The national nightmare is getting worse

Summary

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The David Pakman Show - Episode Summary

Episode Title: The National Nightmare is Getting Worse
Date: June 8, 2026
Host: David Pakman
Main Theme:
A scathing review of the Trump administration’s ongoing failures—centered on the unraveling Iran war, the chaotic domestic and international impact, the erosion of public trust in institutions and elections, and the administration’s growing crusade against independent media. The episode features sharp analysis, an explosive Trump interview meltdown, election conspiracy reactions, policy implications on oil and energy, plus a timely interview with Keisha Lance Bottoms, candidate for Georgia governor.

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Episode Overview

David Pakman presents fact-based, progressive commentary on the unraveling chaos of Donald Trump’s second term: an unending war in Iran, disintegrating ceasefires, economic fallout via depleted oil reserves, escalating attacks on media critics (including Pakman himself), and the growing distrust in American elections. The show features a breakdown of Trump’s contradictory public statements, the details of a contentious NBC interview where Trump storms out, and a deep dive with Keisha Lance Bottoms on Georgia politics and voting rights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Collapsing “Three Week” Trump-Iran War

• The war drags into week 15: Trump’s promise of a “three to four week conflict” with Iran is now five times as long, undermining his anti-war branding.
• Failed ceasefires: As David sarcastically recounts, “Trump’s Iran war is the most ended war in American history. It’s ended eight times already and yet it just seems to continue.” [01:10]
• Postmodern definitions: Trump redefines ‘ceasefire’ to suit narrative, saying (in a past interview) that “ceasefire’s when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner” [04:22].
• No leverage, no respect: Multiple parties ignore Trump’s declarations; Iran continues attacks amid his claims of imminent peace.

Notable Quote

“Despite he’s the big strong guy, nobody seems to respect Trump in any way.” — David Pakman [02:51]

“Trump makes campaign promises that then he doesn’t even try to keep... This was an optional [war]. You could have just not done it.” — David Pakman [06:05]

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2. Oil Reserves at a Historic Low, Consequences for Americans

• Depleting reserves: U.S. oil reserves at a “20-year low” after ten weeks of drawdown, directly linked to extended conflict. [09:30]
• Hypocrisy on display: Trump criticized Biden for similar reserve usage during pandemic inflation, but now does the same, worsening dependence and costs.
• Argument for renewables: Pakman stresses the need to reduce oil dependence to avoid future vulnerability and war-driven price shocks.

Notable Quote

“Wouldn’t it have been nice to start getting off oil in a more serious manner decades ago?...Every time there’s a war, Americans are told gas prices, oil reserves, shipping lanes, crude production—these are national security issues.” — David Pakman [11:42]

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3. Election Results, Mail Voting, and Conspiracies

• Republican accusations: Clip of Megyn Kelly and Keisha Lance Bottoms expressing baseless fraud claims over California election results. [15:14 - 17:12]
• Polling vs. results: Pakman illustrates, with numbers, that actual results match the polling, debunking fraud narratives.
• Conspiracy “logic”: If voting doesn’t match polling—fraud; if results match polling—“too perfect, must be a conspiracy.”
• Expert voices: Interview with Jay Clayton shows the rhetorical game of “I’m not saying there is fraud, just raising suspicion,” with no evidence. [19:57]

Memorable Moment

“There is no data you could show them that would get them to say, 'Yeah, maybe we just lost.'” — David Pakman [22:30]

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4. Trump’s Interview Meltdown With Kristen Welker

• Meltdown moment: Trump storms out, stomping on and breaking his microphone, after being pressed for evidence and accountability. [26:24; 27:48]
• Refusal of follow-ups: Trump’s hostility toward female reporters and inability to withstand scrutiny highlighted.
• Denying promises: On being asked about ‘no new wars’—Trump now claims, “I didn’t guarantee no war... Why would I have built the strongest military?” [28:50; 36:06]
• Semantic games: Repeated attempts to shift blame and move goalposts on war duration, purpose, and the definition of “ceasefire.”

Notable Quotes & Moments

Trump: “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.” [26:24]

Packman: “How is this strength? Is this the toughness that MAGA voters like—he’s so tough, and a follow-up question makes him run away?” [27:24]

“You were in Vietnam for 19 years.” — Donald Trump, using irrelevant comparisons to avoid accountability for the Iran war [31:49]

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5. The Myth of Trump as the “Anti-War President”

• Broken branding: Pakman airs a montage of Trump’s own statements: “I was the first president in decades who started no new wars...”
• Current contradiction: Trump now in a long war but claims he never guaranteed peace.
• Standard hawkish rhetoric: “Build a bigger military, but that’s so we’ll never have to use it,”—a classic political tactic, spun as unique by Trump.
• Shifting narratives: War’s length keeps being redefined to maintain the false promise of quick, decisive victory.

Notable Quotes

“I’m the one that kept us out of war. You know, I’m the only president that didn’t start a war. I didn’t start a war.” — Trump montage [37:00]

“The solution they’ve sort of landed on is: Start wars, but don’t call them wars. It’s perfect.” — David Pakman [38:20]

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6. Attacks on Independent Media: Pakman on Trump Administration’s “Enemies List”

• Pakman targeted: Trump administration places Pakman on a list of adversarial media; Pakman consults with lawyers over potential repercussions. [59:10]
• Backfiring attempts: Show grows in viewership and subscriptions since the development.
• First Amendment concerns: Emphasizes threats to free speech and independent journalism.

Memorable Moment

“Of course my work is protected by the First Amendment. Do we still care about the Constitution?...But this is not a normal administration.” — David Pakman [59:33]

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7. Trump’s Historic Unpopularity

• New polling milestone: At the 500-day mark, Trump is “the most unpopular president ever,” according to Economist/YouGov tracking poll. Net approval: minus 25. [01:02:26]
• Real-world effects: War in Iran, economy declining, confidence plummeting—undermining Trump’s core appeal and “mandate.”

“Trump hasn’t really changed... He’s doing all of it.” — David Pakman [01:03:24]

“What would be enough? If this doesn’t lead to accountability, is there any way to have accountability?” — David Pakman [01:04:08]

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8. Keisha Lance Bottoms Interview: Georgia’s Shifting Political Landscape

• Recent history: Discusses demographic shifts, business diversity, and how Georgia could flip blue again. [45:32]
• Policy talk: Proposes eliminating state income tax for public school teachers, careful about broader tax cuts that may lead to service cuts. [49:41–53:55]
• Redistricting & voting rights: Explains voter suppression tactics and the need for fair access to voting. [53:55]
• Governing with opposition: Plans to seek common ground if elected governor, despite likely Republican-controlled Assembly. [57:15]

Notable Quotes

“We are rural, we are urban, we are diverse… we are all of the above. That’s the dynamic in Georgia.” — Keisha Lance Bottoms [47:01]

“Nobody is asking for anything extra. We’re just asking, be fair, protect the right to vote.” — Keisha Lance Bottoms [54:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Meltdown interview: Trump stomps mic — [26:24, clips at 27:48]
• Redefining ‘ceasefire’ — [04:22]
• Oil reserves & energy independence — [09:30–12:30]
• Megyn Kelly election conspiracy montage — [15:14–17:12]
• Trump denies anti-war promise — [28:50, 36:06, 37:00]
• Montage: “No new wars” — [37:00]
• Pakman on being targeted by administration — [59:10]
• Trump’s record unpopularity — [01:02:26]
• Keisha Lance Bottoms interview — [45:32 – 58:47]

