The most dangerous phase of a presidency and a war

Summary

Podcast Summary: The David Pakman Show

Episode: The most dangerous phase of a presidency and a war
Airdate: August 3, 2026
Host: David Pakman
Guest: Rick Wilson (The Lincoln Project co-founder, GOP strategist)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, David Pakman delivers a comprehensive analysis of the deteriorating Iran war, the political ramifications for President Donald Trump, and the subsequent Republican attempts to distance themselves from its failure. The episode progresses through breakdowns of major stories including the Iran conflict, a scandal involving MAGA Congressman Max Miller, the closure of 300 Trump-associated bank accounts, and a contentious CNN interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The episode culminates in a candid interview with Rick Wilson about the destabilizing effects of Trump's second term, the Republican Party's future, and tremors within American politics.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. The Iran War: American Humiliation and GOP Blame Game

• Current Status:

  • The war in Iran, expected by Trump and Netanyahu to last 2-3 weeks, is months in (week 20+) with none of the stated American objectives met ([00:00]-[04:30]).
    • Iran's nuclear and missile programs are only damaged, not destroyed.
    • The regime remains intact and more radicalized.
    • U.S. troops continue to suffer casualties and the U.S. is running low on munitions.
    • Critically, Iran now controls the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
  • Allies and adversaries alike see the U.S. as having been defeated.
  • Trump's simplistic theory—“hit them hard enough, they’ll give in”—has collapsed.

• Historical Lessons Ignored:

  • Pakman draws parallels with Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: U.S. military supremacy doesn't guarantee political victory if adversaries outlast politically impatient Americans.

• The Blame Game:

  • Republican infighting and finger-pointing intensify. VP J.D. Vance and Israeli PM Netanyahu blame each other; American and Israeli officials pass responsibility back and forth.
  • GOP figures are already posturing to claim, “I was concerned all along,” distancing themselves from Trump as electoral consequences loom ([06:20]).

• Quote:

  • “This is the first stage of Republican flight from Trump’s war. Everyone positioning themselves to say Trump was misled... They never really supported the strategy to begin with.” —David Pakman ([07:15])

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2. Trump’s Desperate Posturing & Social Media Meltdowns

• Digital Behavior:

  • Trump's Truth Social feed now inundated with bizarre AI-generated hero memes, grandiose announcements, and confusing signals, including claims of military cancelations supposedly out of “mercy” ([11:00]).
  • Example meme: “Trump 2028,” Trump overlooking Greenland, Venezuela as ‘51st state.’

• Retreat Framed as Victory:

  • Trump posts that a new deal is “close” and attack is “canceled” because Iran and others “asked nicely.”
  • Markets spike in response; but Iranian officials immediately debunk Trump’s claims, calling them “fake news.”
  • Pakman explains Trump must dress up retreats as magnanimous power: “He needs the retreat to look like he’s being merciful to his enemies.” ([15:20])

• Quote:

  • “Trump’s behavior is not confident, it’s terrified and it’s desperate. And the AI shitposting is only more evidence of that.” —David Pakman ([18:55])

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3. MAGA Scandal: Max Miller’s Disturbing Response to Abuse Allegations

• Background:

  • Trump-backed Rep. Max Miller is accused in court of severe domestic violence by his ex-wife, daughter of GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno.
  • Allegations: Gun held to her head, boiling water thrown, child’s collarbone broken. Law enforcement now involved ([20:46]).

• Miller’s Defense:

  • Miller released a nearly 25-minute livestream, appearing emotionally unstable and using odd reasoning to deny abuse (“If I’d assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later?”) ([21:46]-[23:59]).

• Political Fallout:

  • Even Trump-aligned Sen. Moreno calls Miller “dangerous” and insists he shouldn’t serve in Congress.
  • Trump avoids comment beyond, “These are just allegations,” due to his own numerous allegations of misconduct.

• Quote:

  • “Trump... has to say that because Trump has 46, 48, something like that, allegations against him.” —David Pakman ([25:21])

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4. Trump Organization Hit by Anti Money Laundering Account Closures

• Details:

  • Capital One closed over 300 Trump-affiliated accounts after anti-money laundering (AML) protocols flagged suspicious transactions ([26:30]).
  • The Trump Organization sued, claiming political bias, but Capital One affirmed closure was strictly due to AML patterns.
  • Pakman notes the irony: Trump’s own litigation makes these damaging facts public.

• Quote:

  • “Trump’s attempt to prove 'I’m being persecuted politically' has produced a formal statement from the bank... [that] the pattern was a dead ringer for money laundering.” —David Pakman ([29:10])

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5. Interview: Rick Wilson on GOP Collapse and Trump’s Future

The State of the GOP: Trapped by Trump

• “The Republican Party has epoxied itself to Donald Trump. ...You represent Trump” ([36:35]).
• Trump’s failures (war, economy, even immigration) have left GOP candidates fearing electoral reprisals, but breaking from Trump guarantees his wrath.

Double Bind:

• Voters see representatives as too loyal to Trump; candidates can’t criticize him.
• Lawler-type politicians can’t square “I’m independent” image with 97% Trump-aligned voting records ([38:12]).

Dems’ Opportunity:

• Dems can link “accountability” and “affordability,” arguing GOP corruption is causing real-life harm. GOP has declined by about a quarter in core support.
• “You’ve got to deserve victory in this world....You got to fight for people who have been screwed by this era.” —Rick Wilson ([54:10])

Trump’s Physical, Mental & Political Decline

• Trump’s day confined to 12-5 pm; more tightly managed, shorter appearances, increased fatigue and confusion ([41:09]-[42:14]).
• “He is clearly unhealthy... The clock is ticking.” —Rick Wilson ([43:06])
• Trump increasingly isolated; only a handful trusted in his presence (Natalie Harp, Dan Scavino).

2028 GOP Infighting:

• Trump will sabotage potential successors to protect his legacy and grift, possibly supporting Don Jr.
• Massive, messy primary expected; “the purity checking and the internal catfight is going to be unbelievable” ([48:36]).
• Despite claims, Rubio is planning a run against Vance ([50:08]).

Far-Right Splinter Threat:

• Discussion of a new party/movement by Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene—likely to sap votes from MAGA if viable ([51:05]).
  • “Even if it only dragged 1 or 2% off the top of MAGA in 2028, I encourage Tucker to work very hard at this.” —Rick Wilson ([52:14])

2028 Democratic Field:

• Wilson looks forward to a robust Democratic gubernatorial bench; expects real ideological competition and renewal ([54:10]-[55:25]).

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6. Trump’s Incoherence: Air Force One Press Gaggle

• Trump “glitches” through answers, avoids substance; claims Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran convinced him to cancel attacks because “there’s a deal” ([57:18]-[58:12]).
• When asked about A.I. and the Intel stake, Trump rambles about dealmaking, inadvertently describing state ownership as a triumph—a contradiction of his anti-communist rhetoric ([61:35]).
• When pressed on Max Miller, Trump hedges: “Well, I’m going to look at it. So far it’s allegations. I’ll be looking at it.” ([63:29])

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7. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Meltdown on CNN

• Confronted by Dana Bash about vaccine misinformation and measles outbreaks, RFK Jr. evades, makes unsupported claims, and grows combative ([66:02]-[70:42]).

• Bash demands studies to support assertions—none produced.

• RFK Jr. relies on “both sides” rhetoric (“You’re not a scientist!”), attacks Anthony Fauci and the COVID response, derails discussion with personal attacks.

• Key insight: Emotional escalation, avoidance of direct answers, repeated shifting of blame without evidence.

