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- [00:00]
David Pakman
Today we've got a packed show, including Donald Trump claiming Iran wanted to meet with him, only to have Iran publicly say that's not happening. We will look at why declaring victory before negotiations even happen is a terrible negotiating strategy. And then just one day after losing at the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, Trump has a new plan that would shred the Constitution. We're also going to look at eye popping new financial disclosures from the president showing somewhere between hundreds of millions and more than a billion dollars in crypto income, while millions or tens of millions of Americans just keep struggling with the cost of living. And the Republicans will be holding a midterm convention in September. This could be a very bad idea if they want voters to forget about the problems of this administration. And serious Questions about Mitch McConnell's health are not going away much more today. Let's get into it. All right, let's get into it. Remember just a couple of days ago when Donald Trump triumphantly posted on Truth so Social after declaring the Iran war over 40 times, quote, Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha. Now, the implication was very obvious. Trump wanted to believe what Trump wanted us to believe, that Iran blinked, that after the fighting that swelled back up after supposedly the war was over and we had a deal is ending because Iran is coming to him with their hats in their hands and saying, please, sir, negotiate with us. Hey, sir, please. There was just one problem. Iran immediately said, well, that's not true. Their foreign ministry publicly denied that any direct meeting with the United States had been scheduled and said there aren't going to be any negotiations with American officials at any level in the coming days. Trump says, we're meeting and it's going to be over for the 41st time. And Iran goes, we have no meeting scheduled whatsoever. Now, today we know what actually happened. American officials did go to Doha, but instead of sitting down directly with Iranian negotiators, they met with Qatari mediators while technical discussions were proceeding separately. Now, even Trump himself softened on the language afterwards, saying the countries were getting along very well. Rather than saying, yes, Iran asked for a meeting. Yes, it's face to face, we're going to do it. So Trump having to backtrack, which is very rare by the way, for Donald Trump, this has become one of the strangest wars in modern history. First it was Schrodinger's War. It was a war and it wasn't a war. Depending on what was most politically or legally convenient. Then the war ended 40 times. I guess this is the most Ended war we've seen, and yet it's continuing. But every few days, Donald Trump is declaring victory, and he says that it's over and peace is here and the deal is done and negotiations are happening. And then something comes along that we call reality, and there's a not so fast moment. And again, the missiles are flying, and again, Donald Trump is threatening to destroy the entire country. And again, Iran contradicts Donald Trump and new conditions emerge, and the war that has been over so many times turns out to not really be over. And what we are running up against is that leverage doesn't work the way Trump thinks it works. If you have leverage, you don't have to constantly tell everybody how much leverage you have. And one of the biggest mistakes a negotiator can make is giving away leverage for free. And that's what this administration has done so many times. Now, when you make an announcement that the other side is desperate to meet with you before they've even agreed to meet, you have now painted yourself into a corner. Because if they simply say, no, we didn't agree to that, what are you left with? And now they know you're really eager for a deal. They know you're. You're desperate to announce that you're making progress and that you're willing to declare victory before you've won anything. That's information for them. It's weakness. It's bargaining from a position of, I need something rather than, I'd like to have something, but I'm just as happy to walk away. And there's another kind of uncomfortable reality that we have to contend with, which is that Iran doesn't respect Trump nearly as much as he wants people to believe. And in fact, we have learned that Iran has used what they describe as Donald Trump's mental illness against him in negotiations. If Iran did respect Trump the way Trump claims they do, they wouldn't be repeatedly and publicly contradicting him, and they wouldn't be in a situation where they are denying they're sort of allowing him to make these grand announcements, and then they turn around and. And then they deny that there's any truth to it within hours. Because they understand when we embarrass Trump, when we embarrass the President of the United States, we weaken him politically. And they seem very happy to be doing that. So this is a. It's a pattern we've been seeing for a long time. You get an all caps, truth social post, Iran desperate to meet. Then comes the declaration of total victory, because everybody respects me so much and is so afraid of me. And then in comes a reality check, which is the quiet revision of what was happening. Well, we're getting along well and there are technical discussions happening. It's trying to make it reality television, but it's international diplomacy. And at least in terms of what should be done, you don't announce the finale before you filmed the ending because things can go in a different direction. And when you're negotiating partner contradicts your version of events while you're still trying to negotiate, it is very embarrassing. It's a sign that your credibility is at zero. Credibility is leverage in diplomacy. Trump has spent his credibility and I don't see any way that he gets it back. So what Trump now has to hope for is that the priorities and the motivations and the incentives align in such a way that that Iran really will want to make a deal because Iran has figured out Trump is so quick to announce things that haven't happened that we can just keep stretching this thing out and realistically we will get a better and better deal. And case in point, Trump hated the Obama Iran nuclear deal. It was terrible. It was too weak, all of that stuff. But now we're in a situation where the best traffic Trump could hope to do is a weaker version of Iran's deal. Iran knows this. You can say a lot of bad things about Iran, including that authoritarian theocratic regimes make me sick. And they do. But if we're also just being honest and frank, we have to acknowledge that Iran does seem to know at least somewhat, what they're doing with regard to these negotiations. And they understand Trump has given away a ton of leverage, but with these premature declarations, as we might call them, and now he has the uphill battle or the timing, the unfortunate timing, if you're Donald Trump and Republicans, of needing stability to justify people voting for you in November. I'll mention one other thing about that. There are other times in American history where being in the middle of a war provided strength to the sitting president in the sense that people would say, well, this is a war that we agree with, at least to some degree, and we don't want to change horses midstream. If this is a Republican war, then we want to stick with Republicans in the midterms. But this war is so unpopular, it's cost each American household $1,000 so far. And that sticker price is going up. It's so unpopular that you need this thing over by really not even November, probably by a month from now, August 1st. And this is putting Trump in a delightfully difficult situation. It is globally humiliating, but it is also delightful in that it is yet another self inflicted bit of damage that Trump is doing to himself. And then just wait until you see what he's doing with the Constitution. Yesterday, Donald Trump suffered one of the biggest legal defeats of his second term. And as I told you yesterday, and we delved into in detail, the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to end birthright citizenship within an executive order. And the Supreme Court sort of begrudgingly in that three justices were happy to go with it. But the Supreme Court, in a decision that went 6 to 3, reaffirmed that the 14th Amendment protects just about everybody, unless you're the son of a diplomat or the son of an invading army. If you were born on American soil, you're a