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Most Memorable Quotes

• “It’s a reminder of the harebrained and dilapidated nature of this war, but also a reminder that if we had started really working to get off of oil 20 years ago, we wouldn’t be as subject to the whims of the market pricing of oil.” — David Pakman [01:41]
• “It should be harder to vote, get off their fat asses and get to election polling stations on Election Day, then we don’t want you.” — Megyn Kelly [16:58]
• “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.” — Trump, storming out of interview [26:24]
• “You haven’t presented any evidence of that.” — Kristen Welker [26:33]
• “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” — Donald Trump [28:53/36:06]
• “We are now officially on a target list for the White House. We don’t know exactly what that will mean, but we must support independent media.” — David Pakman [01:00:10]
• “I just want us to be responsible. I looked at the budget. I knew that we could absorb it for our teachers. Maybe another day we can absorb it for other groups.” — Keisha Lance Bottoms [51:36]

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Tone & Style

David Pakman’s delivery is direct, sardonic, and unflinching, blending deep policy analysis with pointed, sometimes caustic humor. The episode balances outrage over the dysfunction and dishonesty of the current administration with a grounded focus on solutions—energy independence, voting rights, and accountability.

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Summary

This episode is a blistering critique of Trump’s leadership failures, spanning the endless Iran war, economic fallout, election denialism, attacks on democracy and the press, and the actual mechanics of power in states like Georgia. Through audio from news clips, interviews, and Pakman’s own signature commentary, listeners are given a sharp, insightful, and fact-packed tour of American political dysfunction and the path forward for holding leaders—and the public—accountable.

Transcript

[David Pakman]

We have a historic meltdown interview to play for you today where Donald Trump stomps on his microphone and runs away from Kristen Welker after being confronted about the fact that he made promises that he is not keeping. Meanwhile, the three week war is now into week 15. Cease fire number nine or ten is falling apart. And now the antiwar president claims I never promised to keep us out of any wars. It gets even worse. A major poll finds that Donald Trump is now the least popular president at the 500 day mark in history. And we are going to look at what's happening with oil. We as a country have the lowest oil reserves in more than 20 years. A reminder of the harebrained and dilapidated nature of this war, but also a reminder that if we had started really working to get off of oil 20 years ago, we, we wouldn't be as subject to the whims of the market pricing of oil. Finally, the latest attempts from the administration to come after your favorite podcaster, Jimmy Dore, I mean your favorite podcaster me, are backfiring. They put me on a list and it's backfiring and I'm so thrilled. All of that today. If I, I told you that I was watching a two hour movie and we were in hour 10 of the two hour movie, you might say, sir, that doesn't make any sense. We are now in week 15 of Donald Trump's supposedly three to four week war with Iran and yet another cease fire is imploding. I jokingly said last week, or maybe it was the week before that, Trump's Iran war is the most ended war in American history. It's ended eight times already and yet it just seems to continue. Donald Trump posting to Truth Social, quote, Israel and Iran must immediately stop, quote, shooting. I don't know why shooting is in quotes. They're literally shooting, not metaphorically shooting. And then Trump saying that they are looking to do a cease fire. Wait a second, I thought we had eight ceasefires already. Donald Trump posting, quote, both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate cease fire. Final negotiations on peace are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The blockade will remain in place. Wait, I thought it was over and in full force and effect. Until a final deal is reached, things should move quickly. Thank you for your attention to this matter. After all of the declarations about how we have a cease fire and it's ending and it's over and everybody's getting everything they want and Iran is not going to be able to develop a nuclear weapon and everybody's thrilled. After all of that. Now, all of a sudden, we're again looking for a cease fire. It's been called over eight times. And what's incredible, and it's a reminder of how little leverage Donald Trump has in this situation. Despite he's the big strong guy, nobody seems to respect Trump in any way. Trump makes his latest declaration. Now. Now we really are going to get a cease fire. Iran fires missiles into northern Israel. Iran's Revolutionary Guard says this is only a warning and there will be more action against American and Israeli targets if hostilities continue and the Israeli public remains under emergency restrictions. Iran continues to be bombed. It's absolute chaos. This is a cease fire. Well, no, now we're looking for a cease fire. But what happened to cease fires number one through eight or one through nine or one through seven, wherever we are right now? Now, there is a little postmodern wrinkle to the entire thing, which is that Donald Trump has changed the definition of ceasefire. He was asked last week, how do you define cease fire? And to say that it doesn't exactly comport with my understanding of the word is a bit of an understatement. Remember this, how do you define cease fire?

[Donald Trump]

Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, cease fires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner, moderate

[David Pakman]

