionally validated by someone, you're vulnerable to their conclusions and their solutions. And that's why the emotional opening is often way more important than the logic of what they want to convince you of. Alex Jones actually built an empire doing this. That empire has come to an end. But he, Alex Jones, correctly identified that sometimes governments do lie, sometimes corporations hide things, sometimes media narratives can be manipulated. That's all true. But then every tragedy is a false flag, every shooting is a conspiracy. You got to drink his silver liquid in order to be strong. And all this stuff and institutions end up being framed as part of a demonic global plot, as opposed to sometimes they screw up. Rogan. Joe Rogan drifts into this too. He'll correctly identify failures in media credibility sometimes, or hey, here's an instance of. Of pharmaceutical corruption. Here's an instance of institutional arrogance that I don't like, and a lot of people agree with that. But trust has collapsed so badly that people jump from institutions, sometimes fail to Nothing is real and every conspiracy is true. And sometimes the online left falls forward as well. You'll hear corporations sometimes exploit workers. That's true. We got to deal with that. Health care companies profit from, from the suffering of people. In a strict sense, that's true. Billionaires have too much influence. I'm with you. But then some people leap towards these fantasies about let's abolish markets entirely and defend authoritarian governments simply because they oppose the United States and all. And the problem is either capitalism at its core or Israel, and both need to be ended. It's the same emotional mechanism. It's real pain, insane solutions, often rooted in scapegoating. And this is why populism has become really confusing for a lot of people. Left wing populism and right wing populism sound the same for the first 30 seconds. Both criticize elites, they criticize the concentration of power, they criticize corruption. They want to focus on institutions that aren't working. But then the road splits. One direction hopefully goes to let's expand health care, let's raise wages, let's give unions more power, let's enforce antitrust, let's have proper and fair taxation, let's raise the housing supply, let's do democratic reforms. The other goes to let's find certain races and ethnicities to scapegoat. Let's do conspiracy theories, let's push authoritarianism, let's push nationalism, let's do cultural revenge against the people who have wronged us. And unfortunately, in periods of instability, people become desperate for certainty. And that's why these movements grow. It's not that every supporter is evil, but if you identify real problems, that gives credibility to the people who are going to give you horrible answers. And if normal politicians refuse to honestly talk about the economic pain and the institutional distrust and all of it, there's going to be a vacuum. And next thing you know, someone like a Tucker Carlson or a Candace Owens or an Alex Jones fills that space. Demagogues, propagandists, conspiracy theorists, people who monetize the culture war. That's not who I want in the positions of influencing what the solutions might be. Understanding this process is part one for trying to actually deal with it. I have one of the funniest political moments of the week, and it lasted barely two seconds. This is Republican Senator Dave McCormick. He was speaking about Donald Trump, and he accidentally started to say the Trump regime. And he catches himself, and he goes, I mean, the administration. The regime. No, no, no, no. The administration. There's a lot of history wrapped up in this. Let's play the clip first.
- [54:59]
Dave McCormick
The alternative of Iran with a nuclear weapon that could threaten America or its kids, which was very likely to happen under President Trump's regime, his administration, if we hadn't.
- [55:11]
David Pakman
Whoa. You know, Trump's regime, his administration. I mean, administration and regime, not the same thing. This is. You could. You could skip the whole analysis and go, semantics doesn't make a difference. McCormick knows that regime is a dangerous word to acknowledge here. An administration is what a democracy has. A regime is what people call governments when they become authoritarian dictatorships, when power is personalized in a cult of personality around the leader. And it's based on loyalty, it's based on punishment. It's centered around one dominant Strongman. Now, obviously, McCormick realized, I can't be calling this a regime. He corrected himself. But that is still a very interesting Freudian slip. And these Freudian slips are really powerful when they reveal the truth that a lot of people are already thinking. A lot of us on the left have seen this as an increasingly authoritarian administration for a long time, and we've started to call it casually the Trump regime. The right has resisted that. And then in comes Dave McCormick, and he says what a lot of people are already thinking. And this is getting a lot of traction because a lot of Americans feel like this is a regime. This is not a traditional president who respects democratic norms. This is a movement based around personal loyalty, with the authoritarian idea that what Trump wants, Trump gets. And nobody should dare to question that. That's a very important distinction. Think about the language surrounding Donald Trump's second term. People are not just talking about cabinet appointments, legislation, policy priorities, governing philosophy. It's all about, we're purging people. We're getting revenge. Loyalty tests, people are getting fired, enemies list, punishment, media intimidation, new wars, crackdowns, deportations, and a demand for personal loyalty to Trump. That's been the language of this early, almost halfway through, at this point, I guess, second term, that's how people describe regimes. Regime is the accurate term in that sense, and Trump talks in that way also. Trump doesn't speak like someone who temporarily gets to manage democratic institutions. That's what the president is. You're temporarily empowered to manage and direct these institutions with checks and balances in an environment of democracy, period. Trump talks like he's just the state. That's it. Trump is the state. And this is why he argues. If you criticize me, you're criticizing America. That's it. You hate America. If you criticize me, if you disagree, you are committing an act of betrayal. Prosecutors are enemies unless you're telling them who to prosecute. Journalists are the enemy of the people unless they're publishing fluff pieces about you. And you have a lot of, you know, conservatives, actual conservatives. Before Trump warned us we don't want authoritarian governance. They were warning about dangerous communists on the left. But now a lot of those supposed conservatives are. Former conservatives are defending the government, retaliating against people who are not loyal enough, targeting people for political reasons, intimidating media outlets, federal crackdowns of all kinds, expanding executive power, open threats against critics. As long as it's Trump doing it to the left, then they're okay with it. I thought that they were conservative. There is nothing conservative about this whatsoever. One final clip from this interview just as like a little bonus Dave McCormick clip here is Dave McCormick during the same interview, saying, with a message to those worried about high gas prices for
- [59:08]
Caroline Levitt
Memorial Day weekend from your constituents in Pennsylvania that are dealing with higher gas prices and wondering when or if this is going to end in a good way.
