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Democrats are already preparing massive Trump investigations if they retake the House in November. I think the real danger for Republicans is not prison. They're not going. But it's two straight years of corruption hearings, leaked texts, subpoenas, and just nonstop reminders that these are very corrupt people. Heading into 2028. We're going to talk about it. Meanwhile, something very strange seems to be happening with J.D. vance. Reports that he is increasingly not considering running for president in 2028. The reasons why are the most interesting part. We'll also talk about this shots fired situation near the White House, which instantly exploded a whole series of new conspiracy theories. And we're kind of reaching the point in the United States where millions of people no longer believe even the most basic reports about what's happening in the country. We will talk about it. And, and finally, Trump spiraling overnight, delivering an insanely unhinged Memorial Day message and then falling asleep at a Memorial Day event while Pete Hegseth was talking. Is any of this surprising to you? I'm certainly not surprised, but Trump's going to the hospital today for the third time in 13 months. Maybe these things are related. All of it. Today, Donald Trump and Republicans just got hit, hit with brutal investigation news that we have been predicting. Now, I know that there are some of you who are going to hear the first half of this story and you're going to say, who cares, David? Why does this matter? Watch the full video and then leave me a comment or send me an email. I think I can convince you that this is actually huge. Democrats are developing a plan for endless investigations of Trump, Trump's family, if appropriate, and Trump staffers, if appropriate. If they retake the House of Representatives in November, they would be sworn into power in the first few days of January of 2027. And what this will do is it will turn Donald Trump's final two years in office into a mess that will be mired in oversight and probes, looking into Trump's corruption and potentially Trump's criminality. Even before winning in November, even before getting subpoena power, Democrats are already building these investigative teams. Now, you might say, david, sir, that's too soon. You've got to focus on winning. They haven't won anything yet. Well, I think that they should be able to do at least two things at once. It might be nice to be able to do a couple of things at once. And I actually like the idea that Democrats are thinking ahead. Democrats are always behind. We go, hey, listen, they did this. And we're completely unprepared for what came next. I'm glad to see that Democrats are trying to avoid being perpetually behind and thinking ahead. Congressman Robert Garcia says they already have an Epstein team, a Trump family corruption team, a DHS ICE team, and they have researchers preparing letters and document requests already kind of laying out the structure of these investigations. Jamie Raskin, Congressman Jamie Raskin said, this is a civic emergency and I agree. Now, if you're wondering, why do Democrats think that they're going to win? The polling and the betting market odds are both very strongly in favor of Democrats taking the House. The Senate is 50, 50 at best, sometimes not quite. But on balance, there's probably about a 75% chance that Democrats take the House. Now, that is not a guarantee. You've got to run the races, you've got to get the votes, you've got to win. But it definitely makes sense. Be ready to hit the ground running here. The powers that Democrats would get if they win the House are the power to compel testimony, forced document production, depositions, public hearings, and potentially the power to expose internal communications of Trump and the people around him. What would they investigate specifically? It's a beautiful list. Alleged Trump family self enrichment, very obviously going on. Trump's net worth has increased by billions since he took office in January of 25. The pay to play contracting that's going on involving the White House and the federal government, DHS contracting, corruption, doge data and privacy concerns, retaliatory prosecutions from Trump's DOJ fight, handling of the Epstein files and the missing files, corporate favoritism towards the administration and Jared Kushner's conflicts of interest. Any one of those things at times in American history, not that far in the rearview mirror would have been potentially presidency ending scandals here. It's daily and it shows that there is going to be a lot of investigative work to do for Democrats if they do take the House. Now, before I tell you why this matters so much, there are some MAGA people already saying, oh, so they are going to weaponize the justice system against Trump and Republicans after complaining that Trump is weaponizing the justice system against them. Hold on a second. If Democrats win the House, Trump still controls the doj. So quite literally, Democrats would not be able to weaponize the justice system in that sense. Now, secondly, Republicans have spent years with we've got to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, Obama, all of this stuff without evidence of wrongdoing. Now we have a treasure trove of evidence of wrongdoing by Trump and The people around him. And it's going to be investigated. Nobody's saying lock people up without due process or any. There is evidence enough to do an investigation. That's it. That's called due process. Now let's get to the next part. Why do we care? Why? Why does this matter? Trump's not going to prison. No, Trump's not going to prison, but that's not why this is matters why this is going to matter. What matters the most is getting power back. And a lot of getting power back is going to be winning the presidency in 2028. So the, the real political impact is that for two years leading up to the 2028 election, there are going to be endless news headlines, televised hearings, document leaks, embarrassing testimony that are going to really damage the Republican party going into 2028. Even if nothing tangible happens legally, investigations can be politically devastating. Watergate deep damaged Nixon well before he ultimately resigned. The January 6 hearings, which were just hearings at the end of the day, really hurt Republicans with a lot of key voting groups. The Benghazi, the endless Benghazi investigations and hearings arguably did hurt