citizen, even if your parents are undocumented, even if your parents are here on a student or tourist visa. And even with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, they weren't willing to give Trump what he wanted. So is Trump giving up? No. Trump has a new plan and he announced it, as he tends to do on Truth Social, where he says, quote, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, which is too bad for our country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through legislation with the support of the president, that has now been determined. During this process, no long and unwieldy constitutional amendment is necessary. Congress should start today to work on ending expensive and unfair to our country birthright citizenship. They will have my complete and total support. Now, there is a little problem with Donald Trump's idea, which is that this is not how the Constitution works. It's a, it's inconvenient for Trump, I acknowledge. But the 14th Amendment is part of the Constitution and it says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to, to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. And so when the Supreme Court says that is constitutional language that protects birthright citizenship, Congress can't pass an ordinary law saying, hey, never mind, it's not the way our legal system works. Our legal system has a hierarchy, and the Constitution is sort of at the top of that hierarchy. Federal statutes passed by Congress are underneath that. And so in the law, an ordinary law can't override the Constitution any more than imagine a city council wants to pass an ordinance that overrides federal law. Doesn't work that way. So if Congress passed a law tomorrow saying, hey, you know what, Babies born in the United States are no longer automatically citizens, it depends on who their parents are, etc. They that would immediately immediately be challenged in court. And under yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, it would be struck down as unconstitutional. So if you are really committed to changing birthright citizenship, you can do it. Things can be changed, but you have to understand how to change them. And to change birthright citizenship, you need to change the Constitution itself, meaning you need to put in an additional constitutional amendment that is deliberately difficult to do in American government. The amendment has to be approved by two thirds of the House and the Senate. That is not going to happen. And then it has to be ratified by 3,4 of the states, which means 38 out of 50 state legislatures would have to approve it. Why is that the process? Because that's the process that the founders and. And the Reconstruction Congress created because they didn't want fundamental constitutional rights to change. When a political party temporarily gets power, or to put it a different way, it's supposed to be difficult to change. It's a feature, not a bug. Trump sees it as a bug. It would be unwieldy and difficult to make a constitutional amendment. This is why Donald Trump, recognizing how difficult it would be, now says, well, Congress can do it just by passing a law, and they can't. So think about how remarkable and sort of pathetic and also terrifying at the same time this is. Trump loses at the Supreme Court. And hours later, instead of saying, well, you know what? We are going to pursue a constitutional amendment which would at least acknowledge reality, he's saying to people, we don't need a constitutional amendment. We just need to get Congress to pass a law. The Constitution is an inconvenience to the very people who told us we love the Constitution. We see the Constitution almost like a sacred text. But now it's like, hey, if you don't like what the Constitution says, you just pretend that it says something different. And remember that this entire thing of birthright citizenship is not an obscure technicality. The right loves to argue that, listen, it was sort of like, devised in a different world. And the way that it's being used now to get the children of undocumented immigrant citizenship is technically acceptable based on the writing, but it's not what was intended. Birthright citizenship is not just based on federal statute. It's rooted in the text of the 14th Amendment. It was adopted after the Civil War to overturn one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history and to put a clear constitutional rule there about who is an American citizen. And that's been reaffirmed by courts for well over a century. So you can argue the Constitution should be amended. It's a legitimate argument to say a lot of countries have decided it's better for them not to have the sort of birthright citizenship that we have in the United States. We can agree or disagree, but the point is that's a legitimate argument to make. People are free to advocate for that. It's democracy to do that. And we have a process constitutional amendment. But the president putting a truth post up saying, oh, Congress can just make a law, and then poof, the 14th amendment is overridden right after the Supreme Court has reaffirmed. That is not a serious legal argument. Now, with Trump, you never know. Is he misunderstanding how the Constitution works? Is he hoping the public doesn't know the difference? It's sort of hard to say when you're talking about Donald Trump, but certainly he doesn't care about the Constitution and he would be glad to shred it if it's useful to him. And this is why, as I've argued in my book the Echo Machine, it's pointless to argue the merits of their political philosophy with them because they will argue with you that the Constitution is the most important thing until they're blue in the face, if that's what's politically advantageous to them at the time. And if it's, we want to get rid of birthright citizenship. And you go, well, hold on, the Constitution, which you care about, has the 14th amendment. All of a sudden, they don't care about the Constitution. So let's not waste time arguing with them over stuff they don't even really believe. Let's remove them from power and take power back to much smarter and better use of time. No one is going to this stupid state fair of Donald Trump's in Washington, D.C. the entire thing collapsed on live television, and it is truly embarrassing. An incredible moment at Trump's state fair as literally tens of people came out to watch reality show contestant and Transportation secretary Sean Duffy on Fox News. I think that we. Listen, I had more people at my house for the World cup game of Argentina versus Jordan. All right. I mean, look at, look at this. Top of a new hour right now. America Reports is live from the Great American State Fair as the country continues celebrating its 250th birthday. And as you can see, there's a couple hundred people there. I mean, like, it's, people don't seem to give a damn about this stupid state fair. And first it was, well, it rained, now it's too hot. Right? I think people just don't give a damn. There's a funny moment where Fox, Fox is like very much involved in this thing because they're, they're co sponsoring, hosting, who even knows? They're very involved. And they did Fox News live from the state fair. And they go, we have so many people here eager to see this fair. And then the video pans and it's just empty. Look at this.
- [17:29]
Jeff Landry
But we have heard plenty from people
- [17:31]
David Pakman
who've been showing up eager to see what America states are showcasing.
- [17:35]
Donald Trump
So we'll watch you all the way down here.
- [17:37]
David Pakman
And then as this is no one in the background, they found one family and there, it's just, it's completely empty. And of course, no matter when you, you, you show video, they go, oh, that one moment was less busy because it was earlier, it was late or it was raining or it was hot or it was cloudy or the barometric pressure was just a little bit off or, you know, we needed six chimpanzees to dance on the head of a pin in order for the thing to be busy. We then heard hilariously from Governor Jeff Landry who goes, it's unbelievable to see people out here. And that's right, we don't believe that there are people out there because we're not seeing any of them. Well, thank you for having me to have you here. It is sunny, it is hot, but it is a celebration indeed.
- [18:24]
Jeff Landry
It is wonderful. I mean, it is just unbelievable to see people out here.
- [18:27]
David Pakman
And as you see in the background, there's almost no one in the city. Did you stop by the Louisiana?
- [18:33]
Jeff Landry
No, that's where I'm headed now.
