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Narrator/Announcer
We gather here tonight to bring women back to their rightful place.
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The Testaments, a new Hulu original series from the executive producers of the Handmaid's Tale. It's easier to accept a story than
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David Pakman
believe that the people around you are monsters.
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There comes a time when you have
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David Pakman
to take action, when you have to choose your own destiny.
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Never quite as it seems.
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David Pakman
Well, I hate to say it, I really do, but the cease fire is already falling apart for Donald Trump. He went out there declaring victory. He said, it's done. The strait is open. America's back. We got one good day of stock market performance. And the truth is that he's being ignored on the world stage. Iran's calling the shots. The cease fire is shaky at best. And what Trump says is happening simply isn't happening. So we're going to break that down. And articles of impeachment have also been filed against Donald Trump. Will it be any different this time? I'll talk about it. And we will also discuss the latest meltdown with bizarre attacks, all caps post, and all of it as even Fox News is starting to crack. You've got hosts admitting the plan didn't work. You've got hosts admitting the objectives haven't been achieved. And then a wild moment on C Span when a caller goes off script, drops a pedo bomb. I know some of you will know what that is. And you can see the host panic in real time. We've got a show for you today. I hate to start the show with such a crass term, I really do, but Trump has been cucked, as the kids would say. Now, I know, I apologize. I know a lot of you don't like that term. But as people speak today, it is really kind of the best way to describe what we have going on. Iran has posted an AI video of Donald Trump walking off of Air Force One holding the white flag of surrender. And then later in the same video, Donald Trump is seen kneeling in submission. Now, of course, this is not a real video video, but it is representative of the way that a lot of this is actually shaking out and being perceived. I'm going to focus in on a Donald Trump truth social post and I will explain to you what he said and what it means. But the takeaway is that Trump went out projecting strength and dominance and we won and I'm in control. And what has developed instead is a situation where Trump is being completely ignored. Donald Trump Posting, quote, All U.S. ships, aircraft and military personnel with additional ammunition, weaponry and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded enemy will remain in place in and around Iran. He's essentially saying there's a cease fire, but we're not moving any assets out of the way. And he continues until such time as the real agreement reached is fully complied with. Now Trump is again trying to project strength, but what he's actually communicating is that the cease fire he announced isn't actually taking place yet because it hasn't been fully complied with. He goes on to say, for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely. Then the shooting starts, bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. It was agreed a long time ago, and despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary, no nuclear weapons and the Strait of Hormuz will be open and safe. In the meantime, our great military is loading up and resting, looking forward, actually, to its next conquest. So Trump wants you to not really look at the words that he's using. He's talking about the real agreement, threatening that the shooting starts and declaring the Strait of Hormuz is going to be open and safe at some point in the future. And of course, if these are things that are going to happen at some point in the future, they're not happening right now. And the reality on the ground, as of the moment, I am recording this here in 2028, just kidding. Now in April of 2026, what's happening on the ground is the opposite of what Trump claimed at his big cease fire announcement. The cease fire itself, if you can even call it that, is fragile. Strikes continue. The White House doesn't even know who's doing them. You've got to see that clip later with Caroline Levitt. There are disagreements over what has actually been agreed to. There's basic confusion about what is even taking place. So I guess we can call it an agreement, but it is certainly not stable. It's a sort of confused, partial, temporary pause layered on top of a whole bunch of unresolved elements, competing narratives and escalations that are still taking place in some areas. At the center of this is is the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has insisted it's open, safe and under control, but Caroline Levitt at the same time said, we believe it will be opened. Future looking language. So what is going on? It's very simple. And I don't say this because I want Iran to win. I'm so sick of this narrative, I'm telling you what is going on. Iran is controlling access to the Strait of Hormuz. They decide which ships pass at a point yesterday when, when it was supposedly open, there were reportedly three ships rather than the normal 125 going through. That is Iran controlling the situation. Iran, in some cases is reportedly demanding payment for safe passage. And they've kind of turned this global shipping lane, thanks to Trump, into a point of leverage, corruption and a cash grab. Traffic has collapsed compared to normal. But Trump wants us to believe that it's all set. So we really just have to look at the verb tenses that he's using. When Trump says the strait will be open and safe, he's not describing a completed objective, even though he wants you to believe it is completed. So Trump's having a big problem here, and so is this administration. This is a problem that has plagued Trump throughout his political career and even going back to his business career. He. People like Trump depend on. They rely on dominance signaling, using language to show they are the most powerful and in control and respected because they believe that that language itself achieves outcomes. In this case, this is not praise of Iran. I despise these theocratic extremist regimes. But Trump is dealing with state actors, not some guy he's trying to get a better deal on rebar from. And so they have strategic patience. They have in some, in this case with the Strait, they have leverage. And Iran is not responding to Donald Trump's posts. So we have the public story and the real story. And the real story is sort of showing through when you look at the language that Donald Trump is using. So are we calling it a cease fire? Are we calling it a fragile cease fire? Are we just calling it a confusion for. From Donald Trump as he presents a supposed victory and he wants us to believe strength worked and his bombings worked and all of this stuff. But we are in a situation we wouldn't even be in had it not been for this completely harebrained approach to global politics. Iran still controls this critical global oil checkpoint. The agreement that Trump has announced is certainly unclear. It's very much untested and it could unravel at any moment. And it's probably why stocks were already down again today and oil prices were up again today. So we've got a major disconnect. And the disconnect is there's actually a number of disconnects. What Trump said on Tuesday and what