Hillary Clinton politically, despite no criminal outcome. And so what you have to understand and consider is that public memory and public perception entering 2028 are going to be shaped by these investigations, by what people are seeing on tv, the clips that get republished and go viral, the testimony and all of that. So Trump will likely leave office untouched legally, if he lives that long. Republicans could, and I believe, should be forced to spend 2027 and 2028 defending the allegations of corruption. Epstein questions contracting scandals, abuses of power and all of that. And it could end up being the kind of defining background of the 2028 election. People sick and tired of Republican corruption, and they're either going to stay home and not vote for Republicans, which they would normally do, or maybe even come out and vote for Democrats. I think that this really matters. It is of massive importance. And what is fascinating is that at the same time, J.D. vance is reportedly getting cold feet about 2028. Let's talk about that next. There is new reporting that JD Vance may already be running away from the idea that he's going to run to be heir apparent to the MAGA throne and try to be the next President of the United States. If this is true, this is a massive warning about what is happening inside of Trump world right now. Now there's a new report from the Daily Mail. Not always the most reliable, but their reporting is often corroborated by other media outlets. Later, according to this report, there are multiple insiders saying that JD Vance is increasingly isolated inside the White House. We already have an independent corroboration of that. He's sort of like, not totally on board with the stuff Trump is doing. He also lacks charisma and seems unable to build consensus around an alternative approach. And a lot of people just don't like the guy. So that's one aspect. J.D. vance isolated. And there is the consideration that Vance is thinking of stepping away from running in 2028. Completely think about how insane that would be politically in general. Vice presidents are supposed to sort of be the natural heirs apparent to the president. If the president has chosen someone that is up to the task and is intelligent and well connected and all of this stuff, it would be natural that it's like, hey, if you like what I'm doing, here's the natural person to replace me. And usually the gist of it is sort of like, wait your turn, stand alongside me, accept successes that kind of trickle down to you inherit the movement and you can be the next one to run. But there are a number of problems here. First of all, it's not clear Trump wants Vance to inherit the movement. Trump has been kind of turning everything into a reality show already going, I don't know, J.D. vance, Marco Rubio, we have so many good options. It's great. That's number one, it doesn't seem that Vance really has Trump support, and that's a problem for him. Number two, Vance may not want to inherit the movement that Trump has been building because it in and of itself could become completely toxic by 2028. The idea there being it's not that Vance doesn't want to be president, but he thinks if he's going to have a better shot at it, he should wait for Trump to leave, let some other Republican or a Democrat be president. Distance from Trump. Vance is young. He could run in 32 or 36 or 40 or whenever. Now, the article reporting about this from the Daily Mail basically argues that Vance is trapped between two versions of MAGA on foreign policy. You've got the old America first. We're against the war. We're skeptical of intervention that helped Trump become president. On the other hand, you've got this new Trump, which is very different. It's the wartime Trump, it's the we're going to go to Venezuela and we're going to go to Iran and we're going to go to Cuba. Military escalation, Trump. And that is increasingly putting Trump at odds with J.D. vance. And so that's an internal problem. There's one source that says Trump just doesn't give a damn about Vance anymore. And that quote, vance is a non event in the West Wing. And that that is absolutely devastating for a vice president. The other thing that I think is important to mention and the report does is Marco Rubio, which is it's less about Vance being a bad option, it's more about Rubio is getting a lot of positive attention. He's getting a lot of atta boys from Donald Trump and Trump is increasingly seeing Rubio as a stronger and more natural air, especially since there is so much that's going on with regard to foreign policy and a Secretary of State that's really Marco Rubio's area of, of of focus. So it would be fascinating if the guy that was being he's going to be the heir and he'll have Peter Thiel's money and he's going to morph MAGA into this new kind of technocratic it just may never happen. And J.D. vance maybe, maybe realizing that. So a bunch of different reasons why this could go south. It would be Trump doesn't want Vance to do it. Vance doesn't want to inherit the MAGA movement because it's toxic. Vance comes to believe he wouldn't win. Now let's talk about the Democrats a little bit and how they would run against Vance if it were Vance in 2028. Democrats are going to say this is the third Trump term. It's not going to be look at this young fresh upstart JD Vance bringing a new now it's going to be this is just more Trump. If you liked 450 Optional Gas Prices in 2026, JD Vance is going to be more of that. Whether it's true or whether it's not. The other issue for JD Is that his internal allies in this administration keep disappearing. And that is a sign of how that wing of the administration is not viewed particularly favorably. You've got Tulsi Gabbard who has now resigned, Joe Kent resigned. Both reportedly were much more aligned with JD Vance's non interventionist worldview. And so Vance is looking pretty isolated even within this administration. Which raises the question of what even is MAGA right now? Because for years it was supposedly this anti interventionist, anti war version of the Republican Party. And now it seems to just be an interventionist version of the Republican Party more like George W. Bush. What does Vance represent within that? And is there even really a desire from Republican voters to officially go back to that more Vance Ian direction So I think that it is absolutely fascinating that this conversation is happening right now. It seemed as though Vance had so much momentum. It's