• Pakman’s takeaway: “When you see a highly emotionally charged piece of media like this, try to slow down and think about what are the factual assertions that are being made and how can I fact-check them.” ([70:42])

• Pakman previews a future episode to do a deep dive on the vaccine-autism topic.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Iran war’s failure:

  • “If Iran can manage to emerge from this war with an intact government... and control, at least to some degree, over the Strait of Hormuz, the United States lost.” —David Pakman ([06:00])

• On Trump’s social media:

  • “Don’t look at it if you’re eating. It’s pretty nauseating.” —David Pakman ([11:11])

• On the Max Miller scandal:

  • “I'm not finding this video convincing, let me put it that way.” —David Pakman ([25:23])

• On Capital One closing Trump’s accounts:

  • “The pattern was a dead ringer for money laundering.” —Pakman ([29:10])

• Rick Wilson on the Republican double-bind:

  • “All those people that have been winning these races, all these Democrats have been winning these races in the special elections, the off year elections, they get it. You go after the corruption and the affordability, you link them together, and there’s no Republican out there that is comfortable being able to say, yep, Trump did it wrong. He’s crooked.” ([39:01])

• Wilson on Trump’s decline:

  • “He is clearly unhealthy. He’s clearly gained quite a lot of weight... the clock is ticking.” ([43:06])

• Rick Wilson on Trump’s post-presidency:

  • “What Trump wants to do in the 2028 election... is to prove I really was special and I’m the only one who could do this.” ([47:00])

• RFK Jr. meltdown:

  • “[on Bash:] All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say ‘trust the experts.’ That’s what you do during COVID.” —RFK Jr. ([69:54])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 — Iran war update; U.S. failures and political fallout
• 11:00 — Trump's truth social AI meme spiral; “chickening out” post
• 21:46 — Max Miller defense livestream, analysis
• 26:30 — Trump Organization accounts closed by Capital One (AML)
• 35:30 — Rick Wilson interview: State of GOP, impact of Trump, the 2028 primary
• 57:00 — Trump’s Air Force One “glitch”–press gaggle
• 65:56 — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. loses composure, CNN interview with Dana Bash

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Concluding Notes

This episode is a sharp and biting exploration of a presidency beset by military failure, personal scandal, and economic fallout, paired with a volatile party base and an uncertain future for both parties. Pakman, steadfastly evidence-driven but satirical and candid in tone, underscores how deepening dysfunction at the top is shaking both U.S. politics and international alliances. Rick Wilson’s insider perspective provides clarity on Republican motivations, party gridlock, and the uncertainties of a post-Trump era. The episode closes with a look at media spectacle, disinformation, and the importance of factual grounding in political discourse.

A must-listen for those tracking the U.S. political crisis, GOP machinations, or seeking critical, progressive commentary beyond the headlines.

Transcript

[David Pakman]