reporting says is going on. What Trump says versus what Caroline Levitt says, that's Another point of conflict. And I don't know that we can even call this like a crude agreement or a crude cease fire. And the most important part is, is that this didn't take months or years to develop as most long term sort of agreements would take. It was just, Trump makes an announcement. It sounds weird. It immediately is clear that it's all bogus. And it has all come quickly crashing down. Now they have to, they have to insist that it is working fine because the entire sort of global energy economy is now hinging on what Donald Trump has told us is going on. The markets already don't believe it. If the markets believed it, oil wouldn't have rebounded today and stocks wouldn't have come down again with, as I am recording now, the Dow down several hundred points. And all of this has gotten Trump into what should be a familiar position at this point in time. He's had articles of impeachment filed against him once again. I want to talk about that Next. House Resolution 1155, Impeaching Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors. No, no, no. This is not the document from Trump's first impeachment. This is not the document from Trump's second impeachment. We have new articles of impeachment that have been filed against Donald Trump in the House of Representatives. This was introduced by Congressman John Larson, who's also calling for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump. This is a very interesting discussion because just yesterday I was telling you that as demand grows for the removal of Trump, both Mechanisms, impeachment and 25th Amendment, do not have the support that they require. Now, if you read H. Res. 1155, you would see that it is not very narrow. It's sort of a sweeping indictment of Donald Trump's conduct in multiple areas. Some say that this is good because it shows the wide basis for impeaching Donald Trump. I told you, seven days into this second term, Trump had already committed impeachable acts. And so there are some looking at these articles of impeachment saying, this is great, it's all encompassing. The counterpoint to that is that you could argue, you know, impeachment is a very technical thing and you need to look narrowly. Much like many criminal cases, what is the law that we are comparing to and what are the actions? What are the facts of the case? And, and there is a criticism that these impeachment articles are too broad. Now, it includes the accusation that Trump militarized domestic law enforcement, which is against the law. It accuses Trump of unlawful detentions and deportations, retaliation against critics, using government power to target political opponents, abusing the pardon power of the presidency, using the pardon power to benefit in a corrupt way, friends and allies engaging in conduct that resembles corruption. All of this stuff is true. It's got stuff about financial conflicts of interest and misuse of funds. It's all true. It is a maximalist impeachment resolution. But the most important part that people really need to understand is that we need to consider where this goes. Now, I am not criticizing the impeachment articles because I've said from the beginning you shouldn't. If you are a member of the House of Representatives, only file articles of impeachment. If you believe the Senate will convict, first of all, that's a different legislative body. You can't control that. My view is you have a duty as a member of the House of Representatives to evaluate the actions of the president and to say, does this meet the requirements for impeachment? As one of my lights turned off, and I apologize, they must be on some kind of strange timer. This is so rude to the audience. But I'm going to turn my lights back on as I'm recording here. If indeed the actions of the president require impeachment, then you impeach and you figure out the rest later. If the senators in the Senate are going to look the other way and say, we're voting to acquit, well, that's their problem. But part of this is creating a record. If a president has done impeachable things, you've got to impeach. The math of it, of course, is difficult in terms of the impeachment process. If the House votes with a simple majority, yes, we are going to impeach. That starts a trial. The senators are sort of the jury in that trial. And you need a super majority in order to convict. Democrats don't even have a simple majority, never mind a super majority. And there is no indication whatsoever that you've got Republican senators willing to convict Donald Trump. That's a structural limitation. So then that's what gets some to say, well, let's consider the 25th Amendment. The 25th Amendment would require the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare that Donald Trump is unfit to serve. Now, is Donald Trump unfit to serve? Of course he is. We all know that. We've been. He's been unfit since close to the beginning of this entire global nightmare that has been Donald Trump in politics. And so you're not going to get that. That all being said, I do believe that building a record is valuable. And for those who say, well, they should be voting to expand food stamps, two reactions to that. One, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can push forward on impeachment and push forward on expanding food stamps or whatever. Right? Expanding food stamps is just a placeholder here for whatever practical economic thing is important to you. But Democrats also don't have the votes to expand food stamps. I hate to break it to you, so I don't really know that this. Well, you should have been focused on this other thing. They are putting a formal case into congressional language. It can be cited, it can be debated, it can be revisited in the future. And it's about signaling to voters also that if Democrats do take the House of Representatives in November, which I believe they will, the question is by what margin it is going to embroil MAGA in two years of investigations and in not allowing them to do a damn thing. Right now the system doesn't have the votes required to remove Donald Trump. People need to understand that that's okay to know. And when you hear articles of impeachment filed, that is very different than Trump impeached and it is very different than Trump convicted on impeachment. But you still have to do it. The actions are worthy of impeachment. The, the facts point in that direction. And I think that this is the right decision we now have to see. Is this motivating two voters in saying we need accountability, we need to put Democrats back in the position of being able to do oversight. And so I'm going to go and vote in November. I believe Democratic and left leaning independent voters and even some Republicans are, are going to vote to put Democrats back in power of the House in November. The question is, will it be a 20 vote flip? Will it be a 40 vote flip? Will it be 60? And what's going to happen in the Senate next week? I'm going to do a deep dive on what it would take for Democrats to regain control of the Senate. It is an uphill battle, but it is not impossible. One of the most common career problems is not knowing how to make a change without blowing up your life and everything you have going on. 