inevitable. There's just no one else who's going to. And then slowly Marco Rubio pops in there and then a few more people are talking about Don Jr. Although I don't find that particularly likely. And it may end up going from what was like a natural and obvious environment for JD to be the nominee to I don't know how this guy could potentially do it. It's a massive, massive uphill battle. The most important thing to remember is that no matter who their nominee is, a lot of their tactics and techniques are going to remain the same. Talking about free and fair elections and arguing that if Democrats get their way, the elections will be rigged or unfair or whatever, arguing that Democrats are dangerous to the country, arguing that they will keep you safe, scapegoating other countries, scapegoating minority groups. All of that stuff is going to remain the same. And that is part of why we need the 2027 election to go well. It just, it absolutely must. We are going to do everything we can. June 9th, I'm announcing this for the first time here. June 9th, we are going to be doing a huge membership drive. We will be focusing on yearly memberships. They will be greatly discounted. You know, I realized in some of the emails that have been coming in, a lot of the audience doesn't realize that this show has a full, full time staff. There's a lot of shows out there that only do the contractor thing. They don't want to pay salaries, they don't want to pay health insurance. They don't want to fund people's retirement accounts. I've gone a different way. We have employees, they work full time for this show. We do health care cost sharing. We do retirement contributions. Because I want to try to do the right thing. This is very different than a lot of other shows. We have that infrastructure and for us to be the strongest we can be going into this next election, we need to do this membership drive. We will be greatly discounting yearly memberships which allow us to project cash flow much more strongly and powerfully. So if you want to sign up on June 9, all you have to do today is get on my newsletter and then we'll email you on June 9, telling you what's going on with the discount. Just go to David pakman.com/substack, get on my mailing list. That's the only thing you've got to do today. Starting something new is exciting. It can also be intimidating. Whether you're launching a podcast, starting a business, or doing the side hustle you've had in mind, there is that moment where you wonder, is this really going to work? That's where our sponsor Shopify comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, behind about 10% of all E commerce in the US and behind the David Pakman Show Merch Store as well. What makes Shopify so powerful is how much it simplifies the process. You can build a professional online store with hundreds of ready to use templates, manage inventory, process, payments, track analytics all in one place. Shopify also has built in tools to help you grow like easy email and social media marketing campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling. And if you ever get stuck, they're award winning 24. 7 customer support is there to help. It's time to turn the what ifs into income with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 a month trip trial at shopify.com/pacman link is in the Description One thing that drives me nuts about political media is how two outlets can cover the 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 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 underreported by one side and you can also get a personalized feed based on your interests. Go to ground.news/pacman or scan my QR code to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. The link is in the description shots were fired outside the White House while Donald Trump was reportedly inside. And almost immediately we see the split into these two completely different realities. Some people said this was another assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Others said this is random violence from a mentally disturbed person. And then others said it was an assassination attempt, but it was staged to justify Trump is in danger and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We are now going to see yet again some of the same types of claims that we've seen after Butler, Pennsylvania's assassination attempts and after what happened with the White House Correspondent's Dinner. And there were a lot of people after news of this broke who weren't even sure that it happened. So, so you've got it didn't even happen. You've got it happened, but it was staged to help Trump and you've got it just happened the way it was described. We are now in a place in the United States of America where millions of people instinctively do not believe major political events are happening as described. According to reports, 21 year old man named Nazir Best allegedly opened fire near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House complex. Secret Service agents returned fire and killed him. And a bystander was hit during this exchange. Very quickly, the online discussion is not about the facts, it's about how does someone get that close? Doesn't sound right. Why is the footage always incomplete? Well, sometimes it's only incomplete in the immediate aftermath and later we get it. Why are the details confusing? Why are there conflicting reports? And the truth is that's common in breaking news events. So I think we've got to be careful with that. But we still see major events immediately called fake and staged. Now, I don't think this was staged and there's a practical reason I keep coming back to the logistics would be absurd and it's not really going to help Trump anyway. You would need coordination involving Secret Service, local police, federal investigators, White House staff, reporters on scene, witnesses, medical personnel, random bystanders. There was a bystander who was actually shot. And I don't think that makes sense in a political ecosystem where people are accidentally texting war plans to the wrong people, as they did on Signal and Pete Hagseth and the entire thing. These people are just too incompetent. Now, that doesn't mean people won't question what's going on. I think what's happening right now is bigger than, than any individual incident because we have an Internet which for a decade or longer has been training millions of people to confuse I'm suspicious with. I have an intelligent declaration about what