- [59:18]
Dave McCormick
Well, you know, the president didn't get to choose when he was going to take this action. It was actually he did essentially the result of a growing risk from Iran and unfortunately, pass. Presidents hadn't dealt with it and this needed to be dealt with. So I applaud him for having the strength to do that. From a political perspective, I think we all agree, including the president, that it would be best to get in and out as soon as possible. There's no doubt that folks in Pennsylvania are feeling the pressure of, of gas prices going up by about a buck and a quarter. And that's putting real pressure on working families. But the alternative of Iran with a nuclear weapon, they could threaten America or its kids, which was very likely to happen under President Trump's regime, his administration, if we hadn't taken.
- [60:05]
David Pakman
So that's the context of the regime. Clip Listen, you're getting it all wrong, Dave. It was an optional war. This is a big deal when he goes a buck and a quarter. This is how they minimize a buck and a quarter. We're actually up far more than a buck and a quarter. It's more like $2.75 per gallon or something like that. I'm sorry, $75 cents per gallon. But most importantly, what was the promise? It's not just well, there were decisions made and gas prices went up. There were promises made about gas coming down 50%. It went up 65%. McCormick is pathetic and he is spineless. But he is a senator and that means he has power, which should scare every single one of us. One thing that drives me nuts about political media is how two outlets can cover the same story and make it feel feel like two different events took place. Not because any of the facts have changed, but because the emphasis of the stories is different. This is why I use Ground News, because Ground News pulls together reporting from across the political spectrum and you can compare the headlines side by side and see how different outlets are framing the exact same issue. You can look at the bias distribution, you can look at factuality ratings. You can see who owns the outlets behind the reporting, which makes it easier to separate the substance from the spin. For example, Trump's EPA recently decided to remove limits on those forever chemicals in drinking water. Ground News shows how outlets like PBS and Raw Story are getting it right and right wing outlets put this anti Biden spin on it. Or they just stay very vague to avoid implicating Donald Trump. Ground News also has a blind spot feed. This is for stories that are underreported by one side and you can also get a personalized feed based on your interests. Go to Ground News slash Pacman or scan my QR code to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. The link is in the description. Think of how much personal information you put into your favorite AI chat bot. They track everything you say on the app. Many of them sell the data to ad companies and they use your personal info to train the AI. So your personal life lives inside the chat bot. Forever. Creepy stuff. Which is why I recommend Venice. It's sort of like a VPN for AI. Our sponsor Venice gives you access to all the best and latest language models, chat, GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Deep Seek as well as leading image, video and music generation models all in one place. But you can use them privately and anonymously and it's completely uncensored. On Venice, you can ask the AI for anything and it won't say no. Nothing is tied to your identity because your prompts are encrypted. They never even leave your device you so no corporation or government can spy on you. And those conversations access the world's leading AI models privately, you'll get 20% off any plan when you go to Venice, AI/Pacman. And use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. Well, Stephen is coming in very hot for this week's Friday feedback. Let's, let's start with Steven's email to me. He says, dude, you're an idiot. Now, I've got to give Steven credit. He is already past what we might call the great filter of hate mail, which is he's used the correct form of your. He's using Y O, U apostrophe R E. He means you are an idiot. And he said you are an idiot. So even though I don't love the insults, at least grammatically, we're getting off on the right foot. It's a good start. Dude, you're an idiot. I mean, Trump has one. He keeps winning. 80 million voted for him. We're going to keep voting for him. He can do whatever he wants. All you can do is bitch. You can't do anything. You have no power. All you can do is cry and moan and groan. Thank God for the 45th and 47th President of the United States. Now, you know what I'm realizing? Your is only correct because they're using voice to text. There's other areas where voice, like for example, his voice to text got grown. He meant groan like I'm groaning, but it put grown like I'm a big grown boy. So I take back what I said about the grammatical praise. It's probably only the correct your because he did voice to text. Okay, you're nothing. I mean, you're a non value human being. You have nothing to add to the country. What have you done for America? What have you built? Who have you helped? No one. But this is America. You can bitch and moan and cry all you want. We have all the power. You have nothing. You will never have anything again. We will systematically destroy the Democratic Party as we are going because. As we are doing because it's not a party of decency. It's a party of violence and