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So go to strawberry me/pacman to find out if career coaching is right for you and get 50% off your first session the link is in the Description Many of us have running lists of the nonfiction books we want to read. My list has gotten a lot longer while I've been traveling. Maybe it's a book a friend recommended or one you keep hearing about on podcasts. And the problem isn't that you aren't interested in the book, it's finding the time. And that's why using Blinkist makes so much sense. Our sponsor, Blinkist is the app that will distill down insights from nonfiction books into bite sized summaries. You can read them or listen to them in 15 minutes. You'll get the main arguments and takeaways from important books without setting aside an entire week for each one. Blinkist has more than 9,000 titles covering politics, economics, history, science, business and a lot more. And it'll fit into the time you have, maybe while you're commuting, walking, working out, doing chores at home. It's also a great way to decide if you like the book enough to buy it and read the entire thing. You can try Blinkist totally free for a week and get 30% off a subscription at blinkist.com/pacman. The link is in the description the David Pakman show is of course primarily an audience funded program. The algorithms are killing us right now. They are killing left wing independent creators. Anything you can do to help us out of this is much appreciated. Subscribing on YouTube of course we're trying to get to 4 million. Let's do it following us on Facebook. Of course we're trying to get to a million followers there. That's great. And if you want to subscribe on my website, join pacman.com we do an extra show every day for our subscribers and have a bunch of other great benefits. You can check it out@join pacman.com Donald Trump stroking out on Truth Social after an embarrassing meltdown and after his supposed big victorious big boy cease Fire with Iran has completely failed. After Trump's meeting with with Mark Ruda posting. Naito wasn't there when we needed them and they won't be there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big, poorly run piece of ice. There are two stories here. Number one, Trump doesn't understand how Naito works. Naito under Article 5 requires member nations to come to the defense of other member nations if they are attacked. This would be, for example, if Putin attacks the UK, the US under Article 5 must come to the shared defense of the UK cool. Trump tried to use Article 5 to force Naito nations to get involved in Trump's war against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz to reopen it. Trump's argument being his choice to attack Iran. The subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a form of a Naito ally being attacked and therefore they must come to the defense of the United States. It's just not what it is. It doesn't work that way. And Trump is furious. That story, number one, he misunderstands Naito. Number two, there's this broader disrespect for institutions. And my view as a left wing social Democrat is that especially as societies grow, we need institutions as mediators to achieve a lot of what we want to achieve as societies. And this whole go it alone thing, we're not part, we won't be part of the who, we won't be part of Naito, we won't be part of this or that. And sort of isolating in that way is exactly the wrong direction. Especially since, you know, we sometimes have a map in our minds where the borders between countries are like the borders we see when we look at Google Maps. These are lines. And on one side of the line it's one thing, on the other side of the line, it's another thing. The reality is that a lot of the modern problems humans are dealing with, including things like pollution, globalization, global economies, they, they don't respect those lines on the map. And the idea that we are just going to completely do everything by ourselves is completely unrealistic. And so this is a bigger problem with MAGA politics as well, which is a lack of respect or even understanding of the value and importance of institutions. All right, Trump continuing his meltdown on truth social quote, Marjorie Trader Brown Greene turns to Brown under stress seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who unconvincingly and right from the beginning, despite many people running for that Trump +37 seat, and despite the Stench left by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor, President Donald J. Trump. Trump is extraordinarily petty. And as we think about Trump's role in selecting his Successor Going into 2028, you have to remember that Trump will insist on bowing down at the altar of Trump, laying down like a doormat and letting Trump walk all over you. And I think that as we this isn't really about Marjorie Taylor Greene, but it's a reminder that as we think about this whole Rubio vs. Vance thing, it's not only who does Trump think will be better, it's who will ultimately do a better job of sucking up to Donald Trump. And I don't know the answer to that. And then finally, as we already reviewed earlier, Donald Trump's post indicating that his victorious and incredible powerful cease fire with Iran is not really holding. And I will just reread this one to you that we looked at earlier. Quote, all US Ships, aircraft and military personnel with additional ammunition, weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded enemy will remain in place around Iran until such a time as the real agreement reached is fully complied with. Trump is saying, we're not really leaving. It's not really a cease fire, it's not really over. And maybe most importantly, all that stuff I told you on Tuesday night that Iran is doing, Iran's not really doing it. And then Trump, as we looked at earlier, saying if anything doesn't happen as planned, which he claims is unlikely, the shooting will begin bigger and better and more powerful than ever. This is a guy who's desperate. And Donald Trump is increasingly at odds with the people around him. There are now leaks that JD Vance opposed going into Iran. Now, I got to tell you, this entire leak thing is very pathetic. I would respect J.D. vance much more if he just came out and said, I disagree with this. He can't do that. That's not something vice presidents ever do. We we later hear about it after the fact. But I find it pathetic that what JD Vance has been reduced to is deliberately having news leak that he was against this while publicly he goes, we're winning. And the we've achieved this and that other goal. Trump knows that what he announced isn't happening. The market knows it, which is why oil is up and stocks are down today as of the moment that I am recording. And so what Trump is going out there to do is to say Naito is the problem. People who aren't loyal to me, like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the problem and Iran is the problem, when really the problem in this case is that in his first term, Trump ripped up an Iran nuclear deal that was working and then decided to go into Iran. That's the catalyst that has put us in this situation, and it now puts Caroline Levitt in the position of having to defend it. You know that face when you know you're lying uncontrollably sometimes with a big cross hanging from your neck? That's a face that Caroline Levitt has become increasingly used to making as she is going out there and dropping massive dumps of lies on the American people as she cannot defend any of what the administration is doing, starting with something that is technically true but extremely deceptive. Here's what Caroline Levitt had to say about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump told us on Tuesday that thanks to his big boy agreement is wide open. Take a look.
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White House Press Secretary
That is completely unacceptable. And again, this is a case of what they're saying publicly is different. Privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the street today.