took place. And when people go, something feels off, they go, oh, I know what this is. It's a conspiracy. It's staged and the algorithms reward this stuff. If you just post, as I sometimes do, hey, I don't really see any Evidence that this was staged. That's pretty boring. Some people will attack you, David. You do this, you're part of the establishment or this sort of stuff. But you get massive social status for acting like you know the hidden truth that they don't want you to know, and that spreads absolutely everywhere. Trump has helped to create this culture himself because for years, the message was, the media lies to you, the FBI lies to you, the government lies to you. The official timelines are fake. The scientists lie to you, the doctors lie to you, the generals lie to you. Every major event is manipulated, and so then people apply it to Trump as well. And Republicans are suddenly in a bizarre position of wanting Americans to believe he really was almost killed. They really are constantly trying to kill him. You've got to trust law enforcement now and the federal agencies. So on the one hand, I don't believe that this was staged. On the other hand, I understand why people are instinctively asking questions, because they've been trained to do so. And the third part of it is Republicans have once again lost control of the very monster that they have created. Now, there's one other factor that I think is important, which is that Americans are emotionally exhausted. Trump scandals have stopped shocking people. Constitutional crises have stopped shocking people. Indictments, convictions of a former president, then former president have stopped shocking people. And now even gunfire near the White House barely even gets much of a news cycle. It was a few hours over the weekend. And. And so instead of reacting with seriousness and sometimes fear, if appropriate, huge parts of. Of the public react with irony or memes or conspiracy theories or emotional detachment or whatever it is. It's a very weird place for a country to end up when people don't agree about basic reality. I write about it in my book the Echo Machine. Politics completely destabilizes, and it's very difficult to rein it back in because the events are content. I've talked about. Politics has become content in the United States. Tragedies are merely for speculation and getting clicks. And a breaking story fractures into competing realities where people not only don't agree about what the facts are, they don't agree about what sorts of statements count as statements of fact. So I think we are much closer to a complete departure from the meaning of reality in a sort of broader philosophical sense that a lot of people want to acknowledge. And it could become a very dangerous thing in unpredictable ways. Right now, it's the Republicans who are struggling with, why are all these people going? It was staged. Trump is in danger. We need the ballroom. We need everything he Might need to stay in power. We might need to cancel elections. Just believe us, please. But you guys are the ones who were saying we can't trust any official story. You guys were the ones saying you can't believe law enforcement or intelligence agencies or the government. And so now you've got people who you've convinced, and it is causing a political problem for you, a problem that they created. That's. That's for sure. Donald Trump is going back to the hospital today. He may be there right now. He's going to Walter Reed for another medical evaluation. This will be Trump's third hospital medical Visit in just 13 months, plus multiple dentist visits this year alone. Advanced imaging, cardiovascular scans. We, we. They talked to us about an MRI for two months. Turns out it was a CT scan. What part of the body? We didn't know initially. Trump said, I don't know. Tell him what it was. We finally find out. Going to his dentist in Florida rather than the dental facility they have at the White House. What is going on? Part of what is going on is that Trump spent years turning age and physical decline into a weapon against Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe. He doesn't know what day it is. He doesn't know what year it is. This became a huge part of Trump's political identity. Joe is so sleepy. He's way too old. He's way too weak. He's too confused. He's too tired. He can't do it. And now Trump is about to turn 80 in a few days, and he is moving slowly. He's sleeping multiple times a week on camera during public events. He's visibly fatigued. And now we've got three Walter Reed trips, dental trips. This guy's going to the doctor and the dentist all the time. And the White House isn't really explaining it well. These are all routine checkups. Okay. Do voters believe that that's what's going on? Maybe it's. Well, this is the President of the United States, so he must go this often. Well, other presidents didn't, and Trump didn't. So can we at least acknowledge that it must be because of his age? Even if you don't believe something is seriously wrong, it's because he is an elderly guy. And then they see the bruised hands covered in makeup, and they see the ankles that look like tree trunks, they're so swollen. And the cautious stairwalking and the monument, the. The monumental feeling that Trump just doesn't want us to really know what's going on with his health. He would rather just insist that it's the best ever. And of course, falling asleep multiple times a week on camera after calling your pro previous opponent Sleepy Joe doesn't exactly convince people of your vigor and your strength. So you look at the individual explanations. If the individual explanations were reasonable, they might paint a picture where we have a sense we know what's going on, but the individual explanations don't make sense. The explanation as to why Trump's going to the dentist so often doesn't make sense. The explanation for Trump's bruised hands doesn't make sense. The explanation for Trump falling asleep on camera, which is he's blinking for a long time and thinking very deeply, doesn't make any sense. And so then that's when you go, man, the whole picture doesn't really make sense here. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Now, it's important to also acknowledge that a lot of the allegations that were made against Joe Biden that turned out to be false are now true about Trump. Biden was declining. There's no doubt he shouldn't have run again. But, for example, Biden is falling asleep all the time in places he shouldn't be. Trump would talk about how Biden fell asleep at the beach while on vacation. Well, Trump's falling asleep during Cabinet meetings, during oval office events, etc. What he said about Biden is true about himself. When he said Biden doesn't know what's going on in his administration, there was no evidence Biden didn't know what was going on in his administration or around the world. But Trump regularly says, we'll have to get back to you on that. The what? Sorry, what was that? What? Oh, I don't know. I'm going to have to ask about that. The stuff he alleged about Biden is true about him. And I think in some sense, Trump world probably suspected that it was a little dangerous for the guy that would be the oldest president ever to be focusing in on Biden the way that he was. Because that same framework of analysis, if you apply it to Trump today, who's the president? Biden's not the president. He's retired. Trump's the president. You don't get good outcomes when you use that exact same framework of analysis that Trump wanted applied to Joe Biden. The changing explanations for why Trump is doing the things he's doing don't inspire confidence. And then the other thing, this is so basic. It's so. It's such a simple thing, but it only raises the level of concern. Why is Trump getting so many cognitive tests? Trump argues that he's getting all of these cognitive tests to prove something. But that only shows he doesn't understand the test. The test is designed to determine whether someone has pretty severe dementia or may have had a brain injury or a serious stroke or that sort of thing. That Trump claims to be acing these tests is only raising the question of why the hell is he being given these tests so often, which you normally wouldn't do. Finally, I think it does make sense to, you know, when you hang your hat on something that has repercussions, Trump has made a political brand out of strength, dominance, stamina, and energy. And when he becomes increasingly physically diminished, even when it's subtle, and lately it's not so subtle, you're undercutting the emotional pillars of Trumpism, which is no one is stronger than Trump. No one is more energized and strong and powerful. And that's changing because polling now finds that only 44% of Americans think Trump is healthy enough to be president. Most Americans believe he's not, or they aren't sure that he is. Only 40% of Americans believe Trump has the mental acuity to be president. That means 60% of Americans don't think Trump has it cognitively, what it takes or they aren't sure if he does, that's really a problem. If your whole political image depends on I am powerful. And we've even got former MAGA figures, mostly former, willing to express some of that concern, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. And once that concern starts, it's very difficult to put that genie back in the bottle. And the modern media environment, where we see how terrible Trump looks, we see it every single day. That is not going to help. So Trump at Walter reed for the third time in 13 months. Do we even need to guess what sort of a medical report we're going to get? Healthiest president ever. So good. So perfect for the age. For the age, as Trump likes to say. I don't think we need to wait for the declarations, but I'm still curious to see them. What do you expect? What sort of a medical report do you expect to see come from Donald Trump? Let me know. A lot of people put on music while they work, assuming it helps them concentrate. But in practice, familiar songs, lyrics, or constantly changing tracks often will take attention away. Away from what you're working on, rather than supporting attention. And that's where Brain FM comes in. Our sponsor, Brain fm, is a music app designed to support focus, relaxation, or sleep with music created by human musicians working alongside neuroscientists Instead of generic playlists, Brain FM offers task specific modes like deep work, creative and motivation depending on what you're to trying trying to do. What makes Brain FM different is the science behind it, because it's the only music app funded by the National Science foundation based on their unique audio technology designed to influence brain activity associated with Focus. Brain FM also has published peer reviewed research showing their technology supports attentional performance. They even have an optional ADHD mode for people who benefit from additional stimulation. But the app really is built for anybody looking to reduce distractions and stay engaged with their work. You can try Brain FM totally free for 30 days by going to Brain FM Pacman 30 days is a long free trial. Go check it out. The link is in the Description Shopping for a mattress is one of those things where most people have no idea where to start. Which is why I recommend here Helix Sleep, our sponsor. Helix makes the process simple because instead of guessing, you just take a sleep quiz. You'll get matched with the best mattress for you. It takes a lot of the uncertainty out of buying something you're going to spend every night on. You'll be glad to have one tailored to your unique needs. I'm mostly a stomach sleeper. I like medium firmness and I tend to run hot rather than cold at night. Helix had exactly the mattress for that. I've had my Helix mattress for years now. It is the one I keep recommending because it feels supportive, comfortable even after all these years. Helix also ships free in the United states. You get 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty so you can buy with complete confidence. Go to helix sleep.com/pacman to get 27% off sitewide exclusive for my audience. The link is in the description One of the people running for Governor of California is the former Secretary of Health and Human Services Javier Becerra and he joins me to talk about the race. So as I told my audience, I'm really happy to be able to get into some of the policy that's driving this race because a lot of races around the country are about cultural grievances and memes and all of this other stuff. But the California gubernatorial race right now is is very centric. I want to start with homelessness. There are critics of Governor Newsom who say he's not done enough, particularly in the large cities of California. My audience told me they would love to hear from you. Where do you think the governor has done a good job? Where? Not so much and really just specifically what you would do differently.