The Iran war is going so badly that the blame game is rampant and Republicans are planning to run away from the disaster that they spent months cheering or at least letting Trump do whatever he wants. Trump, meanwhile, is doing exactly what you would expect. He's glitching through questions, he's posting really weird AI slop and he's trying to turn an apparent retreat because he's terrified into evidence that he's just so brilliant militarily. We're also going to look at Max Miller, the MAGA congressman accused of horrific domestic violence, who in a very unusual attempt to defend himself has made the situation even worse with a nearly 20 minute long livestream. And then more than 300 Trump affiliated bank accounts have been closed after an anti money laundering review. Here we go again. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Melts death down when challenged on CNN by Dana Bash. I'll also talk to Rick Wilson about where this growing political collapse may be going. What a program today, Folks. Donald Trump is on the verge of straight up losing the Iran war and losing it right really, really badly. This was going to be a two to three week war. We are months into this thing, week 20, whatever, I've kind of lost track. And Donald Trump and I guess to a degree Benjamin Netanyahu as well, believed that this was going to be quick, this was going to be decisive. Two to three weeks won't even consider boots on the ground. And we are now months into this thing. None of the central objectives, to the degree that Donald Trump is able to articulate them, which is a different question, but none of the objectives as we understand them have been achieved. Iran's nuclear program, it's been damaged, sure. The ballistics missile program, it's been damaged. But none of these have been destroyed. Iran certainly hasn't surrendered. It has a new government which is really just its latest version of the previous regime because it's still all in the same family, is more determined in it's more radical. American troops continue to be killed, injured. The United States is now running very short on critical weapons. Remember Donald Trump when he took over in 2017 from Barack Obama, said the cupboards are bare. Obama left the cupboards bare and wasn't true then. And now we are actually running very low on munitions. And maybe the most just human, humiliating, pathetic aspect of all of it is that Iran is effectively in control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is, as I'm sure most of my audience knows by now, one of the very important strategic and economic waterways on earth, involved in about one fifth of all oil transit. So now we get to a new report from the New York Times which says that our own allies see that this is a defeat for the United States. Now, understand that to lose a war, you don't have to go. We surrender and we lose. It's you fail to accomplish your strategic objectives while doing economic damage to the country and eventually retreating. You never go, we lost. Good game, right? It's not good game. But you see the dysfunction exposed. You see growing American vulnerability. The United States can't convert what is admittedly overwhelming military power into an achievable and definable political result. And Trump's theory hasn't changed at all. It's the same kind of simplistic fantasy he's had from the beginning, which is, we hit him hard enough for long enough, they will give up, give us everything we want. And Trump even said again on just a couple of days ago, on Friday, Trump goes, we're going to hit him. We're going to hit him very hard. And they're going to say, we can't take it anymore, sir, with tears in their eyes. But Iran is not saying that. And instead, the United States is kind of learning a lesson you'd think we would have learned by now from prior war escapades. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, which is, yes, we do have the superior firepower, but it doesn't guarantee that these incursions are well advised. And it doesn't guarantee victory against adversaries who may be way more willing than we are to absorb punishment and just kind of wait you out. And what Iran now has, remember Trump told Zelensky, you don't have the cards. Iran has some cards now, and card number one is massive leverage over global shipping. They're demanding control over the northern route of Hormuz. They want shared control over the southern route. They want the authority to put in fees, sort of like tolls for going through the Strait. And if Iran can manage to emerge from this war with an intact government, I hit my microphone, and I apologize for that. With an intact government, with a damaged but operational weapons program and control, at least to some degree, over the Strait of Hormuz, the United States lost. It's not we lose, we're going home. But effectively, the United States will have lost. And this is why the blame game has started. Vice President J.D. vance and other American officials are saying Netanyahu sold this to Trump. And American and Israeli officials are blaming one another for what's going on. So this is the first stage of Republican flight from Trump's war Everyone positioning themselves to say Trump was misled. People weren't sufficiently consulted. They never really supported the strategy to begin with. And if the defeat becomes completely undeniable, you should expect the stampede away from Trump's decision to do this, to accelerate. Because Republicans spent months, to a degree, cheering the bombing, they will discover, I was concerned all along. Now, J.D. vance was concerned all along. There is extensive reporting from inside the Oval Office, inside the White House, that Vance was against this, and he would basically go, I don't think this is a good idea, but if you decide to do what, I will support it. And then publicly he. He supports it. So all of these kind of weak critics are going to be coming out when their election in November is at stake and going, I never supported this thing. Our allies have already drawn their conclusions. Middle Eastern governments are hedging. They're saying, well, we should improve our relationship with China, with Russia. European allies view us as unpredictable, and Russia and China know that we have severely depleted our critical munitions. Does that make us strong or does that make us weak? I think it's obvious now what were Trump's promises at the campaign level. Restore American strength to a new level. But he's antagonized our allies, he's depleted our weapons, he's damaged a bunch of different alliances. And now Iran has so much leverage, and Trump can't get out. If he stays in the war, resources keep getting drained, troops keep dying. If he goes further and says, we're going to do that ground invasion I thought about or talked about, that could be completely catastrophic. And if he just says, we won and we're leaving, but Iran still has all the leverage to create the exact same chaos that caused Trump to do this in the first place, then that's a disaster, too. So Trump started a war he didn't really know how to win. He can't figure it out, figure out how to end it. He said, he's ended it 50 times. Iran can just outlast him. And Republicans are going to have to race away pretending they were never on board in order to justify to voters, hey, this was Trump's thing. This wasn't my thing. Which may help them in a way in November, but it risks turning Trump against them, which, as we know, can be a very bad and dangerous thing. So that's the situation where we have. Where we find ourselves today. What about Trump on yet another deal that's coming? I don't think it'll surprise you how that went. Donald Trump is spending his days frantically, frantically shit. Posting as he is slowly realizing, I don't know how to end this damn war. That I got into Donald Trump's Truth social feed. I was looking at it over the weekend. Don't look at it if you're eating. It's pretty nauseating, but you might want to take a look at some point. I looked at it over the weekend. As Donald Trump is quickly losing the Iran war, he is posting endless AI slop to his truth, social, fake hero images, weird memes, nonsense, all made to make him look, I guess, like the most powerful person that's ever lived. And then buried among all of the AI slop Trump actually did mention. I'm canceling. I'm chickening out. I'm taco ing once again. So just a couple examples of the crap that Trump has been posting. Trump 2028 with Donald Trump with an adoring crowd behind him that says, oh, 2028, yes, he's running again. Donald Trump in a hello, Greenland kind of meme where he is looking over a mountaintop down at a Greenland village again. Trump wanting, I guess, to take over Greenland and a map with Venezuela depicted as the 51st state of the United States with an American flag superimposed over it. But if you knew what to look for over the weekend, kind of buried in the AI slope was Donald Trump announcing, I'm chickening out. Here is Trump, quote, the USA is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military, terror, strength and power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran and other Middle Eastern countries to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to. The grammar is all over the place. This would include the immediate, complete and total opening of the Hormuz Strait and an end to Iran's nuclear threat. Based on this request, they asked so nicely. Based on this request, I've agreed, for the future benefit of the world and likewise the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack. It's canceled again, folks. Subject to being able to rapidly make a deal. The country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work, everybody, and get it done. So first, the language is totally like, comically overcompensating military terror and strength and power not seen since World War II. But then he goes, they asked me nicely and we've kind of agreed to the perimeters of a deal. This, of course, has caused a spike in the stock market. As of this moment, the dow is up 700. The NASDAQ as Trump calls it is up over 300. So he got what he wanted there. And presumably, Donald Trump meant not the perimeters of a deal, but the parameters of a deal. But after six months of this crap, maybe they are negotiating the perimeter, I don't know. Trump says this potential agreement would include, of course, the very powerful reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. No more Iran nuclear threat. And based on that, he is going to wait on this attack. Now, if Trump has actually secured the complete reopening of Hormuz and we can verify this is the end of Iran's nuclear program and he's done it through diplomacy, great. I mean, listen, avoiding an attack is good. I don't want more deaths on anyone's behalf. We don't want more depleted munitions. We don't want more escalation. Of course, but Trump posting this doesn't establish that any of that has happened. He has posted stuff like this 50 times so far. And when he says only the perimeters of an agreement exist, even if he means the parameters, that doesn't give us terms. It doesn't give us a timeline. It doesn't give us any mechanism to verify that Iran is doing any of the stuff. And in fact, and I'm sure many of you expected this, in fact, after Donald Trump posted this, Mohamed Morandi, who's an adviser to the negotiating team for Iran, said, that's not happening. He, quote, tweeted, I guess you would call it Trump's post, and said, by now, everyone knows that this is fake news. Trump backed down. Trump regularly announces imminent breakthroughs so I don't have to bomb. And then the breakthroughs disappear, or they weren't really significant, or they weren't as described. And the psychological structure of these announcements, you know, before calling off the attack, Trump has to assure everybody, we are locked and loaded. We are standing back and standing by, and we have levels of terror ready to go. He needs the retreat to look like he's being merciful to his enemies. And what he wants us to believe is, oh, my God. Trump had Iran cornered. He was moments from wiping them off the map. And he's so generous, he's so good, that for the benefit of humanity, he decided to wait. Now, let me bring you back from that fantasy. The war is in its, I guess, sixth month. Iran's government is still in power. Its nuclear program still exists, its missile program still exists. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively under Iranian control, and our weapons are being depleted. That's what's really going on here. And Trump's officials are saying we don't have that many military options left. Of course, we can do a ground invasion and start a ground war, but that's very risky in and of itself. So Trump threatens another attack and then says, oh, we're talking about an agreement and I can cancel the attack. And Iran's like, there's nothing, nothing's going on. This is the new Trump forever war. Shit. Posting threats, imaginary or temporary truces, all framed as, I'm a genius, I know more than everybody. And then you sort of like, drop the AI memes on top of it. Which served to compare Trump to a superhero and a king and the savior of civilization. He's stuck, folks. He cannot defeat Iran from the air, he cannot invade without risking a catastrophe, and he can't withdraw without exposing the entire thing as a complete and total failure. So what is he relegated to? Synthetic fantasies about his power, depicting him as Jesus and a doctor and all this crap? And again, he canceling the attack is good. I don't want attacks. Diplomacy would be better. But just having some restraint, which is what Donald Trump is pretending to have, doesn't require this whole performance where Donald Trump threatens military, terror and all of this crap and then goes, get it done, everybody. If he were confident, he would quietly negotiate an agreement, finish the agreement presented in a verifiable way where Iran goes, yes, we did it. Donald Trump's behavior is not confident, it's terrified and it's desperate. And the AI shitposting is only more evidence of that. Now, later on in the show, we're going to talk about what is actually happening behind the scenes within Trump's own government. And to call it ugly, probably a big understatement. We'll get to that a little later. Let's be honest, estate planning is one of those things people know they should do but keep putting off. I was one of those people. I have finally done done it. Yes, it took a little bit of time. Yes. I had to think through, who do I want taking care of my kids if the worst should happen, what am I thinking about in terms of my assets? Once it was done, it was such a relief. And it really does give you a sense that you were being responsible and making important choices. Check out our sponsor, Trust and Will. Trust and Will helps you create an estate plan online. It's a guided step by step process. It'll make sense even if you don't know where to start. You can build a will in as little as 30 minutes. 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Zipix comes in six flavors. There's two or three milligram options lets you control the nicotine as compared to a cigarette or vape. They're also easy to use throughout the day and in places where smoking or vaping isn't allowed or it would require you to step out conspicuously for a cigarette, which can cause other problems. Zipix also offers caffeine and B12 toothpicks if you're reducing nicotine altogether or don't even use it at all. If you're tired of cigarettes or vaping, try Zipix Nicotine TOOTHPICKS and get 10% off your first order with code [e-mail] the link is in the description. You must be 21 or older to order. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program. You might be wondering what media conglomerate are we part of? Who are my seven layers of editors and executives that tell me what to do? None of that stuff exists. We are a completely independent show primarily funded by the people in our audience. I would love it if you supported this program through a membership. Our newest members are Davin Scruggs and Charmaine Miguel. Thank you to Davin and Charmaine. You can join them@join pacman.com we do an extra show every single day for our members. Bunch of other great perks come with it including the daily commercial, free audio and video streams of the show. You can read all about it at join pacman.com you can also become a substack premium subscriber at substack.david pakman.com really appreciate everybody who's who stepped up over the last couple of weeks. Trump endorsed Republican congressman Max Miller has been accused by his ex wife of horrifying, horrifying domestic violence. Miller released a 25 minute video trying to clear his name and it is extraordinarily disturbing. Now, I want to be really precise. These are allegations made in court filings during a really ugly custody dispute. Miller denies abusing his ex wife. He denies abusing their daughter. He has not been convicted of anything yet. The allegations are serious. Miller's ex wife, Emily, the daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, by the way, says that Miller held a gun to her head through boiling water at her and exhibited what she describes as dangerous physical behavior. There's a law enforcement investigation and it started when their two year old daughter suffered a broken collarbone a under unexplained circumstances. And Moreno says that the child. This is Emily Moreno. Emily Moreno says the child told her daddy's house is scary. Court records have a detective writing that bruising around the fracture makes it a suspicious injury. There's a child protection specialist involved. It's very ugly. So Miller does a livestream and this is so weird, the livestream, it started like way before he started speaking and he's just kind of there with a snide look on his face, looking around. His eyes look dead. And it's very awkward. We're watching the beginning of the stream right now. I don't know if this was deliberate or just kind of like poorly calculated. All very, very strange and unusual and,