- [18:34]
David Pakman
Okay, next you and. Yes, yes, of course, Governor Landry. It's just all great and fantastic and then maybe the most embarrassing moment of this entire thing. This. I kind of felt bad for the musicians. 11am yesterday they had a musical time slot. I think there were more musicians in the band than spectators. Take a look at this. There's no one there. We were told, massive patriotic celebration. We're going to have huge crowds. People are going to come from all over the country. It is day after day of barely anyone at this stupid thing. And notice the pattern, which is that every time the crowd is visibly sparse. There's a new explanation. The first day it was the rain, then it was the heat, then it was, well, it's early, Then it was, it's late. There's also the, there's sports going on, there's World cup games. What about. There just isn't that much public interest. First of all, no one who is on the Left, or even just a reasonable centrist is going to want to go to this thing because it's been built up as a completely partisan hackery event. So you've already alienated half the country, and then a lot of people can't afford to travel to D.C. right now because Trump's promises about the economy have fallen flat. And so what you end up is a complete and total disconnect. And the other funny disconnect is they keep saying that it's busy and then you see the cameras and it's not. And they go, there are such enthusiastic crowds and every shot you see, there's. There's just nobody there. And I think that the bigger story here is when reality is optional, which it has become in the Trump era, if everyone around you is afraid to acknowledge what is plainly visible, you end up with these claims that your own live video contradicts. And that is exactly what we are being here. And they've been talking about a golden age celebration. It's going to be like nothing anyone has ever seen before. And it's just going to be amazing. You don't need polls or pundits to tell the story. People can just look and there's empty fields and there's nobody there. And the broader political point I think, to be made here is we're about to hit a midterm election. Midterm elections in particular, with their typically lower turnout than, than presidential elections, enthusiasm really makes a difference. And if the administration can't even generate excitement at their own patriotic signature event, that bodes very poorly for them heading into the campaign season and early voting and the ultimate election, which at this point is just four months away, believe it or not. So this is looking very, very ugly. I am. I mean, listen, if I sound like I'm taking pleasure in the fact that it's screwy, I kind of am. I'm glad that this is failing, but more importantly, I'm glad that it signals that the election could be really terrible for these. 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Now, before I give you the numbers, just remember Donald Trump spent the campaign with this populist slop that none of us believed, telling struggling Americans that he was going to be their champion. He understood what it's like to pay too much for groceries, even though he had never heard the word before until the campaign apparently. Too much for gas, too much for electricity and rent and the mortgage he said inflation under Biden is crushing families. And the day I get back, relief is going to be on the way. We just got a remarkable look at who has gotten richer during the first year or so of Donald Trump's second term because he put out his annual financial disclosure. These numbers are mind blowing. Depending on which categories you include, the calculation is that Trump made somewhere between, listen to this. 600 million and over a billion dollars just from crypto currencies. In 2025, CNBC calculated more than 580 million in direct crypto income. The Associated Press and NBC News counted also crypto businesses and crypto royalties. And with that included, it's more like 1.2 to 1.4 billion that Trump made in a year from crypto. That's just crypto. We'll get to the other parts. Here is Bloomberg. Even the Bloomberg people seem sort of shocked by the grift.
- [26:42]
Reporter
And back to that breaking news I just mentioned. The Office of Government Ethics has released the financial disclosure reports for President Trump as well as the Vice president President. And among President Trump's disclosures is that $1 billion more than that in crypto related earnings. He also owns millions of dollars worth of shares in Nvidia, Apple and Palantir. So for more, we turn to power moves with Bloomberg's Romaine Bostick.
- [27:03]
David Pakman
I'm really curious. I'm, I'm not saying this to be sarcastic or, or mean in any way. If you live in Arkansas or wherever and you're making the average income, the median income for your state, and you're trying to figure out how do I pay for groceries, and I voted for Trump to help with that, and how do I pay for gas? And I voted for Trump to bring down gas prices, but they're actually up rather than down. How do you feel hearing that just from his crypto stuff? Donald Trump made almost a billion and a half dollars in a year. How do you feel? Do you feel like Trump is doing what he promised to do? Here's another report. Similarly, looking at the number two years
- [27:55]
Financial Analyst
into term to look what happens. His net worth goes from $2.3 billion to $6.5 billion. All of this is crypto in one form or another. He has become the crypto king, even though during Trump 1.0 he was against crypto. He thought crypto was kind of a scam.
- [28:13]
David Pakman
Yeah, well, he didn't know how to make money from it then.
- [28:15]
Financial Analyst
It kind of is, as we know. So where did the money come from? He had 4, 4 billion dollars he and his family of profits, 3 billion of it came from crypto. And I will tell you, there are so many transactions here, so many structures, it made my head hurt even trying to understand it. But just to give you an example, he took Trump Media, which is the company he started to create Truth Social, and it raised a bunch of money from investors, and he went out and bought a whole bunch of. Of crypto. With that, he sold Meme coins. I'm going to talk more about this in a minute, but remember, the dollar, Trump dollar, Melania coins, all that contributed profit. So crypto, crypto, crypto, crypto all the way, made some money from finance. This is Jared raising all of his money from the Middle east and the profits that are anticipated from it. And then there were also some benefits he got. For example, he raised the, the admission fee at Mar a lago from $100,000 to $1,000,000.
- [29:13]
David Pakman
Right?
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Financial Analyst
Money he took from the law firms.
- [29:15]
David Pakman
You get the picture? Okay, you get, he's just making money hand over fist. Now, this is just one year, okay? This is 2025. This is while being the President of the United States. He has a job, but he's still making billions. Now, meanwhile, what has happened to the average American? What has happened to you? People are standing in grocery stores wondering, why did I just spend 120 bucks and got almost nothing? Families are watching their utility bills go up every single month. Why am I paying so much for gas? Young people are increasingly not even thinking about buying homes anymore because prices are out of control. Parents are wondering, how do I afford, afford child care, especially when the childcare sometimes costs more than my net salary after taxes. And you've got tens of millions of people living paycheck to paycheck. These are the people Trump said he was fighting for, the people that he promised, you're going to get a break. I'm finally going to fix things for you. And so the biggest winner of 2025, financially, thanks to this administration, is Trump. Crypto, golf clubs, licensing, brand merchandise, foreign business agreements. And so we now have a picture of a president whose wealth is exploding on a percentage basis and on just a raw numbers basis. And Americans are still saying the same thing as during the campaign. When am I going to feel better? And what stands out is that Trump didn't campaign on making himself richer. He campaigned on making you richer. He didn't say, vote for me and my crypto businesses are going to do great. He said, your grocery bill would come down. That hasn't happened. Your energy costs would come down. Hasn't happened. Housing will be more affordable. Hasn't happened. We are going to be so prosperous, he told us, that ordinary people would immediately notice the difference. And instead we've got people struggling and insane financial disclosures where the biggest financial success story of Trump's second term is Trump and his family. Now, the White House says there's no conflicts of interest here. We'll hear Trump asked about that in a moment. Because Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his sons, and every action that the administration takes is in the public interest. The disclosures also are reporting income and revenue, not profit. They say, Bo, but this is all about priorities. And there is something incredibly jarring and disgusting about watching tens of millions of Americans continue to struggle just with basic cost of living. It's not like, well, listen, I couldn't get the five star hotel on my latest vacation, so I took the four star hotel. No, it's just struggling with basic cost of living. And we Learned Trump made 1.4 billion from crypto in 2025. If you ask voters during the campaign who will be the biggest beneficiary of the Trump presidency, I don't think most of the people voting for Trump would have said, well, Trump will be the biggest beneficiary, but that's the answer. And we've got to do something to try to start dampening this down and voting these people out. We can't vote Trump out, but we can vote out the people that rubber stamp everything he does in November. That would be probably a good start. Donald Trump attempted to speak to reporters before taking his first flight on his free plane. And you get a free plane. Donald Trump was confronted about the conflict of interest with the plane and the new financial disclosures where we find out that while tens of millions of Americans are struggling, Trump made 1.4 billion in 2025 just from crypto and tripled his net worth. A reporter says critics say you're profiting from the presidency, and Trump goes only because the stock market is so high.
