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David Pakman
Republicans are suddenly terrified that they could lose Texas. Trump is jumping in. Ken Paxton won his primary, will face off against Talarico. The best they've got against Talarico is he's vegan, even though he's not vegan. And even if he were, who cares? And then Donald Trump says he has a perfect bill of health. He had his third annual physical in 13 months yesterday, came out of Walter Reed Hospital and says it's all perfect. When you are bragging about passing a physical, it starts to get a little bit weird. We will also hear from an actual doctor weighing in on Trump's behavior, Trump's physical characteristics, his sleep, cognition, and why getting exams every, what, four and a half months is a little bit strange. And then our friend Jessica Tarlov silences her Fox News co hosts whose brains are filled with mayonnaise during a segment about Iran. And then J.D. vance reminds everybody he's usually not the sharpest guy in the room, even when he's the only guy in the room. We'll have the videos. We'll discuss all of that and more coming up today if I have anything to say about it. Republicans are now panicking. They could lose Texas and that Texas could send its first Democratic senator to Washington D.C. in decades. Trump losing it. They're attacking Talarico. But why? Well, last night was the runoff for the Texas Republican primary when they had the primaries some months ago. On the Democratic side, James Talarico won. He won, clearly he won dominantly. On the Republican side, Nobody got to 50%. The incumbent senator, James Cornyn, who's running for reelection, failed to get to 50% in a multi way race. And the Attorney general, Ken Paxton, who's challenging Cornyn, failed to get to 50%. So yesterday they had a little thing we call a runoff. Trump waited, waited, waited until it was clear who was going to win and then said, I endorse Ken Paxton. And indeed, no surprise to anybody, Ken Paxton did win and he won easily, basically by a 2 to 1 margin, if you can believe it. Another if you believe it. Anti maga. I'm sorry, Pro Maga result. Anti occasional critics of MAGA result where Ken Paxton secured about 64% of the vote and John Cornyn secured 36% of the vote by a roughly 2 to 1 margin. The incumbent Republican senator is out and the challenger will now face Talarico in November. Donald Trump jumping out there with a truth social post, self congratulatory of course. And he says, quote, congratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win and to John Cornyn, for having run a strong and powerful race and more importantly, having had a truly great career. John will remain my friend for a long time to come as we both watch Ken become a fantastic common sense senator, one who is respected by all. His opponent, Alfred E. Newman, referring to Talarico, may be the worst Texas candidate I have ever seen. A strong open borders advocate, he's weak on crime, believes there are six genders, is insulting to Jesus Christ, will never support the military, was a big mask wearer a until recently and is a vegan. That's how Trump used to pronounce it until someone corrected him and is a vegan who dislikes meat. Not exactly a good way to be if you're wanting to win an election in Texas. Jasmine Crockett, a very low IQ individual who has no relation to the legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett, would have been a far better choice for the Duma Crats Democrats. I will do some nice big beautiful rallies for Ken Texas. This will be fun. God bless America. President Donald J. Trump. I like that Trump goes, he's a vegan who dislikes meat rather than a vegan who likes meat. By the way, Talarico is not vegan. He says he loves Texas barbecue. I don't know why this vegan thing is really a big deal, but I want to explain why this is so huge for Donald Trump. First of all, Trump likes to pick winners. And what I mean by that is Trump, Trump likes to attach his name to people who are already likely to win so that he doesn't have to do anything and so that he doesn't get embarrassed. That's what he did with Paxton. The issue if Paxton were to lose to Talarico is not only that, it would be one of Trump's picks. Losing, that's bad enough for Donald Trump, but it would be that it would, it would be a loss in Texas specifically, which hasn't had Democratic senators for decades. And so if it came to be, and we will do what we can to make it come to be, if it came to be in November that James Tallarico the vegan, destroys or even just defeats Ken Paxton, it will be terrible for Trump in that he will have been part of a decade spanning loss for Republicans in Texas and they are very scared of that now. They are panicking on all fronts. Here's RNC chair Joe Grutters, who refers to the Democratic candidate as Talafrico and again brings up this whole vegan thing
RNC Chair Joe Gruters
because Talafrico is a creep and he thinks he's a vegan. He thinks God is non binary. He wants to mutilate children. He wants to put boys in girls locker rooms. People are done with that. That's if you looked at the autopsy the different Democrats put out. It's simple. All those things and the fact that they are openly supporting communists and socialists, people don't want the United States Senate. Certainly the, the voters in Texas don't want that. We think Paxton will win. We'll think it's, we think it's a red seat. Hands down. We're not going to have any issues heading into November. We're happy with Paxton and we're going to do everything we can to make sure he's successful.
David Pakman
Talafrico, the vegan man, that is not sounding very policy based to, to me, guys. I don't think so. And so the fact that they're immediately assailing the character, the calendar, they don't like his calendar. It's too busy. They're assailing the character of James Talarico. They're going after things like he's vegan. And Trump plans to do rallies. All of that together signals major concern. Now, as far as Ken Paxton is concerned, an interesting little detail. This is an article from last year from the New York Times. Ken Paxton claimed three houses as his primary residence. Records show he's could, he could have secured favorable mortgage rates and may have violated the law if he knowingly falsified loan documents. Now, what's funny about that is that this is way worse than what Trump wants Adam Schiff thrown in jail for. And there, you may or may not recall, Trump is targeting Senator Adam Schiff over essentially the same thing. And I don't want to make this show only about mortgages because it's, you know, it should be about bonds, not mortgages, if it's going to be about a financial instrument. But there's this thing with mortgages where there's a lot of programs to get favorable rates. When you are getting a mortgage for your primary residence, if you go to the bank and you say, hey, I want to buy this house and live in it, you get one set of rates. And if you go to the bank and say, I want to buy this house, not live in it and rent it out, or it's a vacation home, it's a second property, usually the mortgage rates aren't as favorable. And what Trump wants Schiff investigated for is that Schiff got one mortgage on the basis that it would be his primary residence. And then years later, he got a different mortgage on the basis that it would be his primary residence. Now, as I've explained before, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. If he's lying at any point, that would be a problem. But it is common that people go, and I'm buying a house, it's my primary residence. Give me those rates. Cool. And then they say, I'm going to buy a different house. They might be selling the first house so the new one will become their primary residence, or they might be keeping the first house and saying this, I'm going to primarily live somewhere else. All of that is completely legal. Your first mortgage might require that you call and say, hey, this will no longer be my primary residence. The mortgage may be subject to a rate revision or not, but the question is, do you intend it to be your primary residence at the time that you close on it? And if the answer is yes, there's not a problem. Trump said when shifted that it's a crime. Absent any evidence, Paxton's accused of doing the same thing three times. So if we care about this mortgage provision, which is so pedantic and anodyne, but Trump claims to, why don't you care about it when it's a Republican? We all know the answer. Now, Ken Paxton is coming out swinging and saying that Talarico is a threat to our way of life.