death and destruction and lies and cheating and it's just horrific. You know what, Steven? You're not very nice, are you? I don't. I don't even know what to say to Steven. This is. It's the sort of demand. You know what? I would take the brain injury test if I were Stephen. I think that's really all. All I can say. I would. I would suggest that. All right, let's hear from some other people. Psalm 4610 wrote to me about Sean Spicer's interview and he says Spicer voted for Trump, he says, in 2106, but I think he means 2016. Spicer voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Why would anyone want to A, listen to him and B, care about anything he says? You know, I don't, I don't agree with this approach for, like, who should be interviewed. He voted for Trump, therefore we don't care what he has to say. Now, he voted for Trump three times and he's very well connected in politics. And I'm curious what his perspective is now. That's what I'm interested in hearing. Did he filibuster? Of course. Did he lie? Of course. Did he provide nothing of value? Of course. But I still found the interview pretty compelling and I was, I was interested in hearing from him. Jay Alcove wrote on Spotify, David, a very clear description of the American problem. We are living times of ignorance, eating culture, as Neil. I think he means we are living in times of ignorance eating culture, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned. Knowing enough about a subject to think you're right, but not enough to know you're wrong. Yeah, which is sort of. It refers kind of to the concept of Dunning Kruger, the idea of lacking the capacity to recognize that you don't know certain things. I write about this a lot in my book the Echo Machine and a little bit in my forthcoming book Pay Attention, which by the way, by the way, if you've not preordered my book Pay Attention, please do. It's available for preorder everywhere that books are sold and I'll have more to talk about with that soon. We have a real problem in this country. People who can't distinguish between statements of fact and statements of opinion. People who don't understand the difference between an actual subject matter expert and someone who is articulate or eloquent on tv. Very different things. And a lot of people who believe that they are just as competent as experts because they went on chatgpt a few minutes or looked up a couple articles on the Internet. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is very, very right on the subreddit. A very interesting post from Spray Exact who who talks about rejecting former MAGA supporters and writes the following. I just saw David's interview with former Maga influencer Ashley St. Clair. Some highly upvoted comments criticized her, saying what she did was unforgivable. I think rejecting former MAGA supporters is a terrible strategy. I agree. People on the right tend to Embrace former leftists. They're smart enough to understand they need power, not purity, to achieve their goals. For many, it's obvious that Trump and his circle have been doing egregious things for years. But sometimes people simply can't see the truth, no matter how self evident it is. For example, ask a vegan and they'll probably tell you they can't believe they used to do something so evidently cruel, like unnecessarily eating animals. Should vegans reject newcomers just because they used to do reprehensible things that would only hurt the cause? So in the end, what people did before shouldn't matter that much as long as they're willing to oppose Trump now. Maybe some of them will eventually go back to their old immoral behavior, but you still have to take the risk of accepting their support while they speak up against him. If you want any real hope of getting rid of Trump soon, you have to take all the support you can get. Listen, I basically agree with all of this and it mirrors the framework I've talked about with regard to getting people out of the MAGA cult. The only thing I'll mention is unless Trump dies, I don't think he's getting out, period. That's the only part of this that I would sort of take issue with. But absolutely we need to say to these people, you made a mistake. You recognize the mistake. Come on, come on, back to the. To our side. Tuxedo cat guy wrote on subreddit. Has the party moved on from Gavin Newsom? People used to speak about him with a sense of inevitability. I haven't heard his name as much lately. And Democrats are showing willingness to consider other candidates as possible. I feel like the change happened right after he said Israel is an apartheid state. You know? Yeah, he said some are asking whether Israel is an apartheid state, and I understand why they're asking it. Then he walked it back. I don't really think that what's going on in the Democratic primary, which hasn't started yet, to be clear, has anything to do with that. I think that there are these sort of ebbs and flows in the attention that anybody gets in the polling. Gavin Newsom is still doing very well, and I think that it's just so early that the ebbs and flows only serve to give us a sense of who might be in the running, but it's too early to really say, say more than that. And so I agree there's been less attention paid to Gavin Newsom lately. After this, there was this, like, it's inevitable thing. I do want to take a look at Google search trends Gavin Newsom and I want to look at the past. Let's look at the past year. It is objectively true that the amount of interest in Google Search Gavin Newsom has