bombing counts as a cease fire. So then I guess we have a cease fire right now. No, we are now looking for a cease fire again. Meanwhile, the New York Times also reports that American attempts to secure a Lebanon truce have stalled. So what's the theme here? Take a pick. I mean, there's, there's four or five layers of themes here. Theme number one, Trump makes campaign promises that then he doesn't even try to keep. He wasn't forced into this war. It's not. Well, listen, I intended to be the anti war president, I really did, but I couldn't get out of this one. Now, this was an optional one. You could have just not done it. Promise. That's promise one promises. I'm sorry, that's layer one promises from the campaign that he doesn't keep. Number two, he is anti war. Donald Trump has actually shown significant willingness to both threaten and use military power. Not very anti war. And we're going to get to that a little bit later because I think it deserves more investigation and analysis. Number three, the idea of Trump as the war ender. And if you look at his list of wars that he has Ended. You look and you say, some of these weren't actually conflicts, others didn't really end. And then you go down the list and you start to think, maybe, maybe this is not what Donald Trump is claiming it to be. The number of claims about this war ending which have turned out to be false are quite remarkable. And so the, the, the zoom out is Trump announces progress, announces cease fires, says negotiations are going on and going really well, deals are imminent. And then next thing you know, there is headlines about missiles and strikes and bombs and threats and retaliation and more evidence, proof, I would call it, that the parties involved are still acting according to what they perceive their interests to be, rather than Trump's timetable. No leverage for Trump, no respect for Trump whatsoever. And one of the most incredible things, when we get to the Kristen Welker interview, we're going to delve more deeply into this. It is remarkable that Donald Trump is also denying that he ever promised no new wars under his watch. Now, I want to speak the magazine in the audience, the Magaz, the Maga Donians, the Maga Potamians, all of them, every, everybody. Are you ready to say that at least on this, Trump lied to you? I would respect you more if you came to me and you said, listen, I love Trump's ideas about taxes. I'm with Trump on men and women's sports. But on the war stuff, he did lie. And on lowering gas prices, he did lie. And on lowering oil prices, he did lie. And on lowering grocery prices, he did lie. And on lowering housing prices, he did lie. And on getting us out of this war in three weeks, he did lie. Just acknowledge that and tell me that you don't agree with it. Right, because you were anti war. You voted. They were writing to me, David. I am a maga and I am proudly voting for the best president in American history because Donald Trump is really anti war. And the fact that Tulsi now supports him proves it because she's also anti war. How is all that crap working out for you, huh? Tulsi pushed out Trump in a new war. So I'm ready to graciously say I respect you acknowledging that you were lied to and that you were wrong. Magaz, leave a comment, etcetera, etcetera, and we'll get to the whole, I never really promised no new wars under my watch. Let's talk about oil. The United States has less oil today than we have had in decades. If you put together the strategic and commercial oil reserves today, they are at their lowest level in more than 2020 years. This is making oil and gas more expensive. It's making driving around more expensive. If you have a gas powered vehicle, it's making heating your home more expensive. If you depend on oil to heat your home, this is optional. This is because of Donald Trump's Iran war. Trump has been drawing down the Strategic petroleum reserve for 10 weeks now. It was a three week war. We're in week 15. And for the last 10 weeks of the three week war, Trump's been pulling oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, I want to remind you, because there's always, you know that there's always an example of this under Biden. When Biden, in getting us out of the COVID pandemic inflation scenario, drew down some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Biden was a very bad boy when he did that. It was proof when Biden pulled oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve during his presidency that he is senile, he's a bad person, he's a bad president, and yet Donald Trump is doing it. And now the United States has less oil left than we've had in decades. Now, it's not. The key issue isn't really today's supply. I mean, that is an issue. But the key issue is we don't know when the war will end because Trump said it would be three to four weeks. And it's week 15. So it's certainly on the order of months. 15. Half a year is 26 weeks. We're only 11 weeks from this being a half year when we were promised three to four weeks. The longer the war lasts, the more that Trump's bragging. Now the Strait of Hormuz is blockaded. It's open, it's closed, it's insane. The more vulnerable the United States is going to become, the longer that this war goes on. And the United States is being forced, in a sense, to rely on the SPR because markets need supply and our entire lives run on petroleum. Now, this is a reasonable point to interject and say, this is really about foreign policy. This is, it's about a lot of different things. But wouldn't it have been nice to start getting off of oil in a more serious manner decades ago? Every time there's a war, Americans are told gas prices, oil reserves, shipping lanes, crude production, these are national security issues. In fact, our reliance on oil makes it easier to get into wars where petroleum supply is threatened, affected or involved. And the fact that a conflict thousands of miles away can threaten American fuel prices demonstrates how vulnerable we are because of this dependence on oil. Now, I know that every time I talk about this, right wingers write in and they go, david, you're so stupid and you're a bad person and I don't like your haircut because we couldn't just get off of oil overnight. While I'm not saying get off of oil overnight, I'm saying it would have been nice to have started making moves in that direction 20 years ago. It's same when they go, do you know what would happen if everybody bought an electric vehicle overnight? There would be no electric supply. And then we go, yeah, listen, there's not even enough electric vehicles out there for people to do that. The electric vehicle supply is going to increase as people demand electric vehicles. And meanwhile, as people have more electric vehicles and they need to charge them, the grid is going to be grown and increased in terms of capacity. I'm not suggesting overnight. But the point is, if we're going to reduce dependence, it has to start somewhere. The longer we delay electrification, alternative energy efficiency improvements, diversifying transportation, improve, improving public transit, the longer we delay all that stuff, the longer that Americans are going to remain vulnerable to events they have no control over. If you are a, you know, delivery per, you have a small package delivery business in Michigan, and now all of a sudden your business is getting all screwy because Trump went to war with Iran thousands of miles away. Well, that is to a great degree because of our reliance on petroleum and on gasoline. The oil shocks become an argument for why this transition to renewables should have started earlier. If a war in the Middle east can threaten inventories and raise prices and dominate our defense domestic economy, it's evidence we really should be transitioning away from that. Now let's get back to the political. Trump promised to end wars, and instead Americans are talking about dwindling oil reserves because of a war. Trump said that his strength would bring stability, showing Iran whose boss would stabilize. But instead, things have been completely destabilized. And Trump told us, going all the way back to the beginning of this political nightmare in 2015, that he's the master negotiator. He gets China, he understands your plight. He gets trade, he gets business, he gets all of this stuff and he'll keep us out of wars. And now we are in month. Well, it's 15, I guess we're in month, four at four and a half, something like that, with no end in sight. Who pays for this stuff? It is not the generals. It's not Pete Kegseth, it's not Howard Nutlik. It's not. It's not Trump. The oil companies aren't paying. Our elected officials don't pay. We pay. We pay. When we fill up our cars with more expensive gas, heat our homes with more expensive oil, buy products that cost more because they are being shipped in petroleum dependent ways. We pay. And meanwhile Donald Trump's net worth went from 4 billion to 6 point something billion during this second term. You getting what you voted for? Let me know. I trust elections when I win. Oh come on Megan Kelly, you're pathetic. Republicans are melting down because the election results in California mirror the polling numbers going into those elections. What? That doesn't make any sense. I know, I know. Here is Megyn Kelly on her a Sirius XM show saying no one will. This is as they were counting votes from the Los Angeles mayoral race and the California gubernatorial jungle primary. Nobody's going to trust the results if the Republicans don't win, if Steve Hilton doesn't win, if Spencer Pratt doesn't win, nobody will trust the results. Oh, but what if the people you like do it? Well, that's a different story. Listen to Megyn Kelly.

[Megyn Kelly]

No one is going to trust this outcome if those two are eliminated from the general election. Given the leads that we've seen. I'm, I'm going to, when the panel's here. Yesterday we didn't get to it with Maureen. Today I'm going to get to the actual numbers as we know them so far and get on the record as we go into the weekend with where we think the vote is. If you look at the betting markets and they don't know anything more than we do. I mean, well generally they don't. They're all now voting against Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton even making it into the top two. They don't believe at all that Californians are going to let that happen in one way, shape or form by voting.

[David Pakman]

Meghan? Yeah. Oh, people are going to vote and they're not going to let that happen.

[Megyn Kelly]

So what we're seeing is the Republicans do well on the day of and then we slowly watch their leads evaporate as the massive mail in vote from more left leaning districts gets tabulated. That's, that's such a nice insurance policy, isn't it?

[David Pakman]

Wait a second, Megan. You're saying that as the vote for from left leaning areas is counted, it's bad for Republicans. It must be fraud.

[Megyn Kelly]

Such a nice insurance policy. Don't you worry if you don't make it in the day of vote. We got you covered. We got you.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

I mean we saw that Here in

[Megyn Kelly]

Connecticut where that we. There was film of these Democrat operatives literally stuffing mailboxes full of ballots that they'd managed to get their hands on to try to get that in there.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Let's shove it in there.

[Megyn Kelly]

And it just undermines the faith in integrity of elections to allow this kind of voting. I don't care how convenient you want to make it for people. Do we really want to make it that convenient? I mean these are lazy ass people. If they.

[David Pakman]

It should be harder to vote, get

[Megyn Kelly]

off their fat asses and get to election polling stations on election day then we don't want you.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Okay?

[Megyn Kelly]

We don't want, we don't want your vote. Who gives a shit about you?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

You're too lazy, you're too busy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sure. To make it down to the polling station on election day, then get out.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Good.

[Megyn Kelly]

Goodbye.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

You don't get to vote.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's how it always has been. Why wasn't that system?

[Kristen Welker]

Okay?

[Megyn Kelly]

Because we needed to widen the field

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

so we could get people too lazy

[Megyn Kelly]

to get down there to have their.