[Dana Bash]

and

[David Pakman]

this, this is kind of, it's all very weird. Eventually the thing did start and he says a number of different things. We're going to take a look at a video. He seems to glitch numerous times throughout the video. He speaks in strange emotions. There's weird slurring, sometimes he's barely able to get the sentences out. Now, I'm not diagnosing what's going on here. This could be exhaustion, it could be stress, it could be the, the emotions, I have no idea. But this is the video that he made to reassure people. He's stable, he's trustworthy, he should be allowed to stay in Congress. And it is extraordinarily unsettling.

[Max Miller]

My former wife has claimed that during a custody exchange at my home that day, I assaulted her. Here's what actually happened. And I have the ring doorbell footage that backs it up. She came to my home in a good mood and we have text messages to prove it, which you'll have to pick up our daughter early for a friend's birthday party. She was inside my house for several minutes when she left. The video shows her walking out, carrying our daughter, calm, in the same good mood, showing no distress whatsoever. And as they left, you can hear me say goodbye. I love you. And I love you, Ruthie. Literally telling my ex wife that I still cared for her. Does that sound like somebody who would just walk out and who had been violently thrown a wall and been abused? She didn't call the police after that. She didn't go to the hospital. Ladies and gentlemen, do you want to know what she did? She went straight to a child's birthday party. The very next day, we had a friendly phone call about our daughter's upcoming hospital procedure and I drove in from Washington to be there for it. Six days later, she offered to cook empanadas for me for dinner. Just two days later after this alleged incident, the day after that, she invited me and my girlfriend, which you'll have in text messages, to join her and our daughter at a playground. And that day, I just went with my former wife to the playground to spend time with our daughter.

[David Pakman]

Wow.

[Max Miller]

A week later, on February 15, she wrote to me in her own words, which you will see. I think it's great you and I are in a friendlier place. She then offered me more extra overnights with our daughter, which I can prove to every single one of you is recently. Every one of these messages is time stamped on our court sanctioned co parenting app and is all in the packet. Only weeks later did the story of February 1st assault appear. So ask yourself, if I had assaulted her, would she had offered to cook me dinner six days later?

[David Pakman]

I mean, yeah, maybe there's a whole. I mean, listen, we don't know the answer to that question, but it certainly could be yes. People often continue interacting with alleged abusers, especially if they share a kid or because they're afraid or because relationships are complicated or because they just want to maintain some sense of normalcy for themselves. Offering to cook dinner days later doesn't disprove an assault. Let's just watch a few more seconds

[Max Miller]

of this, which you've invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter. Would she have written that we were in a friendlier place? No, she wouldn't have.

[David Pakman]

All right, this is the strangest live stream. He spent a lot of it attacking his ex wife's mental health, accusing her of lying. He uploaded a Dropbox containing what he said was exculpatory evidence, but then quickly had to delete it because the metadata suggested that taxpayer resources might have been used to produce this defense video. And it's all just completely wacky. Now even Bernie Moreno, who's a MAGA Republican senator and Max Miller's former father in law, is saying, this guy is dangerous. This guy's dangerous. He put his family through hell. He needs psychological help and he certainly shouldn't serve in Congress. And by the way, whenever he has custody of my granddaughter, I'm holding my breath. Now none of this, these things get really ugly. None of this proves the underlying allegations. But this is not a liberal activist attack on Max Miller. This is a Trump aligned Senator Bernie Moreno publicly warning there's another Trump endorsed Republican here who is a threat to my daughter and my granddaughter. Now Miller has had this history of violent incidents. He had a DUI in 2011 way before Trump endorsed him. Trump nevertheless hired him, endorsed his campaign, attended his wedding, endorsed him again. And saying he will not let you down. Now Miller says he is staying. All members of the House are up for reelection every two years. So Miller is up in an election campaign right now and he says he's not going to leave. There are these other allegations I mentioned involving a gun and boiling water and all of this stuff. Now Trump was asked, what do you think about this? What do you make of this? We'll look at the video later. It won't shock you that Trump went, well, these are just allegations. And of course Trump has to say that because Trump has 46, 48, something like that, allegations against him. And if Trump were to accept the allegations against Max Miller as evidence of actual wrongdoing, Trump would be in a very difficult position because there are 46 or 48 or maybe even 50 instances of similar allegations against Donald Trump. Not exactly the same stuff, not involving boiling water, not involving a gun that, that I've heard, but of various forms of, of, of assault and harassment. So this is a wacky situation. Republicans. The political question is that Republicans are increasingly worried that Miller staying in is going to drag down the entire MAGA cohort. I actually don't know that that's likely to happen. It's sort of, probably not, quite frankly, but there is that concern. And Max Miller. I'm not finding this video convincing, let me put it that way. You tell me what, what you think about it. Capital One is now revealed why it shut down More than 300 Trump affiliated bank accounts. The bank says it made the decision after months of analysis by its anti money laundering team. And they identified transactional patterns flagged by federal banking guidance involving 300 accounts associated with Donald Trump. Now, let's be very precise here. The Trump administration, the Trump Organization rather is very litigious. Capital One is not accusing Trump of committing money laundering. What it's saying is there was an investigation done, a review of transactions, and it triggered anti money laundering sort of alerts. And we've decided to shut it down. They are not coming out and saying the Trump Organization is laundering money. Not specifically. They are not saying that because Trump is extraordinarily litigious. But that is the reason for why the accounts were closed. Now, it's an important legal distinction, but it's also a devastating detail here. Because Capital One notified the Trump organization in March five years ago, we are going to close more than 300 of your affiliated accounts. This is not a single checking account because, you know, Eric tried to Venmo don $14 for lunch or something like that. We're talking about 300 different bank accounts. The Trump Organization sued and they said, what you're doing is political. You're debanking us because you're woke and because of the political environment after January six or whatnot. Capital. So the reason we are now learning why the accounts were really closed is because of Trump's lawsuit. So Capital One has now come out and said, no, we didn't close the accounts because we dislike you. We didn't close the accounts because we are angry about January 6th. We closed 300 of your accounts because we had an anti money laundering investigation done. And our experts reviewed the activity and there were suspicious banking patterns and they said that the whole were perfect persecuting you theory of the Trump Organization is straight up completely wrong. Now, the lawsuit from Trump against Capital One has already had two complaints thrown out, but the court allowed the Trump Organization to try again. And Capital One is saying it's there's the same problems here. There's no truth to what they are arguing. And it is an extraordinary irony here because Trump has spent years saying, oh, banks are conspiring against right wing people. And he signs this executive order saying, you can't do discriminatory debanking. And he pressures financial institutions not to do what he sees as discriminatory banking. But when the Trump Organization sues Capital One to prove, look, we were the victims of woke discrimination, Capital One goes, no, no, no, no. This was about money laundering. You're the transactional pattern of these accounts was so concerning for money laundering that our experts said, we're going to shut down these accounts. Trump's attempt to prove I'm being prosecuted Persecuted politically has produced a formal statement from the bank. Where they go, they're anti money laundering. The pattern was a dead ringer for money laundering. Now that alone, think about prior presidencies. There are prior presidencies in a different era, bygone era in the United States where such a declaration from a bank, 300 accounts were closed because of money laundering rules. Patterns that would have wreaked complete and total havoc on prior presidencies. Imagine a Democratic president's family business having more than 300 accounts closed after a review like this. Republicans would be 24, 7 on Fox News for months. They would be holding a hearing every six minutes. And with Trump, you probably didn't even hear about this. Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate, they control the presidency. They have a judiciary that has been transformed by Trump into an arm of revenge. They haven't solved a single damn problem for ordinary Americans. Their policies have failed for the majority of people. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's accounts are being closed for anti money laundering rules. And if you look at who has succeeded under the second Trump term, it's been the wealthy, it's been the well connected, it's been criminals who get pardons and get excused from all sorts of wrongdoing. Now, none of this proves Trump laundered money. But Trump demanded to know, why did they shut me down? And now the answer is public and it is a disaster. Now this is a reminder of why a lot of these Trump lawsuits can backfire. And we've talked about the one against BBC which might 180 on Trump and lead to Barron being deposed. If you move forward with these lawsuits, the opposing party can put out information that is bad for you. And also the opposing party can end up in a situation where they get discovery and they can depose you or people affiliated with you. Trump doesn't want that. It's a disaster. And I wouldn't be surprised if after this, the BBC lawsuit potentially does a 180 as well. We'll keep an eye on it. Most scams do not feel random. Scammers may know your name, your city, a relative, where you work, and suddenly the message you get sounds a lot more believable. And a lot of that information is found online. And it's just sitting there waiting for bad actors to use it against you. This is why our sponsor, Incogni, works to remove all of that information from hundreds of websites and databases that have it, so that scammers have nothing to work with. Incogni automatically sends removal requests to hundreds of sites that have your personal info. 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Our sponsor, Brain fm, is a music app designed to support focus, relaxation or sleep with music created by human musicians working alongside neuroscientists. Instead of generic playlists, Brain FM offers task specific modes like deep work, creative and motivation, depending on what you're trying to do. What makes Brain FM different is the science behind it, because it's the only music app for funded by the National Science foundation based on their unique audio technology designed to influence brain activity associated with focus. Brain FM also has published peer reviewed research showing their technology supports attentional performance. They even have an optional ADHD mode for people who benefit from additional stimulation. But the app really is built for anybody looking to reduce distractions and stay engaged with their work. You can try Brain FM totally free for 30 days by going to Brain FM Pacman. 30 days is a long free trial. Go check it out. The link is in the description.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Rick Wilson is here joining us again. Rick, of course is a longtime Republican political strategist. He's an author, he's a commentator, he's a co founder of the Lincoln Project. Rick, good to see you.