- [33:12]
Reporter
But to critics who say, to critics who say you're profiting off the presidency.
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Donald Trump
Mr. Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a, you have a 401k, how is your 401k done? It's up 85%. Thank you, President Trump.
- [33:28]
David Pakman
Thank you. Trump is literally standing in front of a plane gifted to him by the Qataris, which might become his personal plane after he's done being president. And he Says he's not profiting. Don't look at the $400 million plane plus the taxpayer cost of refitting the plane. I'm not profiting from the presidency. No, no, no, not at all. He was then pressed on the financial disclosures showing, hey, look, you made 1.4 billion off of crypto. And Trump goes, no, no, no, I don't get involved in that. I just, I don't know anything about it.
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Reporter
Your financial disclosure shows you at a very lucrative year last year. What message the average American?
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Donald Trump
Well, you know, I don't get involved in my personal. We have funds that run my money.
- [34:19]
Reporter
Well, you are benefiting from.
- [34:21]
Donald Trump
Well, I've made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money and I don't talk to them. I never, I don't even speak to them. So I have many people, I don't know what they call closed accounts or something. You put your money in and that's it. I don't talk to them. They're big institutions and they run it. But, yeah, I've had a great career in business. I've had a great career.
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Financial Analyst
Yeah.
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Donald Trump
I don't know if I've had a better career in politics or business.
- [34:46]
David Pakman
You know, know, you, I, I try to just kind of always be sensitive to everything, and you would have to be an idiot to fall for this. Trump goes, I'm not involved in it. It's in a trust, it's in funds. I don't talk to the people. Trump knows whether his name is going on something. Trump knows whether he's selling a new Chachki. Trump knows whether there's a Trump coin or a Melania coin, and when, to the degree that his kids are managing a lot of these businesses, of course, Trump knows what's going on. The idea that he. I don't, I don't know. People manage it. I don't know what's going on, really. You have no idea that there's, there's a world financial, whatever it is that they're calling it, and it's a crypto company and you're making a ton of money from it. You have no idea about that because your kids are running it. Come on. Are people this stupid that they would fall for that? Trump then starts, I mean, nothing more relatable than bragging about your newest plane when you already have, I guess, Trump 757 and the two Air Force, the two 747 that are Air Force One, when Trump is on them, those three planes aren't enough. Trump is now very relatably talking about his fourth plane, the one given to him by the Qatari will be the
- [35:59]
Donald Trump
first flight of what I think is maybe the greatest commercial, commercial plane ever built. I said to Boeing, what's the best one? They said, this is the best plane ever built, and you're going to have the privilege of flying it. And I have a privilege also of flying it. But this is the first flight. We're going to the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library opening, and that'll be very good. That'll be a lot of fun. But I think, you know, to be honest with you, I'm excited about the first one. It's.
- [36:32]
David Pakman
We look so weak. We look so weak when we have a president so easy to placate and to ingratiate yourself with him, that he just goes, they gave me a beautiful plane. It's just so great. But I'm super strong and an independent thinker. Nobody can trick me. No, no, no. But they don't want anything in return. They just gave me a plane. That's it. Trump suggests to a reporter, you want a Pulitzer Prize? Take a picture of this beautiful plane.
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Jeff Landry
Not yet.
- [37:04]
Donald Trump
You know what? A Pulitzer Prize. A picture of the plane. Margo, are you taking care of everybody? How's Margo? Okay.
- [37:12]
David Pakman
Margot's great. Margot is great. Relevant question. What did taxpayers cost to outfit and upgrade the plane? And Trump goes, very, very little. Very, very little. Because it was mostly just a gift.
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Reporter
Go, Mr. President, what's your favorite upgrade to the new plane, and how much did it cost American taxpayers to upgrade the plane?
- [37:32]
Donald Trump
Of course, very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way. So this was a gift from a country that's treated us very well, and they're an ally of us over in the Middle East. Qatar, Right. And I went to Boeing, I said, who has the best one? They said, Qatar. There's no. There's never been a plane like it, frankly. We couldn't build a plane like this because we wouldn't be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars. So the head of Boeing said, this is considered the best 747 they've ever built. And I went to Qatar, I said, I'd like to use it for a period of time because the other ones, as you know, are under construction. They'll be here in two years. And because, you know, the plane is 35 years old. So I said, I'd like to use it anyway.
- [38:20]
David Pakman
It's a true love story with this, with this damn plane. And it turns out you paid to upgrade Trump's new plane. He plans to personally take the plane after being president. It's still unclear whether that's really going to happen, but Trump would love that. What a corrupt day. As we learn, Trump tripled his net worth and now gets a free plane. And people are still like, man, gas is expensive. How am I going to afford this next tank of gas? Finally, Trump on Iran. Remember, it's a cease fire and the war is over. Trump goes, we hit him very hard, but we're getting along really well as
- [38:54]
Donald Trump
far as things are going. The nuclearization of Iran is moving along well. They've had very good meetings and we'll see. We hit them very hard for three nights, as you know, but we're getting along very well. So I call it the nuclearization.