[David Pakman]

That's enough. Megan, let me show you something. Okay. This, this is what they're freaking out about. Here's the polling going into the California gubernatorial primary. This is the polling. This is not the vote. This is the polling going in. Becerra 24, Hilton 23, Stier 21. Okay, keep, keep this in mind. Becerra, Hilton Stier 24, 23, 21. Here are the results of the Democratic of the California gubernatorial primary. Becerra in first place, just like the polling said with 27. OK, he was expected to have 24. He got 27. Hilton in second place just like the polling said with 26. He was expected to get 23. The Republican over performed the polling and they're calling it fraud. And then Tom Stier in third place. The polling said he would be third. Stier with 12, 21 and a half. The polling said Stier would get 21. The polling and the electoral results comport with each other and they are saying that there is some big conspiracy because the way that the votes were counted and there was a delay. These are exactly the numbers that we expected. Now one of the things that's really important to understand about conspiracy theorists and this, we've talked about this in so many, so many different conspiracies. If you say hey look, the polling and the voting are different, they would go, that's really suspicious. The polling told us this and all of a sudden we're supposed to believe that the results are completely different. It must be because someone cheated. But then today we have the opposite situation. The polling and the voting are basically the same. And they go, that's too perfect. They set that up. That's part of the conspiracy theory because never is the polling that accurate. So either way, it reinforces their conspiratorial belief. This is sort of like when you point out to someone, you know, there's absolutely no evidence of what you're saying. Right. And they go, because they covered up the evidence. The absence of evidence proves they covered it up, which means that I'm right. Either way, they believe that they are right. Here's Andrew Ross Sorkin this morning interviewing U.S. attorney this is a pro TRUMP U.S. attorney Jay Clayton about the fraud stuff. And it won't shock you to see that Jay Clayton is not making a lot of sense.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

AJ here's, here's the piece of this that I don't understand. There may be fraud. There may not be fraud in our election system to some degree, one way or the other. I think, as Becky pointed out, obviously, the law is the law. In California, we could have a big debate about whether to change the law. But do you think that it helps, given where you sit in the world, to speculate about fraud or potential fraud without any direct evidence of said fraud? Because typically, if you were to bring

[Jay Clayton]

a case, you historically wouldn't want to

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

speculate about the case.

[Jay Clayton]

I am not speculating about fraud. I'm not saying there is fraud. Okay. I am saying that the opportunity for fraud makes no sense to me when we can run a much better system.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But I only say that because the president over the weekend, very openly didn't just speculate that there was fraud. He said directly that there was fraud.

[Jay Clayton]

Let me, let me also say this, Andrew. There are a lot of people who look at this and say there is no fraud.

[David Pakman]

Yes.

[Jay Clayton]

I don't think that they're right either. When you have a situation where you don't have voter id, where there's, you

[David Pakman]

know, there's no voter id, I'm not even going to insult you by. We know their arguments. It's this been the same thing for 15, 20 years at this point. Okay? They love to play this game. You're not saying there's necessarily fraud, but you're constantly talking about fraud. You're talking about the opportunity for there to be fraud. You're saying people should be worried about fraud and that all of the voting rules should be changed on the basis of the possibility of that fraud. But you're not saying that there's Fraud. Give me a break. The other one, by the way, that they're claiming this, these irregularities in is the Los Angeles mayoral race. And in that one, here's the polling, ok, the polling had it Karen Bass, Spencer. I'm sorry, this is the wrong order. The, the recent, most recent polling had Karen Bass first and then it was sort of a mix between Pratt and Rahman second and third. And you look at the results and it's basically that now Karen Bass did overperform some of the polling, but so did Nithya Rahman and Spencer Pratt. What happened is that some of the down ballot, the less prominent candidates ended up underperforming. So there's a whole bunch of candidates there that ended up getting a bunch of them under 1%. And even like for example, Miller got 3.7%, but Miller was polling between all the way up to seven. So Bass and Pratt ended up doing better than the polling, but they're saying, oh, it was anti Republican fraud. Well, Pratt got more than he was polling because some of these down, lesser known candidates ended up with a lower level of support. Truly pathetic. There is no data you could show them that would get them to say, yeah, you know what, maybe we just lost. And that's where I'm at for 2024. Harris just lost. That's it. She lost. It was, you know, there's about 120,000 votes in three key swing states which could have pushed it the other direction, but it didn't. She just lost. That's it. We don't have to go crazy and demand all these different things. If they could just acknowledge that, I would respect them a lot more. I don't expect them to do it though. 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 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. It'll cover guardianship for kids and pets, asset distribution, health care directives. Their products are attorney designed. They are state specific and they grow with you so you can update the plan as your life changes. They also use bank level encryption and secure sharing to keep your information protected. Estate planning does not have to be intimidating or outrageously expensive. Everyone has something to leave behind. Don't wait until it's too late. Protect your loved ones today, tomorrow and Beyond. Go to trust and will.com/pacman and get 20% off the link is in the description I don't have a cat myself, but I have spent enough time around friends cats to know that there are picky cats when it comes to food. They don't like it. They won't eat it. But one of my friends has had a ton of success switching to Smalls cat food. Before Smalls, mealtime was very hit or miss. The cat gets excited. Now our sponsor Smalls is fresh human grade cat food made with real ingredients, no fillers or artificial stuff. High protein, gently cooked, promotes digestion. Delivered right to your door. My friend did a side by side with the old food and Smalls. The cat went for Smalls. Your cat deserves more than a bowl of processed shortcuts. Try Smalls. If your cat doesn't love Smalls, you get a full refund for a limited time. My audience gets 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you go to smalls.com/pacman the link is in the description Donald Trump stormed out of an interview over follow up questions. Of course the interviewer was a woman. It's NBC's Kristen Welker. TRUMP doesn't like follow up questions, especially from female reporters. I guess she didn't smile enough or something like that. Then he steps on the microphone and runs the hell out of there. Is this the alpha male behavior that all of the magazine love? I'm going to start with the wildest moment, which is the end, which is when Trump flips out and leaves and then stomps the microphone. Then we'll go back and look at some of the other moments. Take a look.

[Donald Trump]

I won an election in a landslide And I got 94% bad press. But Mr. President, you know why I got that present? Because you have no credibility.

[Kristen Welker]

But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about. I want to talk about time.

[Donald Trump]

You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented. Let's talk your elections. In this country, we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked. At least the press is crooked and so is ABC And CBS and cnn. You're one sided crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.

[Kristen Welker]

Mr. President, let's please. I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat all I know. I've sat in the rain for an

[Donald Trump]

hour, on and off in the rain. And I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonor.

[Kristen Welker]

Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the synod.

[David Pakman]

And then that pounding noise when the audio cuts out is when Trump stomps his mic. So before we get into some of the other substantive moments, I just got to ask you, how is this strength? I mean, is this the toughness of Trump that the MAGA voters like he's so tough and a follow up question makes him run away? Trump did stomp his mic, dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. We have a zoom in of that.

[Donald Trump]

Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day.

[Kristen Welker]

Mr. President, please. I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.

[David Pakman]

All right, so he stomps on the mic. Listen, guys, Trump doesn't actually have any way to defend, defend the things that he says. And what this is really about is that he wants to be able to say the election is rigged and to have reporters go, yes, sir, yes, Mr. President, sir, of course I'm. I sobbed on election night because it was so strongly rigged against you. But Kristen Walker doesn't do that. She goes, you haven't presented any evidence of that. Trump goes, it's been raining here. It's been raining and I sat here talking to you. That's it. The interview is over. He stomps the mic and then gets the hell out of there. Now, substantively, one of the most stunning moments of this interview was when Donald Trump was asked about the fact that he said no new wars. And now he's in a new war. And he goes, well, I didn't guarantee it. So let me play this clip and then we're going to come back to it later. What changed?