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B
So Recognizing, David, that homelessness is something that's tackled at the local level. Remember Governor Newsom, and if I'm fortunate to become governor, Governor Becerra, we don't control the streets of the city of LA or San Francisco or even the unincorporated streets of the county of San Francisco or county of la. City mayors, council people, supervisors, county supervisors, they're the ones that decide how to actually implement state provides resources, tries to provide direction. If you look at it that way, Governor Newsom, over the past eight years has provided more than tens of billions of dollars in support for homelessness. That's good. The difficulty has been we haven't seen enough progress. So I would say two very important things on homelessness. One, accountability. The governor is entitled to demand accountability outcomes. You have to have real results. If we're giving you tens of billions of dollars, you have to show that something is going on, that you're pulling people from the streets, getting them stood up again, ready to go to work, have a life. And I don't think people have seen that enough. Secondly, it's not just a homelessness problem, it's a mental health problem. And we haven't done enough to provide the services that when you pull them off the streets to get this individual shelter, you're also providing them with the services that they need to make sure they don't return to the streets. And there we have to do far more. Fortunately, after four years of being secretary at hhs, I think I know a lot of the areas where we could concentrate on doing the mental health aspect of this. I, for example, launched the 988 program when I was secretary. That helps the initial entry point for anyone who's going through a real mental health challenge. You could call 988 instead of calling 911, and you should get a professional voice telling you what you can do, where you can go. But the third thing I'll tell you that is really the governor's province is taking care of making sure more Californians don't become homeless in the first place. Because the reality is we're never going to get the full bang for our buck of the 20 plus billions of dollars that have been spent over the last five to 10 years, unless we stop homelessness from continuing to grow, and that's where the state can come in. I'm going to try to stop you from losing your home before you hit the streets. How can I do that? Well, chances are you ran into some medical emergency that really consumed all your savings, and now you're. You're not left with not enough money to keep up your, your rental payment or you lost your job and you're having difficulty getting re employed again and now you're having a tough time paying your rent or your mortgage. I'd rather focus on programs that help prevent you from becoming homeless, which will cost some money, but way less than it would cost me to pick you off the street, get you sheltered, get you the services you need and keep you stood up, keep you employed. And so that's where I think my focus will be, is making sure I prevent you from losing your, the roof over your head.
- [40:15]
A
I think that's great. I think it won't necessarily be that useful for the people who are currently homeless. I think what some of my California viewers are struggling, struggling with is that there feels to be, it feels like there's a little bit of a hot potato going on in terms of jurisdiction where when we had Mayor Karen Bass on, she talked to us about what she's done, but reminded us that a lot of this stuff is bigger than the limits of a city or a county. And so that you do need more. I think, you know, the idea being, I don't think necessarily voters want to hear the governor say this is a local issue and mayors say we can only do what state law allows us to do. I think a lot of people maybe are struggling with that and they hear, man, I don't know that anything's going to get done.
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B
Well, see, that's why I'm telling you. In fact, I said it more plainly.
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A
Yeah.
- [41:04]
B
My job as governor will be to make sure I don't add any new California to the homeless population. So I will keep that population from growing. Which means then I let the cities and the counties work on getting those folks who are on the streets housed again with the monies that we do give them. We also do have to, as a state provide the resources and the support to make sure the health services, mental health services, drug rehabilitation services are made available. But on the ground, that's where the cities and the counties do have the responsibility to produce results. We work with them, but I don't have the jurisdiction, the authority to pull someone off the streets if they are in a state property. Yeah, I could do that. But if they're on the streets of the city of San Francisco or L. A. Yeah, I don't have that power.
- [41:52]
A
Let's talk about health care. Since July of 2020, Donald Trump's health care plan has been two weeks away. I don't think we're getting It, I don't think we can wait for that. There are allegations that are being hurled at you, including by your opponent, Tom Steyer, that you dropped support for single payer because of the medical lobbies, lobbying and money. It. I don't, I want to hear from you about that. It does seem as though at one point you did support changes that I don't think you're supporting right now as a candidate for governor. I just want to hear from you, what do you make of the allegation of corporate influence and why you changed your perspective? What specific system do you support right
- [42:37]
B
now, David, to the allegation. Let me respond to that immediately. Hogwash. Hogwash. In terms of where I stand, I, I stand where I've stood for more than 30 years. A supporter of Medicare for all, which is a form of single payer.
- [42:55]
A
Yes, it is.
- [42:55]
B
Single payer, as you know, takes many forms. You go to Germany, go to Great Britain, go to France, go to Canada, they all have a single payer system. It takes different forms. We in the US we have a single payer system. It's called Medicare.
- [43:09]
A
Right.
- [43:09]
B
Because once you pay into it, it's up to the federal government to make sure that those seniors who are on Medicare get their services. I have been since I got to Congress in 1993 a supporter of a single payer for all. I'm Medicare for all, which is a single payer system. I continue to be a supporter. What I have said though is that I am going to make progress towards getting to that universal coverage goal one way or the other as we work towards a more efficient system like single payer. And what I did when I was Secretary of Health and Human Services. Exactly that. Remember President Biden said it very publicly and he said it to me when I was, when he nominated me to be the secretary. He's not a single payer advocate, but he is for universal coverage. And I said that's a perfect sweet spot. And so I work towards growing the number of Americans who had coverage. We got to a record number, over 300 million. And the reason we got there was because we blew it out of the water with Obamacare. We got more than 24 and a half million people on health insurance coverage through the marketplace. And so we're going to continue to build everywhere I go towards universal coverage and we're going to try to move towards a system that's far more efficient like single payer or Medicare for all. And I've never changed. People may want to distort what I've said, but what I said is I'm going to make progress. That doesn't mean I've changed my goal.