- [39:12]
David Pakman
What a cease fire. As far as things and stuff go, it's all going fantastically well. A cease fire where we're hitting them very hard. Maybe the most corrupt and cronyistic 24 hours of Trump's political career, if I dare say. All right. Remember a week ago when I asked, do we need proof of life from former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at this point in time, we are now one week later and somehow, somehow we know nothing more than we did a week ago. 84 year old Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was hospitalized on June 14th. His office initially didn't tell us where he was hospitalized nor why. They just said he's getting excellent care. Now we know where he is, but we still don't know what condition sent him to the hospital. We have no news that he has been discharged. We have no substantive information about his health. And this is a remarkable situation. In a lot of other moments, if one of 100 senators, former Senate Majority leader and one of the more senior senators in the Senate were missing with an unknown illness for what is now 16, 17 days. That would be a complete 24 hour story. What is happening with Mitch McConnell. But it's not really getting that much attention. This is someone who until recently was the leader in the Senate, the Republican leader, and he's been there 40 years. One of the most influential figures in Washington. And more than two weeks later, the official update is essentially nothing. A spokesperson said on Monday, we don't have any new information to share right now. That's it. Now, because of the information vacuum, of course, the speculation has gone off the rails. Last week we talked about rumors that he may already be dead. There are rumors that he's on life support. There are rumors that this entire thing is a huge cover up. I have of course not seen credible evidence for any of those claims. These are totally reasonable questions to ask, but we've not seen evidence of them. Congressman Andy Barr says, oh, I texted with Mitch McConnell and he said he's good. Well, if he's good, why is he still in the hospital? Now, could it be true that he's recovering or improving? Yeah. Could it be a completely deceptive, misleading attempt to run interference? Yes, yes. It's just all we have right now. And that's really the story. Almost no official information. And so of course, people are filling in the blanks. And the less transparency there is, the more the conspiracy theories are going to grow. And this is why I've been saying for a long time now we need actual standards for disclosing the health of top elected officials. There must be a process that can't be interfered with. And you might say, well, what about hipaa? Well, it wouldn't necessarily be an issue of HIPAA if the standards are that the offices of these elected officials need to be sharing what's going on. HIPAA applies of course to medical professionals, but you can have exceptions if that. Listen, just going, but what about hipaa? There can be exceptions to HIPAA for issues of national security, like the absolute top political officials. It's not that we want to violate people's privacy. These people exercise enormous power. And as I said last week, if the CEO of a publicly traded company is gone for two weeks after an emergency hospitalization with no explanation of why he was hospitalized, no confirmation that they left the hospital, and the only update is, oh, someone texted them and they're good investors would lose their minds. But somehow it's acceptable when we're talking about people running the federal government. So listen, I don't like Mitch McConnell as an elected official. I genuinely hope that he recovers. I'm not rooting against him. But we deserve more than rumors at this point in time. We deserve more than this anonymous speculation and a report that someone texted with him that he's fine. Because whether the rumors are true or false, the total lack of transparency is allowing the rumors to spread. So you tell me, what do you believe is going on with Mitch McConnell? And I want to say one other thing. I got a bunch of emails last week after I reported the rumors that people are going is even alive. People who said, david, I follow politics pretty damn closely. I haven't even heard about this story. And I write about this extensively in my forthcoming book Pay Attention, which is that we are increasingly in parallel informational environments where even people who follow what's happening politically are getting algorithmically curated feeds and many people aren't even hearing about significant stories like the former Senate Majority Leader and an important vote in the Senate has been missing for more than two weeks with no explanation as to why he was hospitalized. A bunch of people wrote to me and said I didn't even know that was going on that topic. These parallel informational environments I talk about extensively in my book. I would be flattered if you preordered this book. There are a limited number of signed copies available. You can read about all formats of the book Signed not Signed audiobook ebook at David pakman.com/audition please let me know if you've preordered the book. We love hearing from people and I'm going to have an extra little offer for everybody who has preordered it, which I think I'm going to be announcing on Monday, but it's an extra goodie so that is forthcoming I used to think that my phone was good enough for recording meetings until I actually needed to do a bunch of follow up, find something I missed. And if you miss one detail all of a sudden you can't follow up correctly and you've got to listen to your entire recording. That's why the Plod Note Pro has become such a useful tool for me. It's one of our sponsors today. It's about the size of a credit card, thin enough to slide into a wallet, attaches magnetically to the back of my phone. I hit record, I stay present in the meeting. Plod transcribes the conversation, it'll separate speakers and it'll summarize key points, turns them into action items and later I can search all of it with Ask Plod. It has up to 50 hours of battery life, which my phone definitely does not. It also is built around enterprise level privacy and security. Plot is for meetings, calls, interviews, any conversation where the follow through matters go to plod.AI/pacman and use code PACMAN for 17% off all products. The link is in the description it's great to have American elections attorney Mark Elias back on the program. Also founder of Democracy Docket. Mark Listen, we We've been covering the Supreme Court decisions of Monday and Tuesday. We've been covering demands for legislation like the Save America act which would impact election elections. The big picture is it's all seeming pretty bad to me and I don't want to, you know, we're at a time that sometimes we say we're getting ready to celebrate and we're going to cookouts and we're doing these different things. The state of, of law in the United States right now is seeming not so good. Can you give us like a 40,000 foot view and then we'll drill down on some specific areas?
- [46:56]
Mark Elias
Yeah. I think that you have to look at this from two different perspectives simultaneously. On the one hand, as you say, the recent Supreme Court term taken as a whole is a harbinger of not great things. The cases that were lost were important cases for rule of law in the Constitution and democracy. We can start with the Clay case, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. You could go to the case that we just saw involving Donald Trump's ability to fire a commissioner on the ftc. You could look at some of the immigration cases and say things are really not great. And frankly, you could look at even some of the cases we won. The voting by mail case that my law firm and I were involved in winning, it was 5, 4 on a proposition that frankly shouldn't have been that close. And probably most disturbingly, the birthright citizenship case, which, you know, remember when Donald Trump issued his executive order on day one about birthright citizenship, the working assumption was that it was not just unconstitutional, but it was damn near sanctionable for the lawyers at the Department of Justice to defend it. And in fact, several of the early federal courts, courts that reviewed it questioned the legal ethics of lawyers even defending it. And yet what we saw was a decision that came out the right way, but, you know, was quite narrow. I mean, it's reported as 6, 3, and that's technically true. But if you look at just the constitutional question, it was really a 5, 4 decision.
- [48:38]
David Pakman
Right.
- [48:39]
Mark Elias
So, you know, like, there are glimmers of good right in that, you know, you could say a win's a win and doesn't matter, 5, 4, 9, 0. But, you know, as you look out on the horizon, this is a court that is not a friend of democracy.
- [48:53]
David Pakman
When you look at Watson v. Rnc, this case that, that did go your way, having to do with whether ballots have to come in by election day or be postmarked by election day. We talked about this one with me as a layperson, as a non lawyer. And it seems to me that the only consistent standard, because we don't necessarily know how long a ballot will be in transit, the only logical consistent standard would be if you filled it out and mailed it by election day, it counts. And then it might take a day or two. Days or whatever to get in. But that's, that's the consistent standard. What were the arguments being made by opposing counsel as to why the ballots shouldn't count even if the individual has done their part, the voter, by filling it out and submitting it by the day of the election? And why did the court reject those arguments?