[Kristen Welker]

Because you insisted no new wars.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

First of all, I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment, we had nothing. I built it.

[David Pakman]

Remember that? That's not true.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

Tremendous military. Biden gave a lot of it away, but it's still a relatively small portion compared to what I built.

[Kristen Welker]

You said it over and over again.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

Why would I build a military? Now, I didn't want to use this, but I'm doing you and and everybody else a big favor in the midst of the greatest stock market in history, in the midst of the most successful country because as you know, in the last term we were dead country. Kristen, I know you. You're a big liberal or big progressive.

[Kristen Welker]

No, but we're just a journal.

[David Pakman]

Now that I'm going to come back to the I didn't exactly guarantee no new wars, but remember, it must be the case that if a journalist is asking an elected official to defend their claims, she must be biased. Now, I hate that this is even reality, but I last week or the week before acknowledged that recently we have heard by we I mean, you know, my team, our producers have heard from Democratic staffers who didn't like that I asked them real questions during interviews and we've had them come to us and go, why didn't David ask about HR Puffin stuff that was proposed, which will never pass by the person I work for. And you know, producer Pat says the right thing, which is I do a bunch of background research for David, but ultimately he decides what the questions are and it's not reasonable in a 20 minute interview to talk about eight different things. So the interview focused on a couple topics. And this is not just on the Republican side, it's also an issue on the Democratic side. I'm not doing both sides. I'm not saying it's to the same proportion, but we have experienced it as well. And Trump is really at the chief of the, at the head of this, which is if I have what are considered tough questions or if I lie and you call me out on it or demand some kind of accountability, you must be a progressive who is personally biased against me. Now, we'll come back to the whole I didn't exactly promise no new wars. But in talking about the Iran war, Donald Trump, while he has on the one hand been saying this isn't really a war, it's just an excursion by which he means incursion, but he doesn't know the word. Trump starts saying, you know, we were in Vietnam for years. World War II was really long. If this isn't a war, why are you comparing it to Vietnam and World War II? You said it would last three weeks and now you go, well, it's been only 15 weeks. I mean, Vietnam was like decades.

[Kristen Welker]

How long are you willing to give Iran to Make a deal. How much longer? He's been talking for quite some time.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

Well, you really haven't. Again, you were in Vietnam for 19 years.

[Donald Trump]

You were in Iraq for many years. You were in Korea for many, many years.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

You were all the.

[Donald Trump]

I won't even talk about World War

[Donald Trump (continued)]

II because that was the big one and we don't want to ever have that. But you were in all these different wars for many years with thousands and thousands of people killed. We've had 13 people killed, which I hate. We've had 13 people killed,' and that includes two wars. That's Venezuela and that's Iran.

[Kristen Welker]

But do you have a cut off?

[Donald Trump]

Why would you keep talking about speed?

[Donald Trump (continued)]

Chris, you were in Vietnam for 19 years.

[David Pakman]

All right, so you know, Trump thinks he's super slick when he does these things. He goes, it's very Putin. Like, he goes, it is, it is not a war. It is a special military operation. It's an excursion to Iraq. And then he goes, hey, listen, get off my back. We're in a war here. Wars last a long time. This one's been pretty short so far. It's all only in week 15, Kristen. I mean, this is a pretty short war. I thought it wasn't a war. Well, it's not. But by the standards of war, it is an extremely short one. He's like the mob boss who uses this vague language, but then he forgets that he's using the language. Finally, here's what led to the meltdown that ultimately caused Trump to walk out. This was the lead up to election was rigged.

[Donald Trump]

It was a dirty election. And it's happening again right now in California. Presented evidence happening right now in California. Right now. It's. Look at, look at what's happening in California that it's four days doing. Well, California. It's. No, they're not. They're dropping fast because it's a rigged election. Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up.

[Kristen Welker]

That's how they know why they're doing

[Donald Trump]

that, because they're cheating on the election.

[Kristen Welker]

There's what, do you have evidence to support?

[Donald Trump]

All I have to do is look, all I have to do is. Have to do is.

[Kristen Welker]

That's not.

[Donald Trump]

And I listen and I listen to people and let's see what happens.

[Kristen Welker]

But, sir, that's not evidence.

[Donald Trump]

Do you think it's appropriate.

[Kristen Welker]

That's how they count the votes.

[Donald Trump]

Do you think it's appropriate that they have an election and five days later they're nowhere close to Picking state local

[Kristen Welker]

officials acknowledge they are slow. They're urging, no, they're crooked. They're urging the votes to be counted quickly. That's how they vote.

[Donald Trump]

Crooked. Just like you're crooked, your press is crooked and meet the president's crooked.

[Kristen Welker]

To be fair, I'm not, not crooked.

[Donald Trump]

But let's really, when you play right into their hands, let's continue. You're either crooked or you're stupid.

[David Pakman]

You're crooked or you're stupid. This is, this is journalism, folks. And I know that in the United States we have become used to journalists being criticized for doing this kind of journalism. And it's just basic journalism. If you, if you watch media and you know, I watch a lot of Argentinian news and political shows, this sort of questioning is normal. This is nothing. And in fact, when the elected officials understand that these are part of the rules of the game, they are also better prepared. The problem here is Trump is completely unprepared to have his ideas scrutinized and pressure tested. And so when he gets follow up questions, he flips out. Embarrassing. But what about being the anti war president? We must discuss that. Donald Trump spent years cultivating the, the image that he is the real antiwar candidate. He contrasted himself with Bush, with Obama, with Biden. He said, Hillary will start five wars and Biden's going to take us to war. He upended the so called foreign policy establishment that loves endless wars. He said Iraq was a mistake, even though at the time he said he would have gone in. He told voters he was going to end wars rather than start them. And now he's in a war that was going to last three weeks. It's at more than four months and he is saying, I didn't really promise or guarantee that there would be no new wars. So where are all of the people who fell for it and emailed me about how, David, you're so stupid. You're a pro war left winger. Trump's the only real antiwar candidate. Tulsi was the only real antiwar Democrat. Where are you now? So let's again take a look at this moment from the interview with Kristen Welker. Trump ultimately walking out of this interview in a huff, stepping on his microphone. But here Trump goes. I didn't guarantee no wars. What changed?

[Kristen Welker]

Because you insisted no new wars.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment, we had nothing. I built a tremendous military. Biden gave a lot of it away. But it's still a Russian relatively small portion compared to what I built.

[Kristen Welker]

You said it over and over again.

[Donald Trump (continued)]

Why would I build a military now? I didn't want to use this, but I'm doing you and everybody else a big favor in the midst of the greatest stock market in history, in the midst of the most successful country because as you know, in the last term we were dead country. Kristen, I know you.

[David Pakman]

You're a big we were dead. So Trump goes, I didn't guarantee it. I didn't guarantee it. But our friend decoding Fox News put together this nice little montage. Judge for yourselves what Trump said about war in the lead up to the 2024 election.