- [44:30]
A
I'm very interested in hearing your take and I'm, I don't. This isn't a leading question in the sense that I have some idea of the answer. The, the. If we got to the end point, you're suggesting there would be less profit left for the for profit health insurance industry. Like it just, it's the reality. It would be better for people. There's pros, cons, but one of the things is there would less profit left over. That's right, they do. The health insurance and health care industry are big donors to your campaign. And I ask this genuinely, why do they donate if, if you get what you say you want, they end up with less profit. And again, I'm not implying anything, I'm genuinely curious. Like what do they think they see in it?
- [45:15]
B
Okay, so first let's be sure we're clear when you say they're big donors and there's no. The industry itself hasn't been a big donor. Let's put it in perspective.
- [45:26]
A
Individuals from the industry, I should clarify which is the way that yes, legally you're correct. You're correct.
- [45:30]
B
Right. And individually they've given big. Most people would look at a donation over a hundred bucks is pretty big. Some of these folks have been able to give more because the limit in, in California for the governor's race is $39,200. So there have been people, whether they're in the insurance industry or otherwise, who give me 39,200, but they haven't given me millions. And right now we have one candidate who has outspent me probably 20 to 1, who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. No one has given me hundreds of millions of dollars. And that candidate gets, gets away with saying all these things about someone who gets in the thousands. But so to the point, the more efficient our system in health care becomes, the less money is devoted to profits. Absolutely. That's the reason a single payer system is efficient because you don't have to try to leave money aside for profits. You get to put it all back in to providing health care. The more middlemen you take out of the system, the more money you have to put into direct care, dispensing of care. That's why the single payer system, a Medicare for all, works much better. But are they influencing me? No. I've been, I wasn't running for for governor 30, 34 years ago when I got to Congress. And I, I was a co author, a principal co author of the Medicare for All bill. I wasn't a running for, I wasn't running for governor five years ago when I became Secretary of Health and Human Services and began expanding healthcare to more people. I've always been consistent. Others may try to distort where I bid, but that's their, that's up to them. The reality is that where I, everywhere I've gone, I've expanded access to health care and I've made it more reasonably priced than what it was before.
- [47:22]
A
Let's talk a little bit about the wealth tax proposal that's floating around. And just so the audience knows, we're going to be having other candidates from this race on and they're going to be asked about these same issues. We want to hear from everybody. There's this one time 5% wealth tax for California billionaires that's been proposed and you're on record opposing it. I'm very interested in this because my view on wealth taxes in general is I don't have a moral problem with it. I don't have an ethical problem with it. If it can be done legally, I'm open to it. But I look at examples from Europe where it's been done and total tax revenue went down because people changed how they received income. Some people moved out. So I don't want to do something that sounds good but reduces tax revenue when the point is to increase it. I see the California proposal as different because it's one time 5% on a very specifically targeted, targeted group of people. So I would, it's sort of a two part question to you. One, do you have a moral or ethical problem with the concept of a wealth tax? And two, what is it about this particular proposal that you don't like?
- [48:29]
B
No problem with the moral or ethical underpinnings of a wealth tax. Legal and logistical.
- [48:37]
A
Yes.
- [48:38]
B
And I say that Having served for 20 years on the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives, which is the tax writing committee of Congress.
- [48:47]
A
Yes.
- [48:48]
B
So having done tax policy for over 20 years, you begin to recognize what passes the smell test, what can work. And David, I can tell you, let me summarize it in three, three words. What makes tax policy work are fairness, predictability, stability. If you can't make it fair, you're going to find yourself in a real a lot of pain because you're going to have populations that just don't want to participate and you need to have participation for the tax system to work. Predictability to your point, if you can't see what your tax, your, your tax rate will be in the future, you're going to go somewhere, take your money, take your business where you can have more predictability because you can't afford to be taxed x amount 1 year and then 2x the next year and 4x the next year. You want some, some type of predictability stability. If you don't have a source of revenue that's stable, then you can't plan for the services that you're going to provide as government to the people in your community. And so you have to have stability. And so what I say to folks is I'm for any policy that, especially policy that goes and asks the wealthiest to pay their fair share. And billionaires clearly are not paying their fair share. And so yeah, let's, let's make the billionaires pay a fair share. The difficulty with this initiative is that it is not predictable. How do you get, as you said, what's going to stop someone from leaving your jurisdiction so they don't have to pay a penny in that billionaire tax? What then?
- [50:28]
A
Isn't it retroactive to January 1st though? So if they left now, it'd be too late.
- [50:32]
B
Yeah, that's why a lot of them already left. They left in advance.
- [50:36]
A
I don't have those numbers in front of me. I'll have to research that.
- [50:38]
B
Yeah, some of the folks have left. At least they purchased other properties outside of the state of California to make it so that they could say that they were now residing outside of the state of California.
- [50:50]
A
Okay, that'd be a legal fight, but least they could make the claim.