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David Pakman
You know, this is one of those things where Caroline knows there are three ships at that moment transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Normally it's 135 ships a day, and yesterday there were three ships transiting. Is it technically an uptick? Yes, it is. Is it honest communication about the supposedly wide open Strait of Hormuz that Donald Trump has achieved? It is not, it is obviously not wide open if three ships are transiting through. And the reason that she is relegated to these sort of deceptive statements is that Iran is still calling the shots. She also, as did Trump on Truth Social, attacked Naito going, listen, Naito has failed here, but has Naito failed? I'll come back to that. Let's take a look at the clip. A joint statement put out this morning by some of America's European allies, our NATO allies, and in that joint statement, they said regarding the Strait of Hormuz, our governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. What's the administration's reaction to that joint statement? Does that smooth things over when the president meets with NATO's secretary general a little bit later this afternoon?
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White House Press Secretary
Ms. I have a direct quote from the president of the United States on NATO, and I will share it with all of you. They were tested and they failed. And I would add it's quite sad that NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks when it's the American people who have been defunding their defense. As you know, President Trump will be meeting with Secretary Ruta in a couple of hours here at the White House. And I know he looks forward to having a very frank and candid conversation with him.
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David Pakman
As I already explained earlier, Naito's Article 5 responsibilities of coming to the shared defense of NATO's allies apply if the ally is attacked. If you start a war with Iran and then in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran bombs one of your ships, that does not trigger Naito. Article five shared defense. I assume Trump's, Trump knows that. I assume Caroline Levitt knows that. But their view is, hey, listen, we've convinced our followers to be skeptical of institutions. We've convinced our followers over this last decade of perverted politics to question any organization like Naito, the WHO and others. Let's just keep going with it. Let's tell them it's their fault, it's Naito's fault, they didn't do it. Now, Caroline was asked right now, not at some point in the future, right now, who controls the Strait of Hormuz. And Caroline goes, we think it'll be opened very soon. Take a look at this.
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Narrator/Announcer
White House issued posted the statement from the Iranian government that passage in the
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David Pakman
strait will be coordinated with with Iran's armed forces as of today, who controls
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Narrator/Announcer
the state of Strait of hormones?
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White House Press Secretary
Again, this, these statements were put out 12 hours ago. We expect that the strait will be opened immediately. As I've said earlier, we have seen an uptick in traffic in the strait and it's something that we are monitoring minute by minute, hour by hour as the days go on.
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David Pakman
We expect it will be open immediately and 12 hours prior. They said we expect it will be open immediately. And 12 hours after that. They expect it will be open immediately. But immediately means now and it's not. And they are really twisting and manipulating the English language to try to make it so you don't realize the verb tenses that they are using. We expect forward looking statement. We expect it will be open immediately. But it's been 12 hours. It's been 18, it's been 24 now, 36 hours since this supposed agreement and there were three trip ships transiting through. Caroline asked a good question. How can the president have the moral high ground? How can the United States have the moral high ground if he is threatening to destroy entire civilizations? And Caroline Levitt says, well, look at his actions, not at his statements.
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Andrew (possibly a guest or analyst)
Take a look regarding the president's rhetoric when the US invaded Iraq in 2003. George W. Bush. Bush said in a message to the Iraqi people that the military campaign was directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. Yesterday, the president threatened to destroy Iran's civilization, the entire civilization. Not the Iranian government, but the Iranian civilization, the Iranian people. The US has been a more moral leader for most of its history by fighting wars against other governments, not against civilizations. How can the president claim that America can ever have the moral high ground if he's threatening to destroy civilizations and not casting wars as fights against other governments?
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White House Press Secretary
Andrew, I think you should take a look at the actions of this president over the course of the past six weeks and the actions of our brave men and women in our United States military who have taken out the. Essentially taken out the military of a rogue Islamic regime that has chanted death to America for 47 years, that has killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers over the course of the last five decades. The president absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime. And for you to even suggest otherwise, frankly, insulting.
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David Pakman
These are insulting, gaslighting authoritarian terms. This idea of that's insulting. You know, the right loves to tell the left when you guys say that you're offended. That's not an argument. Saying that's offensive isn't an argument. I agree with that. That's not how I talk about things. It's not about something being offensive. It's is it true or isn't it true? Does it have context or does it lack context? That's what I care about. But if they are the that's offensive isn't an argument. People isn't. That's insulting. Essentially the same thing. But Caroline Levitt doesn't even hesitate to drop that. That is insulting. Truly pathetic. And then finally, someone was bombing Iran yesterday. Caroline was asked, who is it? She doesn't know. Take a look. The latest news out of Iran is that the air defenses have been activated in several cities, including Isfahan, and that explosions have been hurt in Isfman. Who is bombing Iran right now?
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White House Press Secretary
Miss, were those reports just as of a few minutes ago?
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David Pakman
Yeah.
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White House Press Secretary
Okay, so obviously, I'll have to go back and check with the national security team. I'm standing out here with all of you, but I will do that, and we will get you an answer. Okay.
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David Pakman
Just on the civilization question that we've been talking about.
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White House Press Secretary
And I would just add to that point again, I haven't seen these reports. I'm not verifying them. Not that I don't trust you Trevor. But I want to go back and check with the experts here at the White House. I would just say, and I would echo what the Vice President said this morning. This is a fragile truce. Cease fires are fragile by nature. We've seen this with respect to the 12 day war with Iran and Israel last year. It takes time sometimes for these cease fires to be fully effectuated. And one of the results of Operation Epic Fury was we completely dismantled Iran's command and control center, which makes it difficult for them to pass messages up and down the chain. And so we understand that I would caution a little bit of patience, but of course we want to see the cease fire effectuated and abided by by all parties as quickly as possible.