- [49:46]
Mark Elias
Yeah, so this is actually a good example of the, both the good and the bad about the, the term. Right. Because the good is that, as you say, the Supreme Court rejected these arguments. The bad is that four justices of the Supreme Court actually would have thrown out those ballots, which would have been hundreds of thousands of votes, upwards to a million votes would have been thrown in the trash. So the argument that the Republicans made, because it was literally the RNC that brought the lawsuit, was that the federal Election day statute that says that the election day in the United States for federal elections is held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, that that requires all the ballots to be in by that day. Now, if that seems like a non sequitur. It is a non sequitur. Like if it seems like a thin read upon which to build an argument to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, you're correct. You're not missing anything else. There was nothing more nuanced to this argument other than the election day statute. And yet you saw, like I said, a 5, 4 decision. The plus the good part. Well, the 5 came out the right way. The bad news is that the four justices that found otherwise, and when you read their arguments, it is both a combination of selective sort of pseudo history cobbled together with policy arguments. And to be honest with you, David, what you say is right. Common sense says the consistent thing is when the voter relinquishes the ballot, the practice in the United States with filing tax returns and other things is that postmarks are what matter. But I'll be the first one to
- [51:30]
Jeff Landry
say
- [51:32]
Mark Elias
Congress could pass a law that, that, that says otherwise. But here's the thing is it hasn't. It hasn't. And so the fact that some of the justices on the Supreme Court wish that Congress did or had or would like is not judging. Like that isn't the role of judges. And that is part of what is the unifying theory of this term is that the Supreme Court over and over again interposed its judgment for the judgment of Congress. And then people wonder why it is Congress is so inactive in defending democracy. Well, I'm not here to defend Congress, but like part of it is because the Supreme Court when they do defend democracy, the Supreme Court decides that they can't defend democracy.
- [52:17]
David Pakman
I, along with several other creators, were put on this new White House media offenders list. Does the list alone in and of itself seem to you like unconstitutional state retaliation, or is the existence of the list itself okay, but taking some subsequent steps would not be okay?
- [52:39]
Mark Elias
Yeah. So, first of all, I both offer my. My congratulations and my. My regrets that you are on the list. Right. Like. Like, like. The fact is that it is a sign that you are effective and it is a sign that. That you are doing your job. And frankly, I wish more people in the legacy media were as doing their job as effectively as you are doing it. So I just want to state that at the outset, as a legal matter, there's two sides to this coin. The first is that the government would say that it has a right to speech. In other words, it has a right to say its view. And to the extent all it is doing is conveying speech without any threat, without any actual real retaliation or anything behind it, it's allowed to say we don't like David Pakman in the same way that it can say it doesn't like the law firms. Right. It's the actions that they take. So I think that that is. That is, that is certainly supportable in the, in the case law. On the other hand. On the other hand, it is hard to square this White House's enemies lists with the idea that it is pure speech, because we have, in fact, seen them repeatedly take action. So one of the ways you judge whether a threat is a true threat. In other words, it is. It is actionable versus just, you know, speech is, Is contextual. And if you had an administration with no history of weaponizing government against political opponents, I would feel pretty confident being like, look, this is just the White House spewing off that it doesn't like you. On the other hand, this is a White House that has shown and a president that has shown that these statements are oftentimes acted upon through action. And therefore it can rise to the level of true threat, because it is no different than the mobster coming to your store and saying it would be a shame if something happened to your store. And on the one hand, they could say, well, look, that's just sponsored speech, but if it turns out that the last four stores they visited got. Got burned to the ground, like, now, that takes on a different context. So I think that. That it is. I think it is part of a effort by the. By this administration to intimidate and to convey real threats.
- [55:09]
David Pakman
What should those on the list and those who may one day be on the list be doing, if anything?
- [55:15]
Mark Elias
Look, I think the most important thing people on the list should be doing is what you are doing, which is you are not backing down, you are rising up, you are not self censoring. Instead, you are charging forward. And this is the great tragedy of our time, is that when democracy needed people, when the First Amendment was under challenge, the people with the most, you know, the people who had all of the resources and all of the assets and all of the ability to stand up and fight back, they are the ones who retreated. And it was people like you, David, who didn't do that. You didn't back down. You stood up strong and tall and you continued to speak the truth. So I just want to say that is the first thing you should do in terms of whether you do more than that, you know, whether you decide to bring legal action against the administration or not. You know, I have made the decision in my own case, you know, where you threatened me. I'm just going to keep speaking out and that'll be enough for now. But I mean, ultimately that is a personal decision.
- [56:20]
David Pakman
One of the areas we are actively all focused right now, and your law group is heavily involved in, is the Republican strategy to suppress voter turnout in these midterms that are now four months and a couple of days away. I guess so far, Trump's not really getting very far with the Save America Act. He tried to hold the housing bill hostage unless they would pass the Save America act, they don't seem to have the votes, but it seems as though at the state level, they are going full speed ahead with everything they can get away with. Can you kind of give us the lay of the land as to what's going on and what you're doing to try to stop it?
- [56:54]
Mark Elias
Yeah. So, you know, Donald Trump has a familiar pattern. He engages in irresponsible rhetoric, then he tries to escalate it through legislatures. Then when that fails, he goes to court. And when that fails, we have violence. Right. So in 2020, there was rhetoric. He tried to get state legislatures to do something, as you recall, or state officials to do something. He famously called Brad Ratzenberger to find votes that didn't exist. When that failed, he went to court. When that failed, we had January 6th. So, you know, the, the rhetoric is all around, right? Donald Trump has been clear now for months that he is going to try to undermine free and fair elections this November. Then we saw the legislative actions and as you point out, it is his effort to try to pass a federal bill, the Save America act, that would disenfranchise voters. That has failed spectacularly and continues to fail spectacularly. He has also tried to inspire state legislatures to pass many versions of that, and some have, and we have sued those states and those cases are ongoing. But then he escalated beyond that and went to court. And these are the cases that the Department of Justice has brought against thur, 31 jurisdictions, 30 states plus DC to try to access the most sensitive voter information that states maintain on their citizens, their name, their address, their Social Security number, primaries. They voted in general elections, they voted in all partisan registration, all this stuff. And we, my law firm and I, we have intervened in all of those cases. So far, Donald Trump is 0 for 11 at the trial courts. He is over 1 at the court of appeals. So he lost 11 cases in states. He appealed. They appealed Michigan to the 6th Circuit, a pretty conservative circuit, and they lost there. But these cases continue. You know, I've said that these are not the last losses that Donald Trump is going to have. I suspect he will go at least over 15 before anything, you know, happens. He could go over 31 for all I know. But. But these are now going to turn to other courts of appeals where there are appeals pending, and I feel pretty good about how those are going.