diminished pretty significantly over the last five months. But I think it's just so early. We just don't really know anything yet. Another subreddit user on the David Pakman show subreddit named Swimming Panic says it's time to pack the Supreme Court. If the Republicans are using the Supreme Court to pack the lower chamber of our legislature, Democrats need to use it to pack the court. We either take control of the court or they take control of government forever. Democrats need to wake up. Is it more important we be the only party competing for a moral high ground voters don't care about, or is it more important we be in control of the damn government? I'd rather be in control. That's the way we know we will be safe. Listen, I addressed this recently as well. I don't have any moral issue packing the court. None whatsoever. But what will stop Republicans from doing it when they have the opportunity? Now, if your argument is whoever packs the court first packs last. Whoever packs first packs last. The idea being whoever is something just fell over here. But I'm okay. Whoever first packs the court will be so dominant no one else will ever be in a position to do it. Well, I'd be interested in hearing why you think that, but it's not something I've come to believe. So that's my concern with packing the court. Democrats do it, Republicans do it. We go back and forth. Next thing you know you've got 97 justices on the court and it gets very ugly. That's my concern. I much would favor term limits, and I've talked about some of the other Supreme Court reforms I would like. On the topic of Trump's charisma, Marion Weaver wrote, I guess Trump has some kind of charisma. I have always just found him repulsive. Yet listen, the kind of charisma Trump has doesn't appeal to everybody. But there are tens of millions of Americans for whom Trump's weird brand of jokes combined with his confidence and egomania Reed as charisma and they like the scapegoats he chooses. I understand the problems with trade. It's China. I understand the problems with the labor market. It's rapist Mexicans. And I'm going to fix all of these problems. It's not necessarily charisma. In the exact way that we sometimes think of it, but it is a form of charisma that to tens of millions of Americans is appealing not to me, but to tens of millions of Americans. It does work. And the proof is that it did work for Donald Trump. Cindy wrote about what's going on with the YouTube algorithm. Thank you for bringing this up. I have not gotten your feed in a while. After last week, I blew the whistle on what's happening with the YouTube algorithm. And it's not just the David Pakman Show YouTube channel. It's a lot of shows on the left. First of all, 15,000 of you subscribe to the YouTube channel, which is amazing and I'm flattered. But hundreds and hundreds of you wrote in and thousands left comments saying, yeah, that's been happening to me. I just realized I haven't seen your videos for months. So all we can do is I keep making the best videos I can make. I communicate with you when something's going on. If there is a clear ask, I make it right now. The ask is like the videos you do see. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. Hit the bell and tell YouTube you want to see all my videos, not only a personalized subset. If enough people do those things, I think we'll all be better off on the left. Lawrence Grandberry commented on YouTube about Mark Cuban appearing with Donald Trump for the launch of Trump R X, the prescription drugs website. He wrote, I thought Mark Cuban was a stand up dude or at least a never Trumper. They're all in it together. A bunch of greedy, no good m efforts. Listen, here's my view on the Mark Cuban thing. I've always known Mark Cuban to be a straight shooter. And Mark Cuban on the issue of the pharmaceutical prices has been working himself for years now on cost plus drugs, a cheaper way for people without insurance to get medications. And I believe him that he cares about any opportunity to get affordable drugs to more people. I believe he thought that supporting Trump rx, which is similar to his own cost plugs plus drugs is a way to get affordable drugs to more people. And so he showed up and stood there with Trump. Now, did he have to stand there looking like a, like a sort of, you know, uncomfortable fish out of water as Trump ranted about insane things? Yes, Mark Cuban did that. Do I respect that part of what he did? Not really. Not really. But I would love to have Mark Cuban on. And my guess is he would say, if there's an opportunity to get affordable drugs to more people, I will be there. Because that's been my mission for years now with cost plus drugs but I would like the opportunity to ask him about it myself. I've never spoken to the guy We've got a great bonus show for you today. You can get instant access to the bonus show by signing up@join pacman.com and remember that we have a huge one day membership drive. It will be Tuesday Super Tuesday June 9th. We are up against it in independent media. I believe we need progressive independent media more now than ever and we are going to be doing a one day membership special on June 9th blowing all prior discounts out of the water. If it sounds interesting, if you'd consider signing up on June 9th under this regime of discounts, just get on my free newsletter davidpakman.com substack and on the 9th you'll be notified. Here's how you take advantage of this membership special. We've got the bonus show coming up and so much more next week.