Ken Paxton
And finally, he's a threat to our very way of life and our values. I mean, he's a vegan who thinks God is non binary and that there's actually six biological sexes.
David Pakman
Big, strong Republicans are threatened by a vegan, by, remember, he's not a vegan. But is it Alpha to be threatened by a vegan or veganism? I got to tell you, I've been out to eat with plenty of vegans in my day. I have never felt threatened in any way. When they say, could I get an impossible burger patty on my burger instead of a beef patty? And I go, what are we doing after dinner? That's it. It's not threatening in any way. It was fine. But they are very scared. They're scared of veganism, they're scared of all of it. Check out the impossible promises, by the way, that Ken Paxton made last night. Listen to what he's going to be able to do, supposedly.
Ken Paxton
But I truly believe that together, not only will we win this race, but we can ensure that America's best days are ahead of us. You see, I'm not just running against the Democrats. I'm running to deliver for you, just as I have as Attorney General.
David Pakman
You can tell he really means it.
Ken Paxton
I'm running to lower your cost of living because you deserve to be able to buy a home, afford groceries, and have a high quality of health care without being forced to stay up at night worrying about how you're going to pay your monthly premium or pay off your debt.
David Pakman
How is he going to achieve that? He's going to lower cost of living and allow you to buy a home, groceries, and pay for health care with zero concern for what the health care costs or for the fact that you might have to go into debt. Those are some big promises, I have to tell you. And I struggle to think about how they're going to do that. Maybe the funniest moment of the night. Texas Republican Congressman Brandon Gill says thanks to this victory for Ken Paxton, they are going to take their country back. Now think about that for a moment. Back, aren't we? And you know what that means?
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
That means that we are finally going
David Pakman
to take our country back, aren't we? So Texas has had Republican senators for decades. Republicans right now control the White House, the House and the Senate. How would a Republican replacing another Republican in the Senate when they already control everything be taking back the country? It's a reminder that these bullet points are persistent. It doesn't matter whether they're in or out of power. We need to make America great again. Well, you're in power. Why didn't you do it? Now we're going to make America great again. We're going to take our country back. You control everything. Who are you going to take it back from? Now we're going to. It's these victimhood, grievance politics. Scapegoats. You must have scapegoats. These are always in place with this authoritarian version of the Republican Party. Even if they're in power, someone else is hurting us and we need to stop that. We have incredible video of a Texas Republican voter saying, hell, no, I am not voting for the person Trump endorsed. Now, we already know that Ken Paxton won his primary last night. Senator John Cornyn will be removed from the Senate at the end of his term. The next senator in that seat will be either the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, Attorney General, or Democratic candidate James Tallarico. Amanu Raju from CNN was at a polling place in Texas yesterday, and he caught up with a Republican voter and they had a very interesting conversation. Take a listen to this.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
Who'd you vote for, Cornyn, and why'd
David Pakman
you vote for Cornyn? Because Trump did not endorse him. Really?
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
That was a big fact.
David Pakman
It Makes me sick that the Republican
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
Party is completely, completely controlled by one man, Trump. If Paxton wins a nomination, could you vote for him in the general election?
David Pakman
No. Hell, no. So a couple takeaways here. First, if our number, we've really got a level set. Our number one priority has to be not feeling good about clips on the Internet, but getting power back. You get power back by winning seats and there's an opportunity here. So, like the big takeaway from this Republican going, I wanted to do the opposite of what Trump endorsed. And in the general election, even as a Republican primary voter, I'm not voting for Paxton. Cool. That points to huge opportunity for Talarico to win in Texas. First would be the first Democratic senator from Texas in decades. We have a tangible goal now of making that happen. There will be phone banking opportunities, door knocking opportunities, the opportunity to donate. There's going to be all of it. So we're going to get to that. That's the most important takeaway. And it reminds, it should remind us and them on, on the Republican side. It's dangerous to turn your political party into a personality cult because it could work for a while, but eventually some voters are going to stop feeling represented and they're going to start feeling controlled. That's what happens with cult leaders. It feels as though they get you, they represent you, etc. But they are starting to feel controlled by Trump rather than represented. And so for me, the key line isn't I won't vote for Paxton, although that's very important electorally. It's, it makes me sick that the Republican Party is controlled by one man. That's the deeper dissatisfaction with the state status quo of this Republican Party. And what this does to Trump's endorsement power is totally destroy it. It used to be that Trump's endorsement was almost like a superpower. He really was raising up all of these new MAGA candidates, people who had no business being in elected office, Marjorie Taylor Greene and who the hell knows who else. It's now becoming a liability. There are, there are Republican, not Democrats in Connecticut, there are Republicans in Texas who hear Trump endorse this person, I'll vote for the other one. And if the Trump endorsee wins, then I'm not going to vote for them in the general. That's a disaster. If you're the Republican Party. And this is the sort of difference between the Republicans that genuinely love Trump, the people that leave me the comments about how Trump's the best thing that ever happened to anybody and Trump invented sliced bread and Trump brought Back the avocado from a bad reputation. You know, he's achieved everything. And then you got the Republicans who tolerated Trump. They were like, listen, I don't like Hillary, I don't like Biden, I don't like Harris. I have fallen for the idea that Trump's conservative, even though he's just an authoritarian nut. That second group is very clearly freeing. And this Republican voter that Manu Raju spoke to is a perfect example of that. And listen, I don't want to assume too much about this guy. This was Austin, Texas. I, I can see the guy looks white and like me, he might be Hispanic, white. I don't know anything about him. So I'm inferring some things. But this guy is maybe in the ballpark of the prototypical suburban, college educated, higher turnout Republican that goes and votes in the primaries. Right? This is the sort of voter that Democrats need to crack Texas. And I think if I'm, if I'm honest, and I always am with you, Texas is probably still leaning Republican in this raid race nationally, statewide is what I mean. If you look at the polling in the betting markets, it still looks better for Paxton, but not that much better. And we've got six, five and a half months until the election. And the way that they're campaigning, the fact that Trump's going to be out campaigning and doing rallies, they know this race could get very uncomfortable. And the more Republicans are framing these elections as tests of loyalty to Trump, as Trump's approval goes