- [59:00]
David Pakman
Final thing I want to ask about at the end of all of this, there's the fear, I guess we would call it, of Donald Trump declaring some kind of national emergency. That's a phrase that's often used. What does that mean, if anything, legally? And what power would that actually give him over any of the election infrastructure, given that the election infrastructure really is run by the state? States, at the end of the day, like, would that even do anything?
- [59:28]
Mark Elias
Yeah, it's a really important question. I'm so glad you asked it. A very smart question. So people conflate a lot of different pieces of this together. So let's start with the basics, which is where you ended, which is that the Constitution gives the states the constitutional authorities at the time, place and manner of elections and to conduct those elections. So, so the President has no role. Congress, through appropriate legislation, can override this, this, the state decisions in many instances. But again, Congress hasn't done that. So the question is, against that constitutional framework, what can Donald Trump do? So one of the things you oftentimes hear is, will he invoke the Insurrection Act? The Insurrection act is like a draconian law. It is not something that the President should invoke here. But I actually don't think it gets him very far because what the Insurrection act allows is for him to deploy the US Military, the standing military, not the National Guard, but the standing military, to, to conduct federal, to conduct law enforcement. Essentially it turns them into the police force in the United States. I think what Donald Trump learned from the point of the deployment of some active duty military in California, if you remember, in Los Angeles, yeah. Through Chicago, Portland and, and Minnesota is actually, the military is way too disciplined for his taste. It's, it is way too law abiding for, for what he wants. And I think that's why at the end, like he was happy to have ICE and CPV in Minnesota. Right. Because like they were willing to actually do things that I suspect like the uniform military were not willing to do. So I don't think the Insurrection act gets, gets him all that far in terms of a general state of emergency. The other thing you sometimes hear is, well, will he try to suspend the writ of habeas corpus? This is a right of all people in the United States, and I use the word people advisedly, like it is a right of anyone present physically in the United States to go to a federal court and say I am being held unlawfully without probable cause or an arrest warrant that is been signed off by a judge or whatever it is. Right. It is a way to prevent the arbitrary detention of people in the United States. Donald Trump cannot suspend the writ of habeas corpus. I don't think the courts would abide by him. He could try, but I don't think the courts would abide it. I'm not sure if you'd even get local or federal officials in all instances to abide it. So then you just get to the general question, David, of what if he just says, I am Donald Trump and I just think there's an emergency. And so I am sending in the FBI, I am sending in ice, I'm sending in cpb, maybe I even make atf, I deputize them. I just take all of the federal law enforcement agencies and try to use them to disrupt the elections. And I think that is the thing that we are all most worried about, people like me, because it's not so much that this decree is anything other than a press release on letterhead from the White House. But you know, he is telling, he is sending federal officials to do things to disrupt elections. And I think that all of us need to be prepared for that. The lawyers need to prepare to go to court and call and prevent that. Voters need to understand their right is to still to cast a ballot. And whether there are people, you know, from federal law enforcement, I mean I always say this. If there's a federal law enforcement at the polls in my life, local jurisdiction, I'm going to go vote no matter what. And I think we all need to be prepared that, that the elections may look a little bit different than they've looked in the past, but we're going to do everything we can to prevent those kinds of actions. But we can't let them stop us.
- [63:18]
David Pakman
That's for sure. Important work being done by elections attorney Marc Elias, also founder of the Democracy Docket. Mark, always really appreciate your time and your insights. Thank you. David.
- [63:29]
Mark Elias
I love your show. I subscribe to your channel. I even get alerts. I've hit the bell to make sure I get alerts content. So I hope everybody does. I thank for having me.
- [63:37]
David Pakman
That bell will be the death of us or not. Or not. That's the important message. All right, thanks Mark. Talk to you soon.
- [63:42]
Reporter
Thanks.
- [63:44]
David Pakman
The David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at Join Pacman Dotcom. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com I believe Donald Trump just made a huge mistake. Donald Trump made an announcement that could be one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency. For the first time in American history in these United States Republicans will be holding a national midterm convention of the sort that we usually see only in presidential election years. Here is Donald Trump's truth social post announcing it. Quote, big news. For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a midterm convention. It will be in Dallas, Texas, one of my favorite places in the world. It will be fantastic. It it has never been done before and will be a truly historic event. We are going to celebrate the great American comeback and the incredible successes of the American people who transformed our country through the America first agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. By the way, none of that stuff is in his bill. Stronger borders, safest communities, safest ever communities, lower costs and real affordability. More jobs, American energy dominance and so much more. Oil prices are dropping sharply even as we denuclearize Iran. We are delivering on the promises that politicians talked about for decades but never got done. At the event we will give, we will have hardworking Americans are Great innovators, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, first responders, and job creators who are powering our our nation's golden age and proving that America's best days are still ahead of us, blah, blah, blah. And then he says Dallas will take Center Stage on September 9 and 10 as we celebrate, etc. Etc. Golden Age, blah, blah, blah. Okay, who is this convention going to be about? Do you believe that Donald Trump is going to host a convention that will be about Congressional and Senate candidates up for reelection or for election? No, this is going to be about Donald Trump. It won't be about the people on the ballot. It won't be about governors. It will celebrate Trump the Great American comeback. They are going to celebrate Trump's accomplishments and his America first agenda and what he calls this Golden Age of America. In other words, Trump is going to take an election that would normally be about hundreds of state races across the country and local races as well, and turn it into a referendum on Trump, which is a very dangerous thing to do, because if you make the election about yourself, you got to have a good record. People will judge you based on your record. Look at the list of things Trump says they're going to celebrate. Lower costs and real affordability. That stuff isn't happening. Costs are up. More jobs, job creation is down. Energy dominance. That's not happening. These are. You know, they might sound good as campaign promises, but you failed to deliver on them. These are claims about stuff that supposedly has happened, except voters are going to look around and go, wait a second, none of that stuff has happened. Has my life gotten more affordable? Has. Has my grocery bill gone down? Has my housing expense become more manageable? Electricity? Is my electricity bill lower? Am I living in a golden age? That is a much tougher question for an incumbent than asking people, switch to me so I can do all of this stuff. And what Trump is effectively going to invite millions of Americans to do is to audit his presidency. And that is a very risky strategy. The president's party almost always loses House seats in the midterm after they're taking office. And presidential approval is a really strong