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David Pakman
You know, the reporter was really rude not to offer this as a multiple choice question. Who is bombing Iran? It should have been phrased as Caroline of the following countries, ABC or D. Which one is bombing ir? Iran. The epitome of a. The. The blind leading the blind. And a completely clueless administration scrambling and panicking. And meanwhile, you know what Caroline did waste time doing over the few days that this was all being negotiated? Retweeting attacks on the David Pakman Show. I'm not kidding. I talked about it Yesterday. Donald Trump Jr. And Caroline Levitt. As all of this is going on, as their cease fire is failing, she had the time to retweet attacks against the David Pakman Show. We do need your help. The algorithms are brutalizing left wing independent media. We're trying to get to 4 million YouTube subscribers. I would be flattered and honored if you were one of those 4 million. So if you're not currently subscribed, if you don't even watch on YouTube, come over to YouTube, hit the subscribe button. We've got to beat back the attacks within the algorithm. There's something special about having real quality bread at home, fresh from the oven. It elevates any meal. And our sponsor, Wild Grain, makes it easy. Wild Grain is a baked from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries and fresh pasta. Everything arrives frozen, goes in the oven, no thawing, ready in 25 minutes or less. Wild Grain uses simple ingredients and slow fermentation to give their bread real depth of flavor. What I like most is the flexibility. I can keep sourdough loaves and croissants stocked in my freezer. Bake what I need, no prep, no cleanup. Tastes like something you'd get at a small specialty bakery. But you don't have to spend an hour driving to the bakery and back or making them from scratch. Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. Along with the new variety box, there's the gluten free, vegan and protein boxes. Wild grain is offering $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life. When you go to wildgrain.com/pacman or use promo code Pacman at checkout, the link is in the description. I want to show you something from Fox News. This is Laura Ingraham trying to clean up a mess that she created just a day earlier. Now I want you to remember, or a week earlier rather. Last week on the I played a clip for you of Laura Ingraham questioning was Trump properly briefed about what could go wrong in Iran? Was Trump advised correctly about the risks of what could happen in Iran? And now she has done a total reversal and she goes, hey, you know what Trump did know? He vacuums up information, asks questions, makes informed decisions. I'm going to tell you what this is. This is panic because she said the wrong thing about the Dear Leader. Let's take a look at the clip and then we're going to analyze it.
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Narrator/Announcer
So this is tough, it's complicated work. But he and his team, and I can tell you this because I've seen it firsthand, they work really hard. And yeah, sometimes they have to course correct and sometimes they have to replace people when they believe they're not well suited for their jobs. It's okay. And everyone, and I mean everyone is held to the highest standards. So when you read this New York Times story, and I urge you to do so, compare it for a moment to the accounts of how the Biden White House worked. And I'm telling you there is no comparison. Biden would not even have understood what these Trump advisors were saying. Obama actually would have understood it, but he wouldn't have wanted to take the political risk on going into Iran. And George W. Bush, well, he probably would have just agreed with everything Bibi said, but not Trump. He vacuums up the information. He peppers people with questions. He thinks about it. He makes the call. This is the way it should be done.
- [37:30]
David Pakman
So Laura Ingraham, you know, she does a full like Trump vacuums up information, he asks questions, he processes it in that big brain and he's thoughtful and methodical and he's a decision, a detail oriented decision maker. Remember that last week when she said was Trump even briefed about the risks? Did Trump even understand? Did he know? I pointed out to you that that concept, that framework goes completely against everything We've been told about Donald Trump. What we've been told is Trump is the best decision maker. He knows everything. He's better at making decisions than doctors, immunologists, generals, teachers, astronauts, construction people. He knows more than everybody. So when she last week said, was Trump even told the risks, it implies Trump isn't the all knowing genius that they all claim him to be. And so here she shows up and she goes, trump was told about it and he considered all of it. And he's deliberative and detail heavy in his decision making and he doesn't ever miss any detail. This is a reversal for reasons of loyalty. Now we know Trump's real style. Trump's real style is to be reactive, to be impulsive, to be driven by instinct and what's on a TV on Fox News in the back of the room. Laura Ingraham knows this, we know it. This is the way that Donald Trump has always operated. His concern about Iran didn't include all of the things that went wrong. Her concern about Trump's decision making just a few days ago was that he may not even have understood the risks that were involved. And now all of a sudden a New York Times report comes out and she goes, everything's fine. Trump is that awesome, perfect decision maker that we've been telling you that he is for a while. No concerns. He was fully briefed, fully informed, fully in control. And one of the incredible things about this is that she clearly understands you are supposed to defer to the Dear Leader as omnipotent and omniscient, all powerful and all knowing. Let's take a look at one more clip here from Laura Ingraham.
- [39:48]
Narrator/Announcer
Now this detailed reporting by the Times further put to bed any concern, including one expressed by this host, that Trump was somehow not adequately briefed of the risks. For example, General Kaine discussed the danger of depleting our munitions in Iran. The President was also careful to consider the legality of the entire action. So his White House counsel, David Warrington weighed in, saying it was legally permissible in terms of how the plan had been conceived by US Officials and then presented to the President. Finally, the President was briefed about the political fallout of the operation. His comms director, Stephen Chung, warned that Trump had run for office opposed to further wars, people had not voted for conflicts overseas. The plans ran contrary too, to everything the administration had said after the bombing campaign against Iran in June. How would they explain away eight months of insisting that Iranian nuclear facilities had been totally obliterated? So that was brutal, right? But Trump wanted to hear all of it.