[Donald Trump]

Said, oh, he's going to start a walker. Because they said I had that personality to start a war. They remember that. Oh, we can't vote for him. He's going to start a word. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. Who started no new wars. No new wars. No new wars. We don't need the wars. Foreign lands, countries you've never heard of, countries that don't even want us there. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new war wars. We will expel the warmongers from our government. You know, he never got into a war with me. I have a great record. We had peace. We had prosperity. We had no wars. We had no wars that started no wars. We didn't have a war. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will expel the warmongers from our government. And we had no wars. When you see all the people that died of these horrible wars in the Middle east and everything else, countries didn't want us. Look at Trump. Just look at this guy. He's going to go to war. He's going to take us. No, no, look at me. I'm the one that kept us out of war. You know, I'm the only president that didn't start a war. I didn't start a war. This president.

[David Pakman]

No wars.

[Donald Trump]

Started no wars. You're going to end up in a war or war or no war.

[David Pakman]

It goes on. You get the point. Okay, very good montage. Very, very good montage from decoding Fox News. And the solution that they've sort of landed on is start wars. But don't call a morse. It's perfect. Play these semantic games that they love. Criticizing the leftover, one of Trump's strongest political brands, aside from I know trade and I will fix trade, is I am really the antiwar president. And he went after Republicans who supported the war in Iraq, even though, remember, he called into the Howard Stern show and said, yeah, I probably would have gotten in myself. He attacked Democrats over foreign interventions. He said he is the uniquely skeptical of military action candidate. And he spent years telling us foreign policy establishment types are addicted to war that never ends. And we're going to have the strongest military ever. We're going to increase it many, many times, and that will allow us not to use it. That is standard hawkish rhetoric. This is what there were a lot of people who got pulled into politics because of Trump, who like Trump, who was also naive. You know, when Kim Jong Un said a whole bunch of stuff to Trump about what North Korea was going to do, Trump fell for it because he was naive. And similarly, a lot of the voters who never voted before Trump and got pulled into politics because of Trump didn't realize that the whole thing of we're going to keep building the military even bigger, but that's so we'll never have to use it. We're going to project. We're going to have peace through strength. We know that that is standard hawkish talking point. But a lot of these new entrants to following politics thought, oh, cool, yeah, that sounds good. We'll never have to use the military because it's really big. It's going to be bigger and bigger. But we all know that that has a long history as a hawkish talking point. And the argument has changed many times now on this war in Iran. First it was it's going to be days, 21 days, 21 to 28 days. Then it was like, well, it's going to be a few more weeks, six to eight weeks, eight to 10 weeks. And then peace was imminent. And then we had a cease fire and another and another and another and another. And then the deal is almost done. The Strait of Hormuz is open, it's closed. The Strait of Vermouth is open, it's closed negotiations, they're progressing. JD Vance is doing so well. Now, the argument is no longer that the war is ending, but it's also not technically endless because of what it's much shorter than other wars or whatever, or I never really promised it. And this one isn't endless. It was already over three months ago, supposedly, but it's still disrupting global shipping and oil prices and fuel prices and all of it. And what is the bottom for this sort of ideology or these sorts of claims? At what point does a war stop being short and start becoming long? Is it if it goes six months? Is it if it goes nine months? We're only 11 weeks from the six month mark on this war. And I think when I watched that, and I've watched it a couple of times now, the most revealing moment is when Trump denies the promise that helped get him elected, which was he will stop the wars, elect me and there will be no more wars. Killer's wars, Biden wars, Harris wars. Now the pitch has switched to I never really said that. I'm ready, Magaz. I'm ready for you to come to me and go we were bamboozled. We were Some people assume focus is just about willpower. But if you've sat down to work and you're checking your phone, switching tabs in your browser, getting pulled into distraction, you know it's not that simple. I want to tell you about our sponsor, Brain fm. Brain FM is a music app designed to support focus. It's not the random playlists or ambient videos that people often will put on, it's music built from the ground up for cognitive performance. Brain.fm works with musicians and neuroscientists to create music that will introduce interact with your brain's natural rhythms. Their patented audio technology is designed to influence brain activity related to attention. This is why Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation. The app includes a number of modes depending on what you're doing. Deep work Creative motivation There's a dedicated ADHD mode for people whose brains may benefit from extra support. There's also been peer reviewed research published showing that their music increased activity in attentional networks and also improved performance on attention based tasks. Try it yourself with 30 days free at Brain FM. Pacman the link is in the description One thing that drives me nuts about political media is how two outlets can cover the same same story and make it feel like two different events took place. Not because any of the facts have changed, but because the emphasis of the stories is different. This is why I use ground news, because ground news pulls together reporting from across the political spectrum and you can compare the headlines side by side and see how different outlets are framing the exact same issue. You can look at the bias distribution, you can look at factuality ratings. You can see who owns the outlets behind the reporting, which makes it easier to separate the substance from the spin. For example, Trump's EPA recently decided to remove limits on those forever chemicals in drinking water. Ground News shows how outlets like PBS and Raw Story are getting it right and right wing outlets put this anti Biden spin on it or they just stay very vague to avoid implicating Donald Trump. Ground News also has a blind spot feed. This is for stories that are under reported by one side and you can also get a personalized feed based on your interests. Go to Ground News slash Pacman or scan my QR code to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. The link is in the description. Today we'll speak with Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, now running for governor of Georgia in a very interesting race. You know, I was reading a little bit about the history of Georgia governor and the last time that a Democrat was elected would have been 1998, taking office in 99 and serving from 99 to 2003. I mean, it's essentially a different political world right now than the last time a Democrat was was governor of Georgia. Which, I mean, do you think that that is an opportunity? Does that, does that distance and the change that Georgia has seen provide a new possibility for Democrats in Georgia in your mind?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

It absolutely does. And when you think about where we were as a state then, we were solidly blue right up until we weren't. So not only did we last elect a Democrat as governor in 98, but then we started seeing this shift where a lot of people who had been Democrats switched to the Republican Party. I believe we had two subsequent governors, Purdue and Nathan Deal, who had also previously been Democrats. So, you know, every election is a new election, demographics shift, voting pattern shift. But we are trending back toward blue. It's the reason we've been able to send Senators Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate and we were able to win the state for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

[David Pakman]

Sometimes I think it's hard from the Northeast or the west coast to sort of understand how a state that on the one hand has a district that was a relatively easy win for Marjorie Taylor Greene on the one hand could also be a state that votes for Joe Biden or will vote for a Democratic governor. Can you talk a little bit about how, I mean, Democrats are different in every state, but what, what is specific about Democrats in Georgia that might explain some of the political alignments that we see?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

So and since you mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, that's a great example. Even with the election to fill her seat after she resigned from Congress, we saw an African American male, Sean Harris make significant strides in even closing the gap between Democrats and Republicans even in that district. And that's with all the funny business that we've seen with our current congressional maps, which by the way will be re examined the day after the runoff election. So Georgia is a very unique and diverse state. We're home to, I believe between 15 and 18 Fortune 500 companies. Agribusiness is the number one business in the state. A very diverse state. Our demographics have shifted tremendously over the past several years. Some of it had to do with after Covid people with reverse migration coming back to the south, discovering the beauty of the south in many ways and rediscovering in many ways. More liberal minded voters are moving from the Northeast. At one point the cost of living was a little cheaper here. I don't, I doubt that there's a significant divide in that respect anymore because everything across the state has gotten so expensive. But all that being said, we're not an either or state. We are all of the above. We are rural, we are urban, we are diverse. We are. Nearly half our employees work for small businesses. We have large corporations there. There are a lot of dynamics at play that create this melting pot in this state.