[Rick Wilson]

Hey man, thanks for having me on.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

I'm super interested in all the stuff you've been writing about and talking about recently. I'm really interested in, you know, as we get closer to these midterms, it seems that there are a lot of Republican candidates that are in this position where they have to say, okay, Trump seems to be a drag because economically he hasn't delivered and my constituents know that. And the Iran war is unpopular, it's making things more expensive, etc. Fine. But I know that if I just straight up say, hey, this is not.

[David Pakman]

I didn't do any of that stuff.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

That's Trump. It risks Trump trying to hurt them electorally and politically. If you were in the position of advising candidates as a strategist right now, what would you be telling them to do with regard to are we talking up Trump or are we ignoring Trump, or are we attacking Trump?

[Rick Wilson]

They're in a really, really tough spot, David, because the Republican Party has epoxied itself to Donald Trump. I mean, the number one thing about being in the Republican Party today is that you don't represent your state or a district. You represent Trump. If you're in Washington, if you're a congressman or a member of the Senate, you represent Trump. And so the way they get through these crazy Republican primaries is to say, I'm the Trumpiest of the Trump guys. I'm super Trumpy. I'm the most Trump guy ever to be among the Trump guys. The problem is, as you pointed out correctly, Trump is a failure at so many things now, and the polling has just weighed down on these Republican candidates. He is underwater by nearly 50 points on inflation and prices. He's underwater by 35 points on the economy. He's even underwater about 15 points on immigration, which used to be the core of the Republican thing. Right. The problem for them is if they say, listen, we tried it, but Trump has blown it. I can't support him anymore. I'm gonna do my thing. They know that he'll come after them. Even if they're out of their primary, he'll hurt them in some way. And if they don't say that, the voters are gonna make the correct decision. They're gonna say, this guy's just another guy who cares about Trump, but not about us. And we're seeing this in all these Republican swing seats out there, where in districts where Kamala or Joe Biden won. These Republican candidates are trying to have it both ways. You know, a guy like Mike Lawler in New York said, oh, I'm independent. I don't follow Trump, but he votes with the guy 97% of the time. It's really tough, David, for these guys to. To. To square that circle.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

One of the things I've been saying is, you know, there's these polls you always see where people are asked, do you approve of the job the president's doing?

[David Pakman]

They go, no, I don't.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Okay, do you approve of the job Congress is doing? And they go, no, I don't. Congress is like 9% approval. And then, do you approve of the job Your representative, the number is much higher always. And one of the things I've been talking about is a lot of people don't seem to understand that. Even if they don't, I'm talking about moderate Republicans here.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

They may not understand that the Congressperson they're happy with has been effectively rubber stamping all of the stuff that they don't like that Trump has supported or has been saying to Republicans. You guys should do this stuff. I'm not seeing that as a prominent part of campaigns, but it seems that that would be potentially a problem if that became a story.

[Rick Wilson]

Absolutely. And look what you have with the Democrats right now. They've got a beautiful opportunity here. They know that the message of accountability and affordability go hand in hand, that corruption in Washington is what's hurting people at home. And that corruption comes from Republicans who will not fight for their own constituents, who will hurt the people they represent. I mean, when you are a Republican running against, or a Democrat running against any Republican right now, you go home to your district and you say, or you go to the district and say, listen, I'm not going to cut your Medicare Part D funding. I'm not going to let the tariffs continue that harm every business in the community. I'm not going to let Trump continue to collect billions of dollars in this crooked scheme of his in Washington. We're going to stop this. There are more Republican voters out there who will also go with that message, even from a Democrat right now. And it's, look, it's not the majority of Republicans, majority of Republicans are still with Trump. It's a much smaller majority. It was 90% last year. It's about 65% this year. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a lot in polling. And so all those people that have been winning these races, all these Democrats have been winning these races in the special elections, the off year elections, they get it. You go after the corruption and the affordability, you link them together, and there's no Republican out there that is comfortable being able to say, yep, Trump did it wrong. He's crooked. I'm not gonna keep, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna keep carrying the water for him. They can't do it, David. They just can't do it.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

One of the funny things I sometimes see is these polls that say 98% support with MAGA Republicans. And it's like, yes, among the group that supports Trump, they mostly support Trump.

[David Pakman]

It's sort of like out of everybody

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

who breathes air, that Also breathe oxygen like it's, it's a really. But I think it's the best number they have, I guess is why he keeps talking about it.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah, he always goes back to that of like self identified super conservative MAGA. Republicans who voted for Trump three times all support Trump.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

It's a miracle. It doesn't make any sense. Hey, you've talked about like the COVID up of the decline of Trump, which I think is really interesting because listen, whether you use the word cover up or not, with President Biden, there was an effort to structure the presidency, his schedule and his day to his best moments of the day and to make him seem as robust as possible, probably with every presidency. But it was like more acutely necessary with Biden. We are now seeing. I'll just list what I see and then I want to hear from you as how you define this cover up. Trump is increasingly restricted to 12 to 5, sort of like local time, wherever he is, to the extent that he's on that time zone when he does the Oval Office gaggles. He's usually seated when the press comes in and then they're escorted out and he's still seated. And it's shorter. The speeches are shorter. The media appearances, which were famously uncontrolled in 24 where it was like spend three hours with the Nelk boys spent, they're tighter and more controlled. These are some of the things I'm seeing. What are you seeing?