predictor of how bad those losses are going to be. And Trump's approval is 30% and 27% on the economy. Yes, he's popular with his super hardcore base of supporters, but when you look at competitive House districts around the country, when you look at the most competitive Senate races, they are often decided by independent and swing voters. Now, I'm just going to talk about a couple of races. If you look at Maine, where it's Graham Platner versus Susan Collins. And you look at Texas, which is James Talarico versus Ken Paxton. If. If I were just taking a bet, I would bet that the Republicans win both of those. And I know that that will anger some people in the audience, just like they were angry when, before the 2024 election, I said, guys, Kamala's losing every swing state. And people, rah, rah. David, you're terrible. But historically, it's very common that in Maine and Texas, you've got Democratic Senate candidates, and they're winning by two, three, or four in June. And everybody gets all excited, and we should be excited because at some point we're going to win those, and usually they end up losing. Usually Susan Collins figures out a way to win by a few points, or usually the Republican candidate in Texas figures out a way to win. If you nationalize every race around the failures of Trump, Trump would call them his successes, but Americans will know that they are failures. You are forcing every Republican candidate, even ones that don't really live in areas that love Trump, to be accountable to everything Trump has done. If Trump makes the Susan Collins race about Trump rather than about Maine, that's very bad for Susan Collins, because everybody will be talking about, does this Republican Party deserve reelection based on what Trump has done? So I think this is an extraordinarily risky strategy. These midterms are often decentralized. Candidates try to tailor their message to their district, and Trump wants to say, make it all about me. And then there's one final irony to all of this. The convention is in early September, almost two full months before Election Day. If you're going to hold what is essentially a giant victory party, you'd better be sure voters think you've won. Because if people don't agree that costs are lower and that affordability has returned and all of this crap, the event is only going to highlight the gap between what you promised and what you've delivered. And it is only going to force people to go and maybe stay home or maybe vote for your political opponents. That's why I think this is such a political gamble. If you're behind, if you're unpopular, if you're a drag on campaigns, why would you make yourself the center of the entire thing? So listen, in November, we're going to find out, is turning the midterms into a referendum on Trump some kind of genius masterstroke, or is it arguably the biggest strategic mistake of any election cycle? I lean towards the latter, but we will see. Oh, boy, this is pathetic. Governor Jeff Landry is out there claiming that the Supreme Court's ruling on trans athletes is going to destroy sports in blue states. He says nobody wants to watch competitions where, in his words, great male athletes compete against women. Now, I want to remind you, this is essentially not an issue. What do I mean by that? Well, I'll explain it in a moment. Let's watch the clip first.
- [71:43]
Jeff Landry
And may take it off the table
- [71:44]
Mark Elias
in 25 other states that are similar bans like Louisiana. But then there's all those other states
- [71:50]
Jeff Landry
that right now are up in the air.
- [71:51]
Mark Elias
And then there's California and there's Maine, which are completely, completely rejecting the notion of keeping biological men under women's sports.
- [71:57]
Jeff Landry
Well, again, I think the Supreme Court got it right. They said basically it's a states rights issue to an extent. States that have it are going to attract great women athletes to their states, and those states that don't, their sports are going to go in the toilet. I mean, you know, people are just not going to want to compete there. People aren't going to watch that. No one wants to sit there and watch a track meet under which great male athletes compete against women athletes as well. Sandra might have been able to beat me, but.
- [72:28]
Mark Elias
You have a great track record of attracting.
- [72:32]
David Pakman
This entire framing is so dishonest. But I've got to tell you, this is like one of the smallest crises that has ever consumed so much political oxygen. I'm going to put some numbers on it. And my argument is this is simply not a real issue. Now, I. Every time I do this, I get some messages, including from people in the trans community who go, david, why are you saying this doesn't matter? This does matter. They are trying to discriminate. Everybody needs to be treated with dignity. I treat everybody with dignity. What I'm saying is, statistically, this whole sports thing transports thing is basically not an issue. The NCAA previously indicated there were fewer than 10 openly trans athletes in all of Division 1 sports nationwide. Think about that. Fewer than 10 people among hundreds of thousands of college athletes. Now, at the high school level, the numbers are similarly proportionately tiny. When states have actually tried to identify trans athletes competing in school sports, they've often found we have one in our entire state. Utah's governor vetoed a trans sports ban in 2022 because there were only four such athletes in the whole state and only one of them was a trans girl. Utah has 85,000 high school athletes. They had one trans girl. In Kentucky, lawmakers acknowledged there's kind of like only one trans girl participating in school sports. When they were debating the ban, South Dakota said there is one known trans athlete. When their legislation was moving forward, Wyoming had like a barely a handful. And so what happens is state after state passes sweeping legislation affecting so many kids because of what is sometimes one student, two students, sometimes nobody at all. If your political movement is talking nonstop about an issue that affects one or two people in an entire state, you probably don't want to be talking about the things that affect millions of Americans. Who has health care and who can afford to use it when they have health insurance, Housing costs, disaster, child care, prescription drug prices, insurance premiums, groceries. Can people buy a home? Can our wages keeping up with inflation? Almost every family other than the very, very wealthy are affected by that. And instead Republicans are convincing supporters that the tiny number of trans athletes is the issue of our time. This doesn't mean we ignore the plight of trans people when that is really what is at issue. But they've taken really rare circumstances and turned it into the centerpiece of national politics. And it's emotionally provocative. Put the numbers aside. Forget that there is one relevant athlete in Utah. These images of a huge biological male beating the crap out of a woman boxer, which is like their favorite. That's their favorite one that they love to do. Talking about that and getting people ginned up is easier than solving actual problems people are dealing with every day. So here comes Jeff Landry and he goes. Sports in blue states are going to collapse. Meanwhile, almost every American will go through their entire life never attending a sporting event involving a trans athlete. Like, forget about even it affecting them personally. Most Americans will never even go to an event with a trans athlete. That is the scale of the crisis they want everything organized around. It's pathetic. But they're losing on the kitchen table issues. They're losing on all the promises that Donald Trump made. So this is what they find themselves groveling about. We've got to save the poor. It just almost doesn't exist. And they are truly pathetic. On the bonus show today, voters angry with Washington and other takeaways from the Colorado primaries. Congressman Tom Keene is back and says depression is why he was missing for months. And we will also talk about how frequent AI chat bot users are more likely to believe false things about vaccines, according to a new poll. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. I would be flattered if you signed up and got the bonus show. You can do so by becoming a member at join pacman.com or by becoming a substack premium subscriber at substack.david pakman.com I'll see you on the bonus show.