[David Pakman]

Is your sense that Georgia Democrats are more socially conservative than Democrats, maybe in like New York, Connecticut or California?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Absolutely. We are. We are still very much the Bible belt. And I often say you can't put us in one bucket. I can go into any black church on the west side of Atlanta and it may be just as conservative as a white church in Gainesville, Georgia. That's a dynamic and a nuance that I think is often missed by people who are not from here. I understand it because I grew up here. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Missionary Baptist Church. And it's a dynamic that I don't think is always appreciated.

[David Pakman]

I was reading about your proposal to eliminate state income taxes, which I believe are 4.99% right now in Georgia and scheduled to go down a little bit over the next few years. Specifically eliminate the state income tax for public school teachers. Why that group? Why only that group?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Well, it's the responsible thing to do. We've got a teacher shortage in this state. We've had massive cuts from the Education Department to the tune of over 220 million in this state. And it's just a small thing I believe that we can do that can help let our teachers know that they are appreciated and help ease the economic down. The average teacher starting salary in the state is $43,000, which is not a lot of money. It depends on what district you're in, et cetera. I don't get joy out of paying taxes, period. I don't know many people who do. My concern about completely eliminating taxes right now is that we haven't shown where we can fill in the gaps in our budget without it being on the backs of everyday working people. And that's the challenge that we have. It's. You're going to have to make up that revenue from somewhere. More than likely it would be in sales taxes or. Or license fees. It's going to be made up somewhere.

[David Pakman]

Unless, I guess, you cut services.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Unless you cut services, which, of course, nobody wants, because many people feel that government's not even meeting the bare minimum in many ways. So I just want us to be responsible. I looked at the budget. I knew that we could absorb it for our teachers. Maybe another day we can absorb it for other groups. But I knew that was a responsible starting point.

[David Pakman]

What's. What would be the revenue gap that would then, I mean, like, what is the total income tax that teachers are paying in Georgia that would then be eliminated?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

I believe it's around 300 million. I have to double check that number, but I believe it was around 300 million was what we estimated based on our public school teachers right now. We can absorb that. We've also had veterans asking, why don't we cut, eliminate, eliminate taxes for them? I support that as well. Some other states, southern states, don't tax veterans for income taxes. I've been asked, what about the bus drivers and the people who work in the cafeteria? I agree. Yeah, I think all of those people should be included. We just have to make sure that it is responsible and sustainable.

[David Pakman]

Yeah. You know, when you think about the states that have no state income tax, they tend to have higher taxes and fees in other areas and. Or a combination of sort of diminished services. I mean, certainly, you know, New Hampshire, Florida is a popular one. I think Texas also has no, no state income tax. Famously, a lot of them have very high property taxes. And it's interesting that there's been a Republican push in Georgia to get rid of property taxes altogether. You're opposed to that? Why do you oppose that?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

You know, again, it's election year gimmicks, and I don't support gimmicks. What I see is a party that has controlled government in the state for nearly 30 years. They've had an opportunity to do this for over 30 years. They've held the governor's seat. They've held the House, they've held the Senate. And now in this election year, they've got this bright idea to eliminate property taxes. Again, I get no joy out of my property tax bill. But I also know my property taxes go to support things like public education, support things like our hospitals, our libraries, public safety. Show me the math. Show me the money, the math in mathing. Where are we going to make up these deficits if we aren't paying property taxes?

[David Pakman]

You mentioned redistricting in Georgia. I want to talk a little bit about voting rights. Georgia has been at the center of a number of voting related controversies dating back to 2020. There was, of course, this famous phone call where the president said, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. And the entire sort of fiasco that followed from that. We saw slates of fake electors around the country sort of tested as, as a technique. We've seen secretaries of state who were on the ballot in Georgia involved in administering elections. I mean, there's a lot there. Are you. On the one hand, I don't do the thing Republicans do about there's fraud everywhere, you can't trust your vote, etc. On the other hand, there's been some stuff in Georgia over the last six years with regard to two Republicans and elections. What's your take on making sure that you get that the will of the people are reflected in your election?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Yeah. And again, we began the conversation talking about the demographic shift. Republicans are very well aware of the shift in the state that this state is leaning more toward blue than not. Something that didn't get a lot of attention was the, the turning off of motor voter registration in the state. You move to Georgia, get a driver's license, you get to register to vote. It was turned off for nearly a year and a half and, and they blamed it on a computer glitch. So there have been these things that have legislatively been done and these things that in my opinion have just been, have been missed and done in a very underhanded or incompetent way. We've got to protect the right to vote in this state. We are the cradle of the civil rights movement in America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was born right here in this state. And it is such an affront to see the erosion of our access to the right to vote. Nobody is asking for anything extra. We're just asking, be fair, protect the right to vote, have drop boxes, resolve the issue with the QR codes, whatever this manufactured issue is, make sure that there are extended voting hours. Everybody doesn't work 9 to 5 and can't get to poll in time during normal polling hours in weekend voting. These are simple things that that will benefit Republicans and Democrats across the state.

[David Pakman]

When you think about or let me, I'll frame it this way. One of the reasons that I think taking control of the House of Representatives back from Republicans in November is so important is that it is going to dramatically limit what Donald Trump can accomplish politically for the last two years of this term. He'll have executive orders, but he won't have the ability to get major legislation done. Analogously to Georgia, if you become governor, you'll probably have a very hostile Republican controlled General Assembly. How do you govern and get the things you want to do done in an equivalent situation where the General assembly is unlikely to go for a lot of what you'll want to do?

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Well, I'm not surrendering that we won't have at least control of the House. We are a few seats away from flipping the House. And if the trends continue and if people vote all the way down the ballot, then there's a good chance that we can get really close to flipping the House. But also just finding this common ground. I was not successful as the mayor of Atlanta just talking to Democrats. I had to walk across the street and deal with Republicans on a lot of things. There were things that we got done by working together. Wasn't always salacious, didn't always get the attention of the news, but it benefited the people that we represented. And that's going to be my same approach, God willing, when I'm serving as governor. Where do we find common ground? If Marjorie Taylor Greene is talking about the cost of health care, I'm going to assume in rural North Georgia the cost of health care is an issue. I don't think it's far fetched. So where do we find common ground? How does it, how will it benefit people across the state and then figure out what we can work together on and then those things we can't, you know, we'll just have to find that out.

[David Pakman]

Republicans will be holding their runoff eight days from today to determine who you will be facing on the ballot. We are going to be watching this one very closely. I've been speaking with Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta, now running for governor of Georgia. Really appreciate your time.

[Keisha Lance Bottoms]

Thank you.