[Rick Wilson]

Look, I think all those things are absolutely part of the current corral they put Trump in. And they have had to do this because they recognize if they do things at the wrong time of day, he's gonna fall asleep. I mean the guy just passes flat out in some of these meetings. They recognize he's got a very limited amount of energy every single day. And so they are. And did the same thing happen with Biden? Differently. But yes. And there was a gigantic national brouhaha with the mainstream media every day. What's wrong with Biden? Was he sick? Is he dying? Is this. Is that. We see less of that with the media with Trump and we could. That's probably a show for another day. That's a five hour conversation. But he is clearly unhealthy. He's clearly gained quite a lot of weight in recent months. He continues to have this inability to stay awake. He continues to have this inability to, to focus when he is doing remarks and discussions. I mean that speech he did on, on voter fraud in the, in the East Room a couple weeks ago, he was a clinging to that podium like it was a life raft. And B, hammering that teleprompter as hard as he could because he never. He doesn't have that old ability to riff like he once did. And when he does riff, it goes into these weird rabbit holes and it is nonsensical. So there's been a very obvious decline, physically and intellectually and mentally. He couldn't decline more morally. He's already been in that gutter for a long time. But no one in the White House can pretend that this isn't happening. They'll come out and say, he's got so much energy, he's the healthiest. We all know what's happening and the clock is ticking. And whether he, you know, whether he drops dead tomorrow or drops dead in five years. This is a guy whose decline, the latter part of his life is going to not be anything better than it was yesterday.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Do you have a sense of. Or would you guess. I'm guessing you don't have any sources on this, but maybe you do. Are there honest conversations with him about how they are? No.

[David Pakman]

So he's not even in the know

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

about how this is being worked around him.

[Rick Wilson]

What. The one. The one source that I spoke to a few weeks ago about this. Who's. And I wouldn't. This. I used to have people in the White House in the first administration, but I don't anymore. But I still talk to people around those circles, and one person said to me, not even Susie Wiles knows what's really going on. Natalie Harp and Dan Scavino apparently are the only two that he trusts to have around him during some of these things. So I don't think that most of the White House staff is fooled. I think they see it. I think they're not tricked by, by the. By the. By the party line. But I also think Trump's own character is so weird about this stuff that he's not going to tell anybody. He's, you know, got X or Y condition. He's probably the one who has some

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

idea that's really interesting, but I actually meant the opposite, which is, do you think Trump is clued into the fact that they are trying to play to his strengths with his schedule or Trump's kind of like a vaccine guy?

[Rick Wilson]

No, I don't think he. I think he. I think he is. He is. I think they give him a lot of bright and shiny toys to play with when. During his off time. Here, Mr. President, here's new drawings for the arch, or here's a new plan for the Reflecting pool, whatever. Because, as you know, Maggie Haberman said the other day, she thinks that about 70% of his mental bandwidth is about the, all the, all the projects around the White house and around D.C. which, you know, in some ways that would be better if that was the case, because he would be less dangerous to himself and others. But, you know, I think that he's not that acute anymore in the way that he can. I think he can be moved around a little more than he could be in the first term.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

One of the things I wanted to run by you is I've been thinking about this whole 2028 Vance Rubio thing.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

And I am of the belief that Trump wants the next Republican candidate to fail. And what I mean by that is the following.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

If you think about Trump's ego, does Trump want to retire to Mar? A Lago and see his replacement, be more popular, more vital, have a higher approval rating? A normal person might go, look at the great state I left my party in when I transferred it for Trump. It's. I want to prove to them I really was special and I'm the only

[David Pakman]

one who could do this.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

So I actually think that Trump is not incentivized to turn this over in a way that will be good for Republicans. What do you think?

[Rick Wilson]

Completely agree with that. I think there's, I think one of the things Trump wants to do in the 2028 election is to. First off, I suspect he's going to drag it out as long as he can. He's going to keep teasing this. I'm going to run. I'm going to run. I'm going to run even though it's illegal, even though it's unconstitutional. He'll still tease that out there. It'll delay all the other Republicans from getting in the race. He's going to weigh in anytime any one of them is in any way off agenda at all. He's going to constantly churn the water. And the one thing I think that would make him get behind one person is if he thought, okay, they're all weak enough, I'll put Don Jr. In there so I can keep up the grift. So I can still run things from Mar? A Lago. And again, that's to get into Republican primary after Donald Trump is to have a target on your back from your own former president every single day. And I think that's a terrible place to be.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Is there a movement inside the party, the Republican Party right now, that obviously doesn't want Trump 2.0 to be the Next candidate, but also isn't into the kind of Peter Thiel, techno libertarian, JD Vance style thing who wants to go back to like a McCain Romney type Republican. Does that movement exist and do they have any power?

[Rick Wilson]

No, not right now. Look, the tech guys who are behind Vance right now, they see Vance as a guy who gets their interests, will let them build out their AI data center universe thing and will cause a. They're going to try to cause enough money to flow his way for him to win. I think that the fights inside of maga, the purity checking and the, and the, the. The internal cat fight is going to be unbelievable. I think we have. No, we've never seen a Republican primary like this since probably 1988 when, you know, even though George W. Bush was the Vice President or George H.W. bush, my old boss, was the vice president, there were still 25 people in that race. Even in 2016, you had four or five serious candidates, but 10 more not so serious, and Trump. But this is going to be. All of these people have had such a. Have had such a suppressed desire to run. So you are going to get Rubio and Vance and Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis and Nikki Halo. They're going to have to be a cast of thousands in this fight.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

I'm interested in you saying that you'll have Rubio and Vance because Rubio supposedly told Vance, I won't run against you.

[Rick Wilson]

It's.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Oh, is that right?

[Rick Wilson]

I've known Marco a very long time. He's completely full of shit. They are planning his run. I know the guys that work for Marco at that level. They are all talking to the money people, they are all talking to the press. They are all talking to political, you know, power brokers in the various early states. They are planning a run. Do not be fooled for a single minute that Marco Rubio, because he will come out and go. While I did not want to run against my friend JD Vance, I believe it is time for new leadership that breaks away, whatever it is. You know, I mean, I can see the speech in my head because I've written it a thousand times. But this will be a very big field. There will be a lot of people. The other thing, David, I think I'd love to get your opinion on this. We saw over the weekend this thing about Tucker and Marjorie, Taylor Greene and Massie and all these other people forming another, what they're calling a movement,

[Donald Trump]

but

[Rick Wilson]

it smells and looks like a political party that is going to be a. For, for those of you who, for whom Maga is not crazy enough. Let's have something more crazy. I'm curious if you think that, where you think that's going to go.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Well, I mean, listen, I hope it goes somewhere in general because, so here's, here's my thoughts. I actually do think that right now there are people nominally on the left, or maybe the better word is ostensibly on the left. There are people who claim to be on the left who are sort of into like, hey, I don't know, Tucker kind of makes sense on some of this stuff. Marjorie Taylor it's kind of, yeah, Nick, Nick Fuentes kind of makes sense on some of this. So I actually do respect if they created such a movement or party. I think they pick up a little bit of support from the fringe left, but I think mostly it's going to come from people that either would stay home or would vote for the Republican candidate. Right. Right now. So I think the math of it overall is favorable to the Democratic Party.

[David Pakman]

But I actually, I think it's going

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

to struggle to really get off the ground, to be frank. I would love it if it did,

[David Pakman]

but I think it's going to be tough.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah, I think so too. I mean, even if it, if, but even if it only dragged 1 or 2% off the top of MAGA in 2028, I encourage Tucker to work very hard at this.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Absolutely.

[David Pakman]

My thought, my thought exactly.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Last thing. A guy like you forget about who's running. But as you look around at the names that are out there, are you more likely to support a moderate Republican? Are there any of the Dem governors that you see, you're like, maybe Dad's, what do you think?