lower, lower, lower, the better the opportunity is to put a Democrat back in the Senate representing the state of Texas. So we're going to do everything we can. I believe these are the most consequential primaries I've ever been a part of on June 9th in order to fund another year of this show. We are different than a lot of independent media shows. A lot of independent media shows rely on contractors who get no benefits and get hourly wages and irregular work. I've decided we have employees. They are real employees. They get benefits. They only work for this show. They're not freelancing for a bunch of different shows. That costs money. And we are doing an important one day membership drive on June 9th to bolster the show and to really secure the next year and beyond of independent media. So if you'd like to be part of that huge discount on annual memberships on June 9th, just get on my substack newsletter at David pakman.com/substack. And on the 9th, you'll get an email telling you what the deal is with this big discount code. The frustrating part about debt is that even if you're doing everything right, the system is stacked against you. Interest compounds, the fees pile up and you end up paying just to stay in the exact same place while the bank collects. That's why I want to talk to you about PDS debt which works with people dealing with unsecured debt. That means credit cards, personal loans, medical bills. There's no one size fits all approach. They will evaluate your specific situation and make a plan that works for you. There is no minimum credit score required. PDS debt is A plus rated by the Better Business Bureau. They have thousands of five star reviews and have already helped hundreds of thousands of people get out of debt. 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They never even leave your device 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 Donald Trump had his third annual physical in 13 months yesterday. I know no one believes this crap. Trust me, I know. And of course the results are that everything is perfect and he did so well. And he can keep being president in case anybody was worried about that. Donald Trump posting about this to Truth Social where he says, quote, just finished my six month physical. Now we're going to I'm going to get back to that. 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. Now, we know there are untrue things here. It's not perfect when your ankles are swollen to the size of tree trunks and your hands are so bruised that you need makeup and bandages to cover it. And the reasons for why your hands are so bruised is never properly explained. We know that everything isn't perfect just by looking at Donald Trump and seeing how often he falls asleep in public and how he walks unsteadily and all of it. So by definition, we know that he's lying by saying everything's perfect. Now, may he be doing as expected for his age and weight? All right, well, but that's not, that doesn't make him sound as hot as he wants to sound. But there's another, another interesting little thing that he slips in. Trump says, just finished my six month physical. This is the first time we've ever heard of this. Always before, it's Trump will be having his annual workup, his annual physical. And then when he had two of these in less than a year, it was like, okay, that's sounding a little strange. Now we're at three of these in 13 months. So what is Trump doing? He's retroactively going, I do my 6 month physicals. Even then it's weird because if you do them every six months, you'd expect to have three in 18 months. Trump said three and three, 13 months. But this is just something that legacy in corporate media isn't even touching. The fact that with 6 month physicals. What do you mean these were annual? Why is he going 13, three times in 13 months? Well, now he's making it a little less bad, I guess, by saying that it's his six month physical. The White House then activating around it, screenshotting Trump's truth social post and posting to Twitter, Perfect bill of health. Now, I want you to forget for a moment, put aside for a second whether we believe the, the, the substance. Perfect bill of health. I don't believe it and I've already told you why. Put that aside just for a second. The weirdest part is the PR campaign around an annual physical. Normal healthy people don't usually need celebratory graphics Announcing, announcing that they passed a physical. It's just like you just go and you come out and that's kind of it, you know, Perfect bill of health. That creates more suspicion because it feels theatrical, it feels very defensive. Why, why are you even posting about this? Why are you officially signal boosting Trump saying he had a great physical and the Reason is that we have some of the facts. They're hiding a lot of the facts, but we have some of the facts. Multiple major medical evaluations every four and a half months, four and a third months, when these were annual physicals, and now Trump's calling them six month physicals. That raises questions, whether you're in politics or not. If someone told you, I've had three big workups in the last 13 months, you would go, oh, why? That's not typical. What's the reason for that? And if they go, no, nothing. Just because the doctors are so impressed with me, we would all go, what the hell are you talking about? The doctors are so impressed, they want you coming in every four, four and a third months. That doesn't make any sense. Of course it doesn't. But we're supposed to believe it when it's the President. So there's a difference between we are being transparent and this is propaganda. What they're putting out is propaganda. It's not transparency, it's image management. And they're doing this, and I am going to show you the evidence in a moment. They're doing this because the White House knows there is concern and suspicion about Trump's health, stamina, alertness, he's falling asleep all the time. The cognitive condition. I have new video of Trump unable to stand straight. He's trying to salute and swaying back and forth on Memorial Day. All of this stuff is visible. And the more visible the decline becomes, the more aggressively they're insisting that everything is perfect and fine, which only makes people who are paying attention go, this is not the way you talk about a guy who's firing on all cylinders. It's overcompensation, to put it very simply. And they feel a vulnerability and so they go maximalist in the opposite direction. All caps, graphics, promotional language, best physical ever. The irony of it, I know where I know you know where I'm going with this. And we'll deal with this more on Friday. The irony of it is that Republicans spent years demanding transparency about Joe Biden's health and his cognition and his medical condition. And the broader issue is less about whether Trump is sick. It's they aren't even living up to their standard for honest, normal, credible health information about the most powerful person in the United States and one of the most powerful people in the world. Most presidents release medical summaries. They don't typically do social media victory laps over a physical and perfect health about an obese 80 year old who looks visibly terrible and falls asleep in public multiple times a week isn't really cutting it. Now, Trump may be broadly functional, functional enough, he may be healthy enough to last two more years as president. He may not be. But the propaganda language just weakens the credibility. If they said, listen, Trump underwent a routine exam, he remains fit for duty and in good health for his age and underlying health circumstances, I would go that sounds about right that, that you're putting a positive spin, realistically positive spin, on a guy who has some health challenges. There's also the kind of deeper phenomenon here which I don't want to make the main topic of the show. We where politics is operating like celebrity branding at the end of the day. And that's part of why