- [40:53]
David Pakman
She even admits indirectly what this is. She says the reporting has put to bed concerns. She's the one who had the concerns. So this is like a make good. It's not a political analysis. It's, I'm correcting my previous commentary. There aren't really new facts that change the situation, but we need to stabilize the narrative for the purposes of benefiting Donald Trump. This is how the media ecosystem works. We've got a lot on today's show about understanding how this media ecosystem works. A host raised the concern and very quickly it's walked back, it's reframed and it's neutralized. Not necessarily because it was wrong, but it conflicts with the larger story that's being told. The larger story is Trump's in control and he knows what he's doing. Everything is strategic. Even things that appear to go wrong are actually not going wrong. So she was questioning last week, now she's reassuring her audience she was uncertain about what Trump knew. Now she's confident. But nothing has actually changed. The facts are the same, the risks are the same, the questions are the same. And after the completely ridiculous decision that Trump made with regard to Iran, we now find ourselves in an imaginary cease fire. But Laura Ingraham's role in this entire thing is to maintain a coherent story, even if she contradicts her questions from last week, which, by the way, were good questions. The real honest journalistic thing was last week when she said, I don't know that Trump really understood the risks here. Of course he didn't. If he had and had assimilated them appropriately, he never would have made this decision. So I think this is really interesting because it exposes the mechanics of how messaging gets adjusted in real time. They take doubts and they replace them with certainty, which is what Trump does. Trump speaks in that same way where there is no doubt and it is all certainty. And we shouldn't be surprised by it. Very interesting clip to pay attention to because it's so typical of how this entire thing operates. Now, later in the show, we're going to have one from Megyn Kelly that I think you will find just as, if not even more interesting. Let's look now at a moment that happened on C SPAN just hours ago, unscripted moment when C SPAN takes calls tells you a lot more than any polished interviewer speaking to an elected official could. We're not about to hear from a pundit. We're not going to hear from a politician. It's just a caller. It's Dave from Las Vegas calling into a live show. And the tone of the segment is brilliant. I guess the host was expecting some kind of standard political comment, something about Iran or something predictable. And the caller drops a pedophile bomb. He says Trump didn't go into Iran for strategy. He didn't go into Iran for geopolitics or for national security. Trump went into Iran because he's a pedophile. And he's trying to distract from that. Host is caught off guard, tries to figure out, do I cut this, how do I respond, what do I do? This is live TV and I love this. Let's take a look. Dave is in Las Vegas. Independent, go ahead.
- [44:01]
Caller (Dave from Las Vegas)
Good morning. First of all, this war in Iran, he only went in there because he's probably a pedophile and people don't want to admit it, but he is. He just pardoned a 53 or 53 year old person that raped and molested a 9 year old girl. And he's breaking every law in the book. He is not a president, he is a dictator. He does not go by the Constitution. And everything he went into Iran about, he's doing here, he's murdering our own people. They murdered Trump and Hessoch murdered those girls in Iran with a missile. And it wasn't a mistake. Hessek said he's going to kill everybody. So that's what Trump's doing. He's not going by the Constitution and pretty. And when he kills our own people over a misdemeanor in Minnesota soda and nobody cares, we're in big trouble. This guy is out of his mind.
- [45:00]
David Pakman
I'm not interested in debating whether this caller has proof. And in fact, I've told you everything there is to know about these allegations regarding Donald Trump. There have been allegations made against Trump involving Epstein and a 13 year old. They were later recanted. There are some Epstein files which show that the FBI took it seriously enough to do a number of interviews. You know, everything I know, that's, that's really what we have at this point in time. That's not really the point here. The point is that this moment is not coming out of nowhere. There is this broader context where people are not forgetting about the Epstein files. They're not forgetting about the photos, they're not forgetting about the connections and the fact that we still don't have all the information or the files. And what I love about this is that as time passes, the story is not going away. And so then you've got a caller. Is the caller credible? Is Trump a Pedophile we don't have. What I can tell you is proof of Trump being a pedophile. And I hate to be pedantic. Pedophile means attraction to prepubescent individuals. I don't even think Trump's accused of that. What those recanted allegations are about are. It's so pedantic. And I'm sorry, but. But I think we sometimes get lost in this. The allegations are about a post pubescent minor and I'm not saying that makes it better. I'm just trying to be accurate. But oftentimes the word pedophile is used. The point here is the idea circulating the correct understanding that we have not gotten a full and clear accounting when it comes to the Epstein files. And there are to be people who say everything is calculated. Trump did Iran to distract from Epstein and he attacked Jerome Powell to distract from this other thing. I don't think any of these are calculated diversions. Not because politicians don't distract. They do. Not because Trump doesn't often want to distract. He does. I just think it gives them too much credit. These are some of the least competent people there are and you want to believe that they're running this sophisticated multilayer strategy. Strategy where they plan a geopolitical escalation to bury a news cycle generically. It is often true that they would benefit from a distraction. But Trump is improvising. He's impulsive. He stumbles into stuff with no plan. He'll mention something and then the White House is scrambling to try to explain it. So I don't think that that's really what it is. The most important thing is not like, oh, X is to hide. Yes. The important thing is the Epstein files aren't going away as a topic. The host was caught off guard. The caller said something explosive. And I don't think even a lot of these right wingers are going to move beyond the Epstein files. Now, what is true is do this yourself. Fact check me, go to Google Trends, type in Epstein files. You will see that as Iran got going, searches for the Epstein files declined dramatically. Not because it was calculated, but because that's the effect, because it sucked up so much oxygen. Part of what we need to make sure at some point there's going to be an off ramp from the Iran stuff. Part of what we need to make sure is that the story doesn't go away and that this is still an underlying issue. We've not gotten transparency. We were promised transparency. There was a bill passed which said you must release everything and we still haven't gotten it. Now here's my question to you. Do you believe the Epstein files will be a voting issue in November? I believe the answer is no. An important story. I don't believe it's going to go away, but especially in this kind of wreckage aftermath as the Iran situation continues to wreak havoc, I believe the economy is going to be the main issue in November. And even more narrowly, have the promises of lower prices been achieved or haven't they been achieved? And so far we've seen higher prices, not lower. Let me know what you think. Info at David Pakman Dotcom Will Epstein be a voting issue in November? Let me know or let me know in a comment here.