[Rick Wilson]

I, I, I, as, as a, as a, as a, you know, I'm a, I'm a defrocked Republican. I'm a, there is no party that I, there's no, no element in the Republican Party that can win a presidential election right now or any election right now. So, you know, I'm looking at, I'm very excited about the farm team coming up in the Democratic Party. You know, I think, I think there are a lot of governors, as you said, that are very, that have, are already putting together a good argument for why they'd be effective. And there are going to be a lot of scrapping back and forth on that. You're going to see the fights between that, let's win big elections nationally wing, and they're gonna see fights between the DSA wing, which is growing in sort of influence. You're gonna see fights between the traditional old school Party types. It's gonna be, I think, actually a meritorious process. I think it's a good process for Democrats to air out. We've had a decade plus where Trump is the overarching story of everything. Okay? Even during Biden, the reason Biden was elected was because of Trump. Even, even. Even though he, Trump, deserved to lose. Biden wasn't about Joe Biden. It was about an antidote to Trump.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Right.

[Rick Wilson]

But I think The Democrats in 28 are going to have a really bigger assignment. They've got to show America something leaning way into the future. They've got to look way beyond this. 15 years, 10 years of chaos and say, we're going to face up to AI. We're going to deal with the things that have been shoved under the rug for the last decade and hurt Americans so much. And they're going to have to deal with the mess that he made. But they're going to all have to come out with an argument of why they can win and why they deserve it. You've got to deserve victory in this world. And I think that that's really going to be manifested mostly by which one of these guys or women come out of the gate. As a fighter. You got to fight for people who have been screwed by this era we've been in. You got to fight for big, big ideas. You got to show that you're going to take on this hate machine around the right and the alt right. It's exciting. But, yeah, I always like a governor. I think governors have a good angle on a lot of things because they've had to be in executive positions where it's tough to do that job and you can't get away from filling the potholes and fixing the bridges. You know, no matter what you'd like to talk about, you got to talk about the real shit when you got when you're a governor. So we'll see how it goes.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

We will see. It's going to be an interesting one. Rick Wilson, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time. We'll do it again.

[Rick Wilson]

We'll talk soon.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

Take care.

[David Pakman]

Bye.

[Rick Wilson]

Yeah.

[David Pakman]

Hey, if you're hearing this, that means you're listening to our podcast on one of the many podcast networks that we stream to. And first, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being a listener of this show. It really means a lot that you're tuning in here. I would love to ask you for a quick favor. We are so close to reaching 4 million subscribers on YouTube. YouTube is where we post everything. You get through the audio, podcast and a lot more stuff. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick second to pop over to YouTube, search up the David Pakman show, and hit subscribe. And every bit helps. I would love to have you as a subscriber there. Donald Trump spoke to reporters on Air Force One and glitched badly. This did not go well for him. Donald Trump not understanding questions. Donald Trump preferring to attack reporters for who they work for, who you with, rather than substantively asking questions. But maybe the lowest energy, the real beta moment from this gaggle was Donald Trump saying, listen, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar and Iran basically convinced me not to attack them. And of course, we all remember, damn, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar all have business ties to the Trump family. None of this is normal. But Trump goes, no, they convinced me not to do the attack today.

[Donald Trump]

Saudi Arabia, uae, and by Iran. We were all set to go just about at this time right now. And it would have been a massive attack. We're all set to go.

[David Pakman]

Would have been.

[Donald Trump]

But when the allies ask to call it off, you got to sort of say, well, let's see. And the reason they asked is, I think there's a deal. There's a deal on hormones, and then there will be a deal.

[David Pakman]

Hormos on the nuclear, or you might

[Donald Trump]

call it the denuclearization of Iran. I call it the denuclearization of Iran. So we're holding it. We'll just see. We can do it anytime we want. But we're asked by the three primary groups. We're also asked by Iran very strongly,

[David Pakman]

actually, super strong ask. They made.

[Donald Trump]

They said, we'd like to make a deal. Now, you know, I don't know what they say, because a lot of times they'll say that to me, and then they'll go out and say, we don't know what he's talking about. Obviously they don't.

[David Pakman]

And that's exactly what they did to be attacked.

[Donald Trump]

And they knew. They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it for me.

[David Pakman]

So basically, other countries didn't like it, and therefore Trump canceled something he otherwise thought was good for the United States.

[Max Miller]

Hmm.

[David Pakman]

Now, I'm against attacks as much as anybody. I don't even think we should have been in this war. But you do have to ask yourself is if Trump genuinely believed that that attack would have been good for the United States, which he claimed to. He was. He was saying that we're going to hit him so hard, and then it's going to be great for US if he really believed that what he was doing militarily was so good for us, why was it so easy for other countries who, by the way, have business ties to Donald Trump and have a general interest in stability in the region? Why was it okay for them to just go, yeah, don't do it, please? And Trump goes, all right. Trump was asked about the anti weaponization fund. Remember the $1.8 billion slush fund that was apparently canceled? Trump says it's back on the table. And Trump's asked about it. He just goes, oh, these people were treated so unfairly. No one's been treated as unfairly. They rioted.

[Donald Trump]

Sir, I like BBC better than abc.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

The anti weaponization fund is back on the table.

[Dana Bash]

What are your.

[Donald Trump]

Look, we have a man named Douglas. He's outstanding in every way. Most of you know who he is, you know, going to find a better person. And everybody agreed. And it's because I backed Warren's opponent, and his opponent won in a landslide. This is the only reason it's happening. But I will say there are a lot of people that, like, people were hurt so badly. 22 suicides. They were destroyed. Their families were destroyed. There's never been an attack on any group of people in this country.

[David Pakman]

And I apologize for the glitchy audio and video. It's on the. It's on the. It's there at the source.

[Donald Trump]

In my opinion, maybe one is one group that was attacked violently, viciously, like these people were attacked, and this would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffered. A lot of people like it. If they don't. If they don't approve that, I put it back on the table. A lot of people like it.

[David Pakman]

Yeah, what a surprise. The people who would get free money from your anti weaponization slash fund like it. What is. No, we hate that you might give us cash after we committed crimes. Give me a break, guys. Now then, we just have to acknowledge that Donald Trump very much struggles to understand questions that he's being asked. Trump was asked about this recent hack involving AI and anthropics, AI models, their chat bots. Trump doesn't know the first thing about this crap. He has no idea. And this is an example of where Trump is asked something and he just does not even know what he is being asked.

[Donald Trump]

It could be. We're very much involved in that. We have a big stake in that. So does the world.

[David Pakman]

So he has no clue what he's being asked. He heard AI and what he thought of immediately was, oh, we have A stake in that. I have a stake in that. That, that. That's really the only thing he cares about. Now, this is my favorite moment from the entire gaggle. Trump bragging about communism. He goes, you know, with Intel. By taking a stake in intel, we've made 75 billion, sir. State ownership of private business. Where do we see that historically

[Donald Trump]

on Venezuela, we make hundreds of billions of dollars. I make good deals. Intel. I made $75 billion for the country.

[David Pakman]

I didn't make for me, not me, of course.

[Donald Trump]

I made for the country. Intel. I back Intel. It's the hottest stock right now in the New York stock, on the very stock exchanges. So we've made about 75 to 80 billion dollars.

[David Pakman]

Do people realize that this is the supposed communism that they claim to be against and accuse Democrats of being in favor of and carrying out private businesses forcibly having stakes sold to the government? From which Trump then brags, hey, we're profiting bigly. But it's the, it's the. Biden's a communist. Biden never thought to do this crap. Trump with one of his who you with moments, and he thinks that the reporters from BBC, she's from abc. It's just, it's a combination of confusion, authoritarianism and hearing decline.

[Donald Trump]

Everybody wants help from our country.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

You said the BBC, abc.