even a medical checkup, if that's what this was, becomes an image management event of sorts. But if you zoom all the way out from this, the greatest evidence that they know something is wrong is the propaganda meltdown. They had that right after Trump left Walter Reed Hospital. And that's what I want to talk about next. The same Trump Rapid Response account that once went after your favorite podcaster me is now panicking and trying to do cleanup over the Trump health crisis, quite literally. As Donald Trump was leaving Walter Reed hospital from his third annual physical in 13 months, the rapid Response account started putting out the following posts on X. They put out a screenshot of Brianna Keillor clearly blinking. And they say, Brianna Keilar says nap went perfectly after falling asleep live on air. Rumor is she also failed her cognitive exam, unlike President Trump, whose was perfect. Then they put out a picture of Dana Bash and they say again, Dana Bash is looking down. In this image, Dana Bash falls asleep ahead of her 55th birthday next month. What is going on? Then they've got Jake Tapper clearly blinking. Flashback fake Tapper appears to doze off throughout his show. And then they've got one of Dr. Jeremy Foust, who was commenting on Trump's medical exam. He is clearly blinking and it says, is Dr. Jeremy Faust sundowning? So a couple takeaways. Number one, they are very aware of the concerns about Trump. They know that doctors are saying, you know, Trump's worse at night. Could it be sundowning? They know that their defense of Trump as merely blinking isn't being bought by anybody. And so what they want to do is make you think that just as easily as it looks like Trump is sleeping, but he's really just blinking. They can do the same thing with Dana Bash or Jake Tapper or Brianna Keiller or the CNN guest, but we're smart enough to know the difference. We're smart enough to know that those CNN anchors genuinely were just blinking there, and they haven't fallen asleep on live tv. But here is Trump. And this is. I could. I could show you one of 30 of these. This is Trump actually asleep during a Cabinet meeting. He's not blinking.
White House Press Secretary
From both Islamist ideology as well as Islamist terrorists, foreign terrorist organizations, and those who seek to do harm to the American people, many of whom were let in across our borders under the previous administration. We are focused on these tasks and this imperative for the American people and just appreciate your leadership, Mr. President.
David Pakman
Trump was out. Trump is regularly out. So two important stories here, and I think it's important. We don't want to overstate and we don't want to understate. The fact that they are doing this doesn't mean necessarily that there is more wrong with Trump than we know about, although we suspect there is. But the fact that they're doing these propaganda things doesn't prove anything. But the fact that they're doing it does confirm that they're worried about it. Because if this were a nothing narrative about Trump, if they didn't realize, oh, a lot of people are worried about Trump's health, these videos really don't look good, they wouldn't be doing this. They are suddenly very worried. And of course, the timing is suspect, as Donald Trump is quite literally driving back to the White House from Walter reed, from his third annual physical in 13 months that they start publishing this stuff. Now, I think the miscalculation they're making is that nobody's going to fall for this crap. It's very clear, people, one of the things that humans can do is recognize when basic bodily functions are happening in other humans. Is it possible to pretend to be asleep when you're not? Yeah, you know, actors do it. My toddler daughter has figured out sometimes it's funny to pretend to be asleep, and sometimes they do it successfully. And sometimes we go, I know you're not really sleeping. But they are acting as though they can talk us out of believing that Trump is falling asleep and that he's merely blinking. He's deep in thought, he's looking down. This is how he processes information. But we can tell when humans are sleeping. We're pretty good at this. This is a. This is something that's evolved over 250,000 years of modern humans. And they're not going to trick us. So the timing is very suspect. They're worried, they're panicked, and they should be, because this is looking worse and worse. One of the most common career problems is not knowing how to make a change without blowing up your life and everything you have going on. A lot of people reach a point where they don't necessarily ha their job. They want more direction, growth, or maybe confidence as far as what the next move is. Even if on paper everything is sort of okay. Our sponsor, Strawberry Me, is a career coaching platform built for this exact situation. Success often does not happen on its own. It takes clarity, strategy, execution, and most people who make meaningful progress are not doing it all by themselves. And that is where a coach at Strawberry Me can really help. A coach can help get you unstuck, uncover what you really want, identify obstacles that might be holding you back, and really put together a practical step by step plan for where you want to go. Whether you are trying to grow in your current role, make a career change, turn a goal into something real. Having some outside perspective can make a really big difference. So go to strawberry me/pacman to find out if career coaching is right for you and get 50% off your first session the link is in the description Some people assume focus is just about willpower. 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 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 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 also been peer reviewed research published showing that their music increased activity in attentional networks and also improve performance on attention based tasks. Try it yourself with 30 days free at Brain FM. Pacman the link is in the description all right, an actual doctor, not a commentator, not a chiropractor, not a massage therapist. An actual physician went on CNN to address Donald Trump's third physical in 13 months and I got to tell you, it's not good. It's not good at all. And this medical assessment was so concerning that, Dr. Jonathan Reiner was immediately invited back onto other shows to talk in more detail about what's going on. So let's just play it. Let's listen and then let's discuss.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
I do want to see this. During this examination, a credible explanation for his visible health concerns his bruising, which initially was described as due to handshaking, which is not credible. His severe edema in his ankles, which was described as chronic venous insufficiency, when just three months before, one year ago, he was his examination disclosed that he had no edema, which would then make it acute, chronic, acute venous insufficiency, which is an entirely different thing. And finally, the president has severe daytime somnoms. He falls asleep very often. He's fallen asleep in the Oval Office on multiple occasions with people talking to him in the Cabinet Room and was concerned yesterday that he might have fallen asleep at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances. And chronic insomnia is a severe illness. It can result in an increase in risk of dementia, decrease in cognitive effects. In older people, it's equivalent to about increasing your age by about three and a half years. It increases your cardiac risk of having a heart attack or developing congestive heart failure. And it can produce a decline in, in your sort of mental functions. Like, it could increase depression, anxiety. So it's a, it's a real problem. And the president appears to struggle to stay awake during the day. And I'd like to hear what the White House has done to evaluate why the president has this increased daytime somnolence.