- [49:25]
Fox and Friends Host
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- [49:53]
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- [50:23]
David Pakman
is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support support the show is by becoming a member. @join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com Megyn Kelly has brutally unleashed on Donald Trump and melted down over what some attribute to Trump's dementia. Although Megyn Kelly does not let me explain what's going on now. Some of you are probably having whiplash, which wow, that really threw my hair out of whack. Some of you are probably having whiplash because yesterday I covered Megyn Kelly saying Trump could drop a nuke and I would still vote Republican. And now she wants him to behave like a normal person. Come on Megan, you've got to make up your mind. She went on Air and said, I am sick of this shit. Can't Trump just behave like a normal human? And she does sound fed up. Now, remember that Megyn Kelly built a large part of her current audience by leaning into Trump era outrage and Trump's framing on issues and maga's grievance politics, which they say the left does grievance politics, but really they do. And now suddenly Megan is saying, I want normalcy, I want restraint, I want discipline. I want something Trump has never even attempted to offer publicly. So here is Megyn Kelly explaining her frustration with Donald Trump. But remember, she would still vote for him over any Democrat. She told us yesterday.
- [52:16]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Now, as you can imagine, that post did not go over well with the Iranians or with many Americans. I mean, I don't know about you, but I am sick of this. I'm just.
- [52:27]
David Pakman
I'm.
- [52:27]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
I'm sick of it. Can he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the President? I 3D chess. Shut up. Fucking shut up about that. You don't threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. We're talking about civilians just casually in a social media post. You know, like, I. I am the first to try to understand Trump and his strategy and to not freak out over his weird social media posts and language that is loose and incendiary. Truly, I've lived with it for 10 plus years. I learned it the hard way when I was on the receiving end of it for nine months. And truly, I think that was a gift to me in many ways because it helped me really come to understand what he does with his social media. But this is completely irresponsible and disgusting. This is wrong. It's wrong. He should not be doing it. I don't care that it's a negotiate. His negotiation tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians, men, women and children, an American president, so that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened. I. It's just wrong. It's not hard to say it. It's not hard to recognize it. I wish he would stop doing this. Like, he can't negotiate without doing this. What does that say about him? What does that say about the. The position that our country is in right now in these negotiations? He's got it. He's got to say this. He can't be a dignified, strong leader without threatening a bunch of war crimes.
- [54:16]
David Pakman
Like he.
- [54:16]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
What is. What is he, Genghis Khan? Like, what. What is he trying to do? And why can't he do it with strength? Threats, sure, go for it. That don't diminish and demean the United States of America in this way. All right, the Wall Street Journal.
- [54:38]
David Pakman
All right, so this is where the media critique comes in. This exposes a deep contradiction in the pro Trump commentary kind of ecosystem. They spent years telling us Trump's unpredictability, his saying one thing and then the next day that it is strength. They framed his impulsiveness as authenticity, and it keeps our enemies on their toes. And escalation gets rewarded, insults get rewarded, and the spectacle gets ratings and engagement, and this is what we want. They essentially argued that all of the things they now don't like were what made America great again under Donald Trump. And Trump delivered it. They created for him and handed to him on a silver silver platter. What an ecosystem that incentivized that sort of behavior. And Trump delivered it. He delivered the chaos and the contradictions and the flip flopping. He gave him content, he gave them controversy, he gave them clippable moments. He would call into their shows and they monetize the entire thing to oblivion. And then now some of those same people that benefited from it react like, this is surprising. Hey, suddenly we're realizing the complete and total chaos has gone too far and it's not really that good for America standing around the world. It's stability is threatened by this sort of behavior. Now. There was never stability. There was never this pivot toward normal presidential behavior that they promised us. They said, oh, it's bluster during the campaign, but then it'll get buttoned up. It's been unbuttoned. He's ripped his shirt off since being inaugurated for the second time. But what Megyn Kelly doesn't acknowledge is that they've sold this as a feature of the product from day one. And now all of a sudden, she's frustrated. It's a bug. The optics are no good, the tone is no good. This is a sort of production fatigue. This is the strain as a producer of MAGA content, where they are now struggling to constantly clean up Trump's mess and have to reframe what he said and justify the behavior that we all have been able to see for a very long time. But if you listen carefully to what Megyn Kelly says, there's a piece that's missing. And I believe it's the most revealing part of the entire segment. There is no break. There's no like, I will reconsider support. And in fact, even though she goes, would he just cut this shit out? Hours before, she had said Trump could drop a nuke and she'd still vote for him. Nothing disqualifies Trump from leadership or from public trust. And so the underlying position of Megyn Kelly as a pro Trump influencer doesn't change at all. She. She's complaining about execution, yes, and the presentation and the optics and how it's being delivered and received, but she's just managing her audience. It's like she's doing brand maintenance. It's a form of pr. She recognizes the tone is harder to sell to viewers. And that tells you something pretty important about the broader media ecosystem right now. They helped to build it in the first place. The incentives they benefited from haven't changed at all. The coverage has always rewarded spectacle, and Trump delivered spectacle and chaos and insanity. So when Megyn Kelly reaches this level of visible frustration, this is a strain in the system. They know they are increasingly defending the indefensible, but they're not reconsidering it. They're going to keep doing it. And so it is kind of a dramatic and explosive moment. But it's not because her perspective is shifting. It's that she's almost having a, I dare say a come to Jesus moment about the fact that she continues to support. That's that which she has supported for a long time. She's not reconsidering her support. She would still vote for Trump if he nuked someone over a Democrat. But with regard to her audience, she now feels the need to say something about the optics. And Ben Shapiro has kind of done this as well.