[Donald Trump]

Oh, abc, that's worse.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

You said the.

[Donald Trump]

I like BBC better than abc.

[David Pakman]

BBC is better than abc. And B comes after A in the Alphabet. I really would prefer XBC because that's almost at the end. Who are you with? Any question he doesn't want to answer, who are you with? And then finally, earlier we spoke about this deranged video from Congressman Max Miller attempting to, but failing to defend himself against very serious violence charges from his ex wife. Trump asked, should Max Miller resign? And of course, Trump. Trump goes, well, these are just accusations. After all.

[Donald Trump]

A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it.

[David Pakman]

Mr. President, there's been some domestic allegations

[Donald Trump]

against Congressman Max Miller I just learned about.

[David Pakman]

He should resign.

[Donald Trump]

Well, I'm going to look at it. I mean, so far it's accusations. I'll be looking at it.

[David Pakman]

Now, of course, we know that Donald Trump has nearly 50 accusations against him and he has long insisted anybody can just make accusations, but that doesn't mean that they reflect any underlying truth. I didn't do any of this stuff. Even when he's been found civilly liable of sexual abuse against De Jean Carroll or he never did any of it. So of course Trump goes, it's just allegations. But I want to call you back, call your attention back to something else. I'm old enough to remember when at the beginning of Donald Trump's 2015 candidacy, the evangelicals and the sort of moral majority would insist the most important thing is character. And as Donald Trump slowly stayed in that primary and advanced due to the attrition of the twos and threes, the people polling 2 and 3, the evangelicals sort of are like, well, we don't really care that much about his various affairs and we don't really care that much about the fact that he's been pro choice his whole life or not religious his whole life until now. Or they were willing to throw it all aside because he was like, oh, I'm against abortion now. And if you go back even further to Obama or before that you go to Bush or before that you go to Clinton, they the evangelical right would argue that morality and personal character are the most important things. Think about how laughably pathetic it is to think about that after 11 years of Donald Trump in politics. So not a surprising response from Trump, but even wilder, the evangelicals just sort of seem fine with it. All right. RFK Jr. Lost his mind when CNN reporter Dana Bash confronted him about vaccines and about measles and about all of the things going wrong under his watch of hhs. And he looks terrible. Now I'm going to give you my disclaimer before we watch the first video. Sadly, Dana Bash was not really prepared for this. RFK comes off like a lunatic prick here, but she also sort of seems unprepared. Now, the counter counter is how can you possibly be prepared for someone so comfortable just making stuff up and doing personal attacks? We're going to watch it and sort it out. But RFK rapidly escalating when the topic of vaccines and measles come up.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Data. Let's talk about the measles, please, because this is something that is happening as, as we speak.

[Dana Bash]

The cases in the U.S. protected children.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I think that what I have talked to scientists and doctors about scientists.

[Dana Bash]

Can you look, can you show me one study?

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Yes, I can.

[Dana Bash]

It shows that I can. Children were protected by the COVID vaccine.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I, I can tell you that there

[Dana Bash]

are vaccine did more good than harm to children. Can you show me one study that shows that?

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I can tell you that when it comes to the vaccine, there have been studies that show that because of vaccine disinformation, disinformation, there could have been 100 to 200,000 lives in the US saved. But because people didn't get the vaccine. That's why I'm not saying that it entirely.

[Dana Bash]

You are saying nonsense. You are saying something that you cannot show me a single stone.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I am not saying nonsense.

[Dana Bash]

I am talking. When somebody told you.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Excuse me, and you sign me what study? No, what studies are you talking about? You're talking about studies that actually don't exist. I want to talk about.

[Dana Bash]

Cite me what you're talking about. I am not here. Cite me the study.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

This is not productive. I am not here to defend all of the practices.

[Dana Bash]

You're talking nonsense. You're making assertions.

[David Pakman (interviewer)]

You.

[Dana Bash]

You can't support. And then when I call you on there, you're telling me I'm arguing.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Okay, do you want to talk about. You want to talk about assertions that you can't support? I'll get there in a second. Let me just say for the record that I am not saying that the entire way that the COVID reaction was accurate. It was a scary time, and people made mistakes. Absolutely nothing.

[Dana Bash]

You were scaring people.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Why are you saying that?

[Dana Bash]

Because that was the job of cnn.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Okay.

[Dana Bash]

How many people are.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

We were trying to be. We were listening to the leaders in this country, including the president, who had a daily press conference explaining what was going on and trying to listen.

[Dana Bash]

Were you listening?

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I want to talk to measles, actually.

[Dana Bash]

Were you reading the measles?

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

The measles case.

[David Pakman]

All right, so listen, he's. He's a prick, but she is not as prepared as I would like to see her. But. But then they get into this. Well, you're not a scientist. Well, neither are you. And it just keeps escalating.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

So you are using. You are actually looking at. You're starting new studies to try to link autism, but you're also telling me

[Dana Bash]

trying to link autism to anything. I'm trying to find out why is autism.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Are you also trying to find out how it interacts with people's DNA? What's predisposed to have an autistic child? Are you doing both?

[Dana Bash]

Yeah, but, Dana, you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist, but you're not either. Genes don't cause epidemic.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

I understand genes kind of vulnerability. A gene provides environmental. That's what I'm asking. Are you studying the environment?

[Dana Bash]

All the different environmental exposures.

[David Pakman]

But one of the funny things that he slips in there is genes can't explain autism because genes don't cause epidemics. And there's two issues with that. Number one, the idea of autism as an epidemic. He's using the term colloquially, like, we're just finding a lot of autism, but epidemic actually means something different in scientific terminology. The other thing is, you know, when you talk about epigenetics, we, which is how genetics interact with the environment. You can have a genetic cause for something that becomes more common because of how it is interacting with a change to the environment. And there, by the way, I'm not asserting any of this stuff, but there are people out there who go, no, the explanation is our genes interacting with microplastics in the environment are coming together for more autism. That's not my explanation. This is just one of the things that's out there. He just is sort of messing with all of the different terms here. He is flipping out more.

[Dana Bash]

All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say, trust the experts. That's what you do during COVID Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the expert, was lying about everything. About mass, about the social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID He was lying and you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the experts again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Okay, well, guess what? That is my job, to talk to people.

[Dana Bash]

Your job is to talk to the American public.

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

Yes, and my job is to get as much information as I can.

[Dana Bash]

And what we were doing, what we were doing. Skepticism, what we were doing.

[David Pakman]

I think you get it. He's flipping out the entire time. One of the things that is really important to do when you see a highly emotionally charged piece of media like this is to really try to slow down and think about what are the. The factual assertions that are being made and how can I fact check them. So there's part of this is about measles or the interview was supposed to be about measles. Isolate that and figure out where are there more measles. How many of the people getting measles now are vaccinated? Almost none. Isolate that. Second, what do we. And don't we know about vaccines? We're not allowed to study them. That's not true. They love going, we should be studying the vaccine. Well, we have next week. I'm going to do a deep dive into autism and vaccines. And it's going to be hopefully useful to people who don't believe that there is a connection between vaccines and autism, but aren't exactly sure what is the factual basis to make that assertion. So we're going to get back to that RFK just flipping out on Dana Bash. It just a complete and total mess. I don't think anybody who watched that would have learned anything. Now on the bonus show today, we'll talk about the Idaho in and out burger shooting, which is getting really mysterious. Todd Blanche rescinds Trump's anti weaponization fund, which is what a bunch of Republican senators wanted to do if if he wanted their support. And Donald Trump is sparking outrage for blatantly cheating. Cheating on what though? We will talk about all of that and more on today's bonus show. Sign up@join pacman.com to get instant access. And remember that my forthcoming book, Pay Attention is available for Pre [e-mail] Attention. Signed copies of the book, limited number still available. All the Information is there. Davidpakman.com Attention.