David Pakman
So, listen, we didn't get any of those answers initially. And Dr. Reiner, an actual physician, is laying it out. Bruising with explanations that don't make sense. Swollen ankles with explanations that don't make sense. Severe daytime, daytime somnolence, falling asleep in public all the time, and chronic insomnia. Trump is known to when he sleeps well to sleep four to five hours a night. And reportedly now he's often getting two to three hours of sleep. That's all very bad. So CNN brings Jonathan Reiner back on a little bit later in the day, and they want to dig more deeply. And the more that Reiner weighs in on what we know and what we don't know, the worse it seems about Donald Trump.
White House Press Secretary
So I want to zero in on something you said which was excessive daytime somnolence, which I'm assuming is the dozing off as we've the apparent dozing off. I just want to be clear about what we've Seen because he has appeared to doze off in White House events. And when asked about a December Cabinet meeting where the President's eyes were closed for a prolonged period of time, multiple times, the press secretary maintained that Trump had been listening attentively and running the entire three hour marathon Cabinet meeting. Talk to us about that. I mean, I'm not a medical expert, but when I'm thinking of someone who's almost 80, I would think of a little dozing off here there to maybe be kind of normal. Is that not normal?
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
Well, we've seen the President appear to rest his eyes when someone is talking directly to him. And that is distinctly abnormal. It's unusual to be surrounded by people in the Oval Office and you fall asleep.
David Pakman
And you know who agrees with that? Trump. Trump made this huge deal on the Andrew Schultz show and others going this Biden, the situations he can fall asleep in, like he's at the beach, it's like, okay, the beach. A lot of people sleep at the beach. Not that many people sleep in the Oval Office during meetings.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
We know the President is up late at night using social media. That's, that's not really in question. And it may be something as simple as he just has poor sleep hygiene. You know, when we, when we're trying to get people to sleep, sleep better, we tell them not to do any work in the bedroom, to put down, put down their phones, try and get a consistent time to go to sleep. You know, the President has incredible demands on his time. And, you know, he's almost 80 years old and even more reason for the President to get some rest. Insomnia is a dangerous thing for an older person. It increases the risk of cardiac events. It increases hypertension. Hypertension. It increases the risk of dementia and depression. And often when an older person doesn't feel right, one of the first questions we ask them is, tell me about your sleep. How much sleep are you getting? And if you've ever seen an older person in a hospital where it looks like they're losing it, it's often because it's very hard to sleep in hospitals. So when every American should want this president to, to work efficiently.
David Pakman
And I think everybody understands it. And then finally, and I found this very interesting, Dr. Reiner does address this issue of we've gone from annual physicals, which were happening so often that now they're calling them six month physicals. And that hasn't really been explained.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
What's also interesting is that in many of these yearly physical exams, much of this evaluation is done in advance. Of the day where the President actually goes to Walter Reed. So we should have a readout about this pretty soon. Often his labs are pretested, so the White House often can generate a readout very quickly. One other interesting thing I noted was when the president, when he was leaving Walter Reid posted on social media that he had a perfect physical. He called it his six month physical. So I guess, you know what we're changing now from as a routine yearly physical for a president to I guess perhaps as a nod to his, his age. It looks like this president will undergo a six month cycle for evaluations.
David Pakman
And what's funny is even that doesn't really cover it because again, I know you know these numbers by now. It's been three and 13 months. That's a physical every four and a third months, plus three dental visits. So Dr. Jonathan Reiner is a physician and he's alarmed by the very same things we're alarmed by. I'm not a doctor. I speak to doctors. They go, the hand bruising explanation doesn't make sense. Jonathan Reiner agrees. They say the swollen ankles are chronic venous insufficiency. It's a benign chronic condition. Dr. Jonathan Reiner goes, yeah, but he didn't have it as recently as a couple physicals ago, which is not that much time because they're happening so frequently. That suggests that this would be acute swelling, acute tree trunk ankles, not chronic, benign. That's a different condition. And he's now going every six months. Wait a second, when was that change announced? Why? Dr. Jonathan Reiner agrees. So the more physicals, Trump seems to have to reduce concern. It increases concern. And the more Trump says, I passed the cognitive test, the more we go, why is he getting cognitively tested so much? And on top of all of this, and this gets difficult now, we have yet another symptom that dozens of you wrote to me about. I want to talk about that next. There is disturbing video of Donald Trump visibly struggling to stand straight without swaying. And this is barely 48 hours old. Now, many of you wrote to me about this. I wasn't going to cover it then in the context, especially of these physicals and all of the results that are coming out. And so many of you writing to me about it, I do think it's worth looking at. Now, many of you noticed that during the Memorial Day commemoration on Monday, Donald Trump was swaying and seemingly constantly losing his balance and adjusting. And I said, is this really going on? And I looked at the video and it is. So first I'm going to Play the video in normal speed for you, and you will see that everybody else is standing there saluting, still. And Trump is swaying. He's swaying, swaying, swaying. Let me play it first, but then I have a different way we're going to look at it. Okay, now let me do something else with it. If we remove the audio and we just scrub through, one of the things you notice is that everybody else is very still, but Trump is the one that is swaying back and forth to and fro. J.D. vance is still. Pete Hegseth is still, but Trump is swaying back and forth, back and forth. This coincides with Trump's increasing difficulty walking a straight line. We have a number of videos now, including the one that's up on the screen of Trump walking down a red carpet, for example. We have another one from. From a helicopter. This is Trump after, I guess, getting off a plane where he's attempting to walk a straight line. And he's not. He's going back and forth, back and forth. So we now have multiple instances of Trump having more limited control over his body. Now, there are a lot of medical explanations here. One is just like, sometimes this happens to older people, and there's a number of reasons why that could be. And there's a whole bunch of other underlying