[David Pakman]

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The link is in the description there isn't one mattress that's perfect for everybody. Some people want firmer, somewhat softer. Some are side sleepers, back sleepers. A mattress that's good for one person might not be the right one for somebody else. That is the idea behind our sponsor Helix Sleep. Instead of one generic mattress, hoping it works for everyone, Helix sends you a mattress that is based on your specific sleeping needs and preferences. I've been sleeping on a Helix mattress for years now. It fits my sleep style perfectly because before I got it I took the Helix Sleep quiz. I answered questions and I was matched perfectly with the right mattress for me support but not too stiff, cushioning but not too much. And Helix also has free shipping, 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty. Go to helix sleep.com/pacman and you'll get 20% off site wide. The link is in the description. I've spoken to lawyers folks. The Trump administration is trying to take down this show and it is infuriating. There is no respect for the first Amendment. There is no respect for my audience. We are now in an all out war with the Trump administration. Now I want to remind you what happened last week. The Trump administration put me on a list of media offenders labeling me a left wing lunatic. That is an attack not only on me but but on every single viewer and listener of this show. On every person who opposes this regime. They want the show to end and we don't yet know the full scope of what they have planned for people on this list. However, I have been advised by multiple lawyers. Consult with a good first Amendment law firm before this gets crazy. Of course my work is protected by the first Amendment. Do we still care about the Constitution? Do we still care about the First Amendment? Of course a normal administration that respects democracy and freedom of the Press wouldn't start a list of media enemies on which they place anybody adversarial to them. But this is not a normal administration. Trump does not respect democracy. Trump does not respect freedom of the press, and he hates adversarial media. He just stormed out of an interview with Kristen Welker because she asked a follow up question. And then he stepped on her mic, pounded her mic. So now I am on the list. We can't go backwards. And so I've spoken to and will continue speaking to lawyers because we need to know, what could they do if the Trump administration tries to argue that this show is defamatory? What would their first step be? What would my next step be? How much would that cost? By the way? That is a question that if you've got to be sitting down to hear the answer to that one. But the point is, they don't need to win to screw me up. They just need to make the process of defending myself brutal and expensive. And that may be exactly what they are planning to do. What if. Different scenario now. What if the administration, whoever is watching this show and decided Pacman's going on the list, what if they go to platforms like YouTube, Facebook and others and say, you got to suppress his content, you've got to deplatform him. And in fact, you may recall that after the release of my first book, this book here, the Echo Machine, we learned of a communique that was sent to Amazon that requested that my book, along with a bunch of others, including, including Brian, Tyler Cohen and others, be removed from Amazon or at least suppressed. Now, Amazon didn't do that, so that is not unrealistic. The good news is that so far, this is massively backfiring on them. The bigger we are, the harder it is for them to crush us. When news broke of the list, we hit number five on Substack for all political substacks. That actually makes a lot of sense because substack is the one platform where we own our follower list on YouTube. 3.6 million subscribers. If YouTube did shut us down, bye bye. That's it. I have no way of even telling those 3.6 million people, hey, here's what happened and here's where you can find me. We own the list on Substack. So please make sure you're on that list. Substack.david pakman.com it's completely free. Okay? Since they put us on the list, over 20,000 new subscribers on YouTube, Spotify and Apple, the most important podcast platforms way up, partially because those are not algorithmic. If you follow my podcast on Spotify or Apple, you get my podcast. It's not subject to suppression by an algorithm like on other platforms. So please rate the show on Spotify and Apple. Follow the podcast on Apple or Spotify, whichever you prefer. We, in the days since this happened, surpassed 600,000 followers on Instagram. We're imminently going to pass a million followers on Facebook. So so far this is backfiring. But I've been warned by the lawyers I spoke to this could get very, very expensive. Ungodly, criminally expensive. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, thank you, thank you to everyone who has reached out. So many people saying, David, I'm with you. Also, over 100 new paid members at Join Pacman Dotcom. So the ask is make sure you're on my substack, make sure you're following on the podcast platforms and make sure you've subscribed on YouTube. Now tomorrow, June 9th, we are going to do our one day membership drive. The whole point of this is we are now officially on a target list for the White House. We don't know exactly what that will mean, but we must support independent media. So I would love for you to sign up tomorrow at join pacman.com with a huge discount that we're going to be offering one day only. It's very easy to be notified about it. Just get on my substack newsletter, substack.david pakman dotcom and by the way, there are rumors that they may come after my forthcoming book as well. Pay attention. Please consider pre ordering my forthcoming book Pay attention at David pakman.com/attention. I didn't expect to be in this situation even a week ago, never mind when I started doing this show. It's where we are. We're going to do what we need to do. Part of the reason why the administration is lashing out against independent shows is that Donald Trump has now reached a milestone that we really need to contextualize and pay attention to, which is that 500 days into his second term, Donald Trump has become the most unpopular president ever, measured by the Economist YouGov tracking poll. Not one of the most unpopular, not the least popular. Within a certain period, the most unpopular Trump's net Approval is now minus 25. Only 35% of Americans approve of the job that Trump is doing. 60% disapprove that. That is a minus 25. And this is why they are lashing out and going after independent media, going after corporate media Going after lawyers, universities, everybody. Trump spent years talking about, I have a mandate. I'm so popular, I have massive crowd sizes. Everybody loves me. That was hyperbole. He is setting records for the opposite reason. And what is especially interesting is that Trump hasn't really changed. He's governing exactly the way that he campaigned. The endless drama, the chaos, the threats, the attacks on critics, the personal grievances, the weaponization of the Justice Department. Revenge politics, grievance politics, exaggerations and falsehoods, I call them lies. This is what he actually advertised. And a lot of people said it's bluster and he's not really going to do it. He's doing all of it. And so this poll now is important for a couple different reasons. Number one, a lot more people than ever are unhappy with Trump. Trump has been Trump 10 years, almost 11 years, his political life. But we now see people realizing, this isn't good for me. And there's two major reasons. Number one is the war in Iran. More than half of Americans say it was the wrong decision. Trump said he would end wars. He started a new war. Very simple, very tangible. Americans are hearing it's almost cease fire. Number 10 pieces around the corner. It's going to last three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. We're in week 15. But the big reason, and it relates directly to Iran. I know you all know what it is. It is the kickoff rule in football. No, it's the economy. Three quarters of Americans say the economy is fair OR Poor. Poor. Six in ten say it's getting worse. 80% in a different poll say they don't expect it to be any better a year from now. That is a massive problem for Trump because economic confidence is central to his appeal, and economic confidence is central to reinforcing the party in power. When people go to vote, the part that interests me the most is, okay, Trump's unpopular, but what happens next? If a president can be historically unpopular and there are zero political consequences, what the hell are we even doing here? What. What would be enough? If this doesn't lead to accountability, is there any way to have accountability? What level of incompetence would finally matter? What level of corruption would finally matter? What level of failure as a president would finally matter? And at some point, it's less about Trump's approval rating. It's just, hey, are voters willing to impose consequences when leaders fail? The consequences in November can't go directly to Trump because he's not on the ballot. But most Republicans support Trump. And this is one of those things that's really important for voters to understand, which is they might say, well, my senator, my member of the House isn't really part of the problem. I don't like Trump, but my Republican senator or congressperson isn't part of the problem. Most of them vote with Trump most of the time. So they are part of the problem and they should be held accountable. And by the way, if what you don't like is Trump, there is no better way to neuter Trump, to completely destroy his ability to do anything for the last two years than by taking away control of the House and Senate. So if you go, I don't have a personal problem with my member of the House or Senate, but everything Trump's doing is terrible. The way to stop Trump, take everything away from Trump other than executive orders, take Republicans out of power. It's that simple. So I hope that voters are going to really decide, have these politicians earned the right to keep power? And this midterm is going to be a test of that principle. If a historically unpopular president can't actually be held accountable in a serious way, then what do we even really have here? And do these approval numbers mean anything? We are going to find out. I hope that all of you are ready to vote. I know I am. On the bonus show, we'll talk about what's going on with Graham Platner. We will talk about a lawsuit to stop the UFC fight at the White House. We will talk about what's happening tonight at Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, thanks to Trump's presence. All of that and more on today's bonus show, Become a member. Get access to the bonus show@join pacman.com.