- [58:48]
Caller (Dave from Las Vegas)
Who?
- [58:48]
David Pakman
He's been more outspoken in his anti Trump sentiment, but he always frames it as on policy. Trump's pretty good. If you actually look at what Trump has done. He's been, he's governed conservatively. Now, I would challenge that notion, but that's the way Ben Shapiro has sort of chopped it up. His optics are no good. His bluster, his threats. But if you just look at what he's done, it's been pretty good. That was a first term analysis of Trump from Ben Shapiro. The second term is what we're seeing from Megyn Kelly. Could he cut this shit out and behave like a normal person? And the answer to Megan, of course, is no, he can't. Donald Trump's favorite show, Fox and Friends, is calling him weak. And he is weak. He is incredibly weak. And he's going to be even weaker once we take the House, at least from Republicans. But that's a story for six months from now. This is coming from Fox and Friends, basically state television for Donald Trump at this point. In time. This is the show Trump watches, he reacts to it. This is the show that sometimes sets the daily agenda for Donald Trump's tone and messaging. And even they are saying something's off here. Here is a clip where they are talking about Trump's cease fire effort in Iran. We call it Taco. Trump always chickens out. And they are flat out saying the objectives that Trump laid out have not happened. No matter which explanation you believe and accept for why we are in Iran, they are saying it hasn't happened. Take a look at this.
- [60:18]
Fox and Friends Host
But I will say that the President's demands, we have not reached any of those objectives. I have full confidence that the President is going to find some way to make this happen. But he said that we want to dismantle all major nuclear facilities. That has not happened. The end of the uranium enrichment on the soil, they're still enriching. The transfer of the enriched uranium stockpiles out of Iran. That hasn't happened. The acceptance of intrusive international inspections, they're still not willing to do that. And they have not suspended their ballistic missiles program. They're still firing them off to stop the production of the long range missiles. That's just a few of them on the President's proposal. So the question is, is the president using this two weeks to give our soldiers a break, a rest, to see if we can get this ultimately done?
- [61:11]
David Pakman
We'll see what they are admitting here in pretty plain language, they're not couching it in sort of thinly veiled defenses of Trump. They're saying his stated objectives haven't been achieved. He may have tacoed, he may have decided, I'm going to give Iran two weeks. But they're not spinning this. They're not framing it in any elaborate way or repackaging it. It just didn't happen. And when that kind of statement shows up on Fox and Friends, you see the crack in the messaging discipline that has been built like an eggshell, right? It's, it's comfortable and cozy in there, but it can crack pretty easily around Donald Trump. Fox and Friends is a show that has spent years translating Donald Trump's actions into victories. No matter what he does, no matter how messy or unclear it is, it's a victory. And you got to hand it to him. They're pretty good at presenting things as strength, leverage and strategic brilliance, no matter how boneheaded they are. And they have completely shifted on tone. They are as, as Megyn Kelly's frustration also shows. They are now trying to figure out how do we process this. How do we sort of package it for our audience? And Trump doesn't ignore coverage like this. He actually internalizes it. He fixates on it. And sometimes he lashes out at people he believes. And for the most part, he's been right, that Fox and Friends is friendly territory and that friendliest of friendly territories now says he hasn't done the things he said he was going to do. Whether it's the nuclear program or regime change or missiles or the he. They have missed objectives. And these are a problem for Donald Trump. And this is where the media dynamic gets really dicey. For Fox News and for Fox and Friends, they have to walk a careful line. We've heard from the Republican voters who go, Trump's threatening war crimes. We heard from the Republican voters and the CPAC attendees who say, this is not what he promised. This is not what we signed up for. This is not what we voted for. Prices are up instead of down. Fox knows about that. But they also know that they function effectively as state television for Donald Trump and that Trump will flip out on them and deny them access if they are too harsh. So they're introducing these calculated moments of reality. The objectives haven't been achieved. It's a controlled dose because they've got to maintain some credibility with the audience that looks out the window and goes, oh, what they're telling me is happening is not what I see out the window. And then they also have to continue pleasing Trump. Enough reality to stay believable, but not enough to really challenge the broader narrative. And there is risk to that. Trump doesn't like even minor criticism. And when he sometimes will be asked about X reporter, they might say 99 positive things out of 100. But Trump will go, well, you know, they spoke bad about me on X or Y. And the segment turns into a truth social post. It turns into a rant, it turns into a feud. And then the, the, the media figures. In this case, it's the Fox people. Fox and Friends people have to decide, how do we deal with it, how far are we willing to go? And they see the pressure, they feel the pressure, and the pressure builds in this ecosystem that has protected Trump. And now they have to say, hey, our viewers can look out the window and see for themselves what's going on, what do we do? And what they do is they say on Iran, we can't really say the objectives have been accomplished in all of these other areas. Trump's great. Mr. President this, Mr. President that. Melania gets a softball interview. We try to sell streams of her documentary or Trump's Bibles with whoever, Lee Greenwood. But at the same time, you've got to acknowledge some of that reality, because they know what the truth is, and they have the polling. Fox is polling is quite good. Fox's polling is not done by Fox. Like like many media outlets, they hire these outside polling firms to do the actual polling. They know what the numbers are. They know Americans are paying more. They know they're not happy about it. They know 92% of Americans don't want the US involved in Iran. And so they feed a little bit of a crumb to those people while they're still giving the big meal, the overdone steak with ketchup and an overcooked piece of shrimp like they serve at Mar a Lago to Trump. They're still keeping that for the administration. Can't say I respect it, but I understand why they're doing it.