conditions that this could be related to. Standing still is harder as you age. If you're overweight, sleeping two to three hours a night and not physically fit, it's hard to just stand there with a hand up on your head, saluting. It could be an inner ear or a balance issue. It could be a vestibular issue that can cause that subtle rocking where you're constantly, constantly trying to catch yourself. There are myriad neurological causes that can affect coordination in this way, and it can be neuropathy, parkinsonian symptoms. That's a whole other category of neurology. There can be musculoskeletal issues, back pain, hip problems, knee instability, arthritis, weakness, where you're constantly shifting weight and kind of going side to side. It could be medications, everything from sedatives to blood pressure meds, alcohol, thc, uppers downers, anxiety medication, stimulants. They can affect steadiness. Anxiety and adrenaline can do this. Cardiovascular factors, orthostatic issues, dizziness, dehydration, reduced stamina. And there can also be nonmedical explanations. And one of the ones that comes to mind to me is the fact that Donald Trump is widely believed to wear lifts to make himself appear to be taller. Trump claims to be 6:3. We've got a lot of examples of Trump definitely not looking 6:3 and lifts. It's almost like you're wearing an internal high heel and I don't you know, Trump may not be that comfortable walking in the equivalent of high heels and it may be that that slightly being pushed forward by the lifts is causing Trump to be off balance and he's trying to figure out do I use the ankle to hold myself rigid or do I use what do I how do I shift my weight? All of these are possible things, but the the sort of contrast is 3rd physical in 13 months. Perfect. Better than ever. And we have a new symptom or a new series of symptoms systems which is Trump walking in inability to walk in a straight line and standing at attention and having to catch himself as he goes forward and back. We're definitely not getting the full story what the full story is. We are left to speculate, but it's definitely not the story that we've been getting. What do you think? Leave a comment Send me an email info@david pakman.com or is Trump healthier than ever? And if I'm just getting it wrong, then let me know. Most sweet snacks are either satisfying or sensible. Our sponsor, Magic Spoon, is both. Magic Spoon treats are crispy, airy snack bars with 12 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 0 grams of added sugar and 2 to 3 grams of net carbs. They come in great flavors like marshmallow chocolate, peanut butter and double chocolate. My favorite. A perfect sweet, light snack I can throw in the bag and take on the go. They remind me of cereal bars. Same texture and flavor but without the carbs and without the sugar. Magic Spoon is easy to find. Just look for Magic Spoon at your local grocery store. They also rolled out treats and nationwide at 7:11. And if you haven't tried them yet, check out Magic Spoon's new protein pastries. High protein, low sugar takes on the classic toaster pastries I grew up with. You can get $5 off your next order, including the protein pastries@magic spoon.com/pacman. The link is in the description. There are a lot of VPN companies out there and almost all of them make the exact same promise. Trust us. Your data safe. Our sponsor Private Internet Access. You don't have to take their word for it because they've proven multiple times in court when authorities have asked for user logs, they don't have them. They don't have anything to hand over. Their software is open source. You do not have to trust anybody. You can verify for yourself. They have a no log policy which really matters because the whole point of a VPN is to protect your privacy. Private Internet access hides your IP address, encrypts your connection, helps to protect your data when you're at home on public WI fi traveling. And it also lets you access content that might not be available in your region. Just a single private Internet access account you can use on unlimited devices with servers in 91 countries and all 50 states optimized for fast streaming and downloads. So you are not sacrificing performance for security or privacy. It's one of those things you turn on once and just forget about it. Get an exclusive 83% off. That is just 203amonth plus four months free at PIA vpn.com/pacman the link is in the description. Well, our friend Jessica Tarlov has really outdone herself this time. As some of you know, Jessica Tarlov is the lone left winger on Fox News Is the Five. And she silenced her co hosts whose brains at this point must be filled with Diet Mountain Dew or something like that. And she really conceptualized with a beautiful narrative arc the embarrassing failures of the Iran war. And she does it so extensively and so irrefutably that her co hosts, even Jesse Watters, who seems to always have something to say, they they all have nothing to say. I have a lot to say about the substance here. Let's take a look at the video.
Jessica Tarlov
It'll come down to the details of whatever this is. You know, if they get a deal, is it going to be better, the same or worse than the jcpoa? That's what it's going to get compared
David Pakman
to by the way, it'll almost certainly be worse.
Jessica Tarlov
Loved the cope from Jesse there about the money that would be released to the Iranians that it denying the fact that it was their money that was being held in Qatari bank accounts when Obama did it. Only $1.7 billion. Not the huge numbers that people say versus what's going to happen this time when Donald Trump has to give them some of their money in order to get them to take a deal. And we'll see how it all unfolds. I'm fascinated by Iran saying we might not toll the strait anymore. There's just going to be a fee that you pay for quote unquote, environmental protection, which sounds like you're continuing to toll the Strait of Hormuz. And nobody has yet mentioned the importance of the domestic pressure right now on Donald Trump, the lack of fertilizer that is getting to our country. Turn on any channel, you'll see interviews with farmers who are saying that it is complete dire straits at this point. We already have a record number of bankruptcies. And so it seems to me, and we'll see what the deal looks like if there is one to be had. Donald Trump needs a midterms deal more than he needs a nuclear deal at this point and is willing to make a deal and punt some of the more complicated stuff down the road, continue the ceaseforward fire in that respect, so that we can deal with $4.50 gas approval ratings in the tank, -52 on inflation, -24 on foreign policy. You want to say, oh, this is a great solution to all of this. There are a number of conservative supporters of the war who feel like you did in your initial statements, Jesse, that they want actually more firepower. They don't want us to walk away at this point and just have a diplomatic solution. And I'm not sure at this point that Iran actually does think that we are willing to come at them with missiles again because we've been threatening nuclear plant day, bridge day, tunnel day, whatever it is, for a long time at this point. And I'm not saying that I want them necessarily to call our bluff, but I'm not sure that they're quaking in their proverbial booties as much as you might think.
David Pakman
They go from smirking and interrupting. There's usually an interruption every 20 seconds on that show. When Jessica tries to talk, they go from smirking and interrupting to staring straight ahead like their mics aren't working all of a sudden. Jessica Tarlov increasingly plays a sort of strange role at Fox, where I think Fox on one hand says, well, she's there to provide balance. But the way it ends up being is that sometimes she's the only person on that show who's willing to acknowledge observable reality. And you have four other people there who won't even concede what is real in the world. And as soon as someone goes, well, hold on a second, here are the timelines, here are the outcomes, here were the predictions and the promises, the contradictions, the consequences, the vibe changes. I don't think they like it. And Jesse Watters has kind of perfected the cable news smirk, where it's like, I don't really have much to say, but I'm going to just smirk and hope that the audience sees that as you're not making any sense and I'm really smart. But the problem is that that smirk only works when nobody pushes back, effectively and there's a broader media point here, I think, which is that modern political television is increasingly theatrical. It has been for a while, but especially now. And it's more of a role play. You've got the person in the role of the patriot, the, the person in the role of the elite liberal, and then the common sense guy and the, the concerned mom role. And every once in a while, the theater, everybody steps out of their roles and you've got a little bit of substance. And that's what I think makes Jessica effective on that show to the extent that, remember, it's an audience that to a great degree doesn't really want to hear from her. She's effective on these panels not so much because of ideology or principles, but she's often calmer than everybody else and she's more grounded than everybody else. And they're all trying to generate a particular type of outrage. Now, notice also, and there's a lot of other clips we've looked at, typically the other hosts don't really respond to Jessica Tarlov directly in terms of addressing her underlying points. Gutfeld, for example, who's a comedian, and he says funny things. I know, I know. Gutfeld often has paperwork where he just has his joke that he's going to tell, and it doesn't even address the substance of what Jessica Tarlov is saying. It's like there's a pivot or there's a terribly told joke or an interruption, or maybe it's ad hominems. And because if you address, if, if they try to directly address what she says, it wouldn't work well, because she's right on a lot of this stuff. And these moments can resonate online because there's a discomfort there that nobody else is even on the same playing field with regard to an allegiance to the truth. Now, let me get back to the thing I said before, because I think this is also interesting from a media literacy kind of standpoint. I think it's ironic that Fox producers probably believe that, that having Jessica there proves we're fair and balanced, although they don't use that slogan anymore. We're open ideologically, but the reason that clips like this often go viral is viewers realize that the panel is actually quite insulated from other ideas. Jessica's there to hopefully provide some balance to the audience, but it seems wasted on the other four hosts. Final thought on this. Right wingers have spent years mocking safe spaces, but a lot of these panels are really designed to be safe spaces. And as soon as someone breaks the safe space with a different idea that's coherently and articulately placed forward. They malfunction, they don't know what to say. They, they go to ad hominems, insults, etc. And I think Jessica is doing a really good job here. I don't know how many Fox News viewers are being convinced, but it's certainly interesting to at least confront some of these Mountain Dew brained hosts, for lack of a better term. Remember that J.D. vance is not usually the smartest person in the room and this is even when there's very few people in the room. I must say, J.D. vance met with attorneys general yesterday and I can only imagine that even Donald Trump cringed when he saw this. He here is, first of all, before we even get to the substance here is JD Vance entering the room and the crowd goes mild. Just nobody really seems to like JD and by the way, there is audio playing here. It's just that this group of people is so quiet when Vance walks in that you might think the audio isn't working. Everybody standing. Good.
J.D. Vance
Thank you all for being here.
David Pakman
Please take a seat. All right, so the crowd goes absolutely mild for J.D. vance. And then listen, this is, this could be funny. J.D. sort of jokes about is it attorneys general or attorney generals? It could be funny in some setting, but he's just so painfully uncharismatic that it just bombed.
J.D. Vance
Kick it over to Andrew Ferguson is going to talk a little bit about how we're going to work with these state attorneys general. And it's attorneys general, right? Not attorney generals. That's, it's, it's very counterintuitive. We got to change this. Maybe the group here together, we got enough of a critical mass of attorneys generals to change it. But Andrew, attorneys general, I'm never going to be able to get that right. And the media, of course, is going to make fun of me for it.
David Pakman
Andrew over well, it's more about your lack of charisma.
J.D. Vance
Thank you.
Stephen Miller
Thank you, Mr. Vice President. And welcome to all the state attorney.
David Pakman
And look at the grin on his face. The sort of look at this look of the sort of. I just did a funny. Can we change grammar arbitrarily to my liking? Now, I don't, I don't want to make this show primarily about grammar. I'd rather make it about spelling if it were up to me. But here's the easy way to remember it. Are they attorneys or are they, are they generals? Well, they're attorneys. So therefore it's attorneys general, you might call it. You think about it this way. They are general attorneys for the states they represent. They're the most general attorney there is, the overarching attorney, and there's many of these attorneys. Okay, I'm doing this not because I love grammar, but because the Vice President is an embarrassment. Then we get to the substance, and this is where, like, do they realize what they sound like? Here is JD Doing his sanctimonious rant about how fraud is bad and we should want to get rid of it. It's a little bit ironic coming from a guy in this administration.
J.D. Vance
And as I've said repeatedly, this does not need to be. This should not be a partisan effort. Everybody should care about fraud. Everybody should care about rooting out fraud. Everybody should care about saving the American taxpayers money. And importantly, everybody should care about actually protecting the programs that only work and are only properly funded if it's not. If the money funding those programs isn't being stolen by fraudsters.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner
So.
David Pakman
Well, we do care about fraud. That's why we want you out. That's why we want Trump and JD Vance gone. We are against the ballroom because we care about fraud. We are against Doge because we care about fraud. We're against Trump's cell phone scam because we care about fraud. We're against. And listen, we're even talking about the slush fund. Trump's getting money from other countries, billions and trillions. We do care about fraud. The problem is we have people in power who are perpetrating it rather than rooting it out. Finally, the Prince of darkness, Stephen Miller, was there, and he makes completely unhinged claims about social welfare programs. Now, let me concede something to you, because this is a. This has a long, dark history in American politics. This type of thing that he says goes back 40, 50 years. If social welfare programs really did work the way he claims, it would make a lot more sense to be against them. Listen to what he says.
Stephen Miller
The points that Andrew hit on his remarks. All of the systems in our country, whether you're talking about voting, whether you're talking about entitlements, whether you're talking about welfare benefits, were set up based on the honor system. They're set up based on the idea that you could trust the average person through their own morality, to abide by the rules and comply with the law. And so the way most welfare works in most states in most places is we take your word for it. If you fill out a piece of paper and you say your kids are hungry, you are going to get food stamps, we don't check as a country if you even have kids. In fact, as basic as that, we don't even check if you even have children. You will just start getting the checks. And so what's happened to our country is we became a society, as you've seen, with the Somali refugee problem in Minnesota where you have a large number of people that are not following the honor system.
David Pakman
They're so this is completely untrue. There is no honor system. It just that it's just not the case. Now he's talking about food stamps. Food stamps require verifying household composition and the identities of the members you need to provide birth certificates, school records, Social Security cards, etc. It's not the honor system. None of what he's saying is true. We recently with, with, with our kids, my partner takes the, has them as dependents and immediately upon filing her taxes she got a thing saying, hey, we got to verify the identities of these kids. We need Social Security cards, send in records if they are enrolled in any kind of daycare is so untrue. Now if it were true that the way it worked is you sign up for whatever, food stamps, free health insurance, but there's no verification, child tax credits, all of it, and you just get, you just get the money, it would make a lot more sense to go, man, I'm skeptical of this program. I don't know if this is being run in the right way. Should there be more oversight? Sure, I love more oversight. With any program you have a free rider program, you have to free rider problem. You've got to figure out what's the right amount of enforcement. And this is not unique to the United States, it's not unique to Somalis. And whatever he's talking about in Minnesota with food stamps, with any program, you need to find the right amount of enforcement that is going to get the largest number of people to be honest and do enough sort of trust but verify to catch people that are not being honest. And this is, this is a global problem with any kind of social welfare program and it's been figured out. But he wants you to believe it's just the honor system. Everybody's lying about it, all this stuff. Well, I guess we should get rid of these programs, shouldn't we? Part of the lie is lying about what the programs even are to get people to be opposed to them. Part of why we're doing a one day membership drive on June 9th is because we must build independent media to beat back and resist exactly these types of corrosive lies which if believed get people to go Maybe we should get rid of food stamps. That's dangerous. So I would love for you to join us for this one day membership special on June 9th. It'll be basically funding the David Pakman show into and beyond the 2026 elections and giving us a good start into 2028. On the 9th, an email will go out explaining how to get the one day membership discount. All you need to do today is get on my newsletter so that then you'll get that email on June 9th. Go to David pakman.com/substack. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit. Who is he suing and why? And so much more, including the White House UFC fight. I know, I know all of that and more on today's bonus show.
Episode Title: Texas Collapse and Health Collapse in the Same Day
Host: David Pakman
Date: May 27, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode dissects two major developing crises: the political upheaval in Texas, with Republicans suddenly fearing the loss of a Senate seat, and a growing storm around Donald Trump's health, prompting defensive public relations from his team. The episode features sharp political analysis, key moments from recent Texas elections, critical discussion of Trump’s physical and cognitive state (with expert medical input), and media highlights, including Fox News moments and Republican rhetoric.
Texas Senate Race May Be Flipping
Trump’s Strategy
GOP Response and Internal Fractures
Trump’s Health: Increasing Public Concern
Medical Expert Weighs In:
Propaganda Meltdown
Visible New Symptoms
Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov Silences the Panel
J.D. Vance’s Blunders
Stephen Miller’s Unfounded Rants
Trump’s Endorsement of Paxton (Reading from Truth Social):
“His opponent, Alfred E. Newman, referring to Talarico… is a vegan who dislikes meat… God bless America.” (03:49)
Republican Voter on Trump’s Control: “Makes me sick that the Republican Party is…controlled by one man, Trump… not voting for Paxton. No. Hell, no.” (13:08)
Pakman on Cult Politics: "It’s dangerous to turn your political party into a personality cult…some voters are going to stop feeling represented and start feeling controlled.” (13:33)
Dr. Jonathan Reiner on Trump Health: “Bruising…not credible. Severe edema…chronic insomnia is a severe illness… increases risk of dementia…” (36:04)
Pakman on Propaganda: “They are very aware of the concerns about Trump... They want you to think Trump is just blinking while sleeping at meetings.” (30:33)
Jessica Tarlov Silences Fox Hosts:
“Donald Trump needs a midterms deal more than he needs a nuclear deal at this point…” (52:11)
J.D. Vance Flounders over 'Attorneys General':
“It’s attorneys general, right? …I’m never going to be able to get that right…” (59:54)
Stephen Miller’s Fabrication:
"We don't check as a country if you even have kids … you will just start getting the checks.” (62:54)
David Pakman’s tone is sharp, sarcastic, and analytic, sprinkled with humor and incredulity at the GOP’s tactics and PR efforts. The show is engaging, with clear liberal/progressive alignment, bolstered by expert voices (Dr. Reiner), and always returning to the theme of facts versus spin.
This episode is an incisive exploration of the Republican panic in Texas—marked by desperate, personalities-over-policy attacks—and the mounting and increasingly public health concerns about Donald Trump. Pakman provides both fact-based debunking and social commentary, exposing Republican infighting, the hollowness of their culture-war attacks, and the propaganda circus surrounding Trump’s medical state. Media analysis (Fox News, Republican rhetoric) demonstrates the bankruptcy of right-wing talking points when faced with reality-based pushback.
Contact: Comments/questions: info@davidpakman.com
Membership Drive: June 9 – details at davidpakman.com/substack