- [50:52]
B
Yeah, that's right. The second thing is, how do you determine what constitutes your wealth? What's the price of that painting you've had up on your wall for 20 years? How do you.
- [51:03]
A
That's one of my big issues with it, which is is the government going to get in the business of appraising fine art, for example? That, that. I don't love that.
- [51:12]
B
Yeah, not just fine art, but pretty much everything you can think of because wealth includes your, the value of your clothes. I mean everything is part of your wealth. And the, the difficulty for the state of California is it's a one time tax and most of it goes to health care, not to schools, not to help us build the housing that we need. And so it's not a reliable, predictable form of revenue because it's one time deal focused in one area. And I think legally it's going to get caught in entanglement for a long time in the courts. And who knows ultimately whether we get the, the dollars. I'd rather this is the way I describe my tax policy so I can make it pretty straightforward, is if you're paying at a tax rate that's lower than a teacher, a nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, then you're not paying your fair share and you should be taxed higher. And I guarantee you most of those billionaires are not paying at a tax rate, a tanama to what a teacher pays. And so let's then go after them in a more reliable, more consistent, more predictable way so they know all the time and we know what we'll collect versus a one time one shot focused only to help one sector health care. It just doesn't, it doesn't smell right.
- [52:29]
A
Let's. The last thing I want to ask you about, which is I've asked a lot of people who agree we need to capture more taxes for, from the wealthiest of the wealthy. The problem is you raise the income tax rate while they don't earn income so that, no, you struck out, you raise capital gains, but they can just hold these assets without selling them, so there's never a taxable event and they can just be borrowed against you do a wealth tax. Well, we're coming up against some of the potential issues with a wealth tax. So how do you actually capture more dollars of revenue from that group of people?
- [53:03]
B
Yeah, so in, in most cases that passive income that that capital gains applies to will be held for a time. But most capital gains mo. Most assets aren't held forever. They do continue to trade them. And by the way, there are ways you go after the transaction so that while they try to cloak it and not make it look like a sell, you can, you can classify something, some a form of transfer as, as a sale. So there are ways to go after cap gains. And as to your point on capital gains, we tax capital gains income based on passive investments far less than we do active income. I am not interested in trying to tax that position at a higher income tax rate because even though that position may make 600,000, 700,000 a year, they're already paying in California at a very high tax rate. I want to go after that. What gives people massive wealth and that's
- [53:57]
A
the passive income and the, with the sort of transaction tax that someone like Bernie Sanders or others have proposed, you think that that may be an area of focus?
- [54:09]
B
There's, there are opportunities in other areas. Whether it's a transaction tax. There's, there's there's been proposals to try to impose a tax on whether it's a sale of a of a stock or some asset or other forms of transactions that you could and the tax would be very low. There's a service tax. You can start to tax services. But quite honestly there's enough right now in corporate welfare, in corporate, well, tax tax breaks for corporations that you could go after that gives you some stable source of income moving forward. And so there are whether it's corporate welfare, whether it's trying to do more on passive income, there are ways to try to get there that are both that are all always fair, predictable and stable.
- [54:59]
A
Former Secretary of Health and Human Services, now running for Governor of California, Javier Becerra. We are watching this one closely. Really appreciate your time. One of the most common career problems is not knowing how to make a change without blowing up your life and everything you have going on. A lot of people reach a point where they don't necessarily hate their job. They want more direction, growth or maybe confidence as far as what the next move is, even if on paper everything is sort of okay. Our sponsor, Strawberry Me is a career coaching platform built for this exact situation. Success often does not happen on its own. It takes clarity, strategy, execution and most people who make meaningful progress are not doing it all by themselves. And that is where a coach at Strawberry Me can really help. A coach can help get you unstuck, uncover what you really want, identify obstacles that might be holding you back and really put together a practical step by step plan for where you want to go. Whether you are trying to grow in your current role, make a career change, turn a goal into something real. Having some outside perspective can make a really big difference. So go to strawberry.me/pacman to find out if career coaching is right for you and get 50% off your first session. The link is in the description. 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. Have you ever seen the record set from For Lies per Second? I think I have it. I think I have a video of it for you. And this is really remarkable stuff. We know because we exist in the world that things are pretty expensive in the United States right now. We were promised that energy would get cheaper. It's gotten more expensive. We were promised that groceries would get cheaper. They've gotten more expensive. We were promised that housing would get cheaper. It's gotten more expensive. You get the idea. Maria Bartiromo on Fox News interviewed Donald Trump's economic adviser Kevin Hassett. And one of the fascinating things that Hassett was able to do, and we'll get to the record setting Lies per Second in a moment, is he found a way to acknowledge prices are high but still to blame Joe Biden. Now he does it in a way. I think the mistake he makes is that it's almost too subtle for a lot of people in the audience to even understand that or pick it up. But he does it in a way that points to regulatory policy from Joe Biden. I'm going to play it, see if you can notice what he does here. I can't say I respect it and I can't say it's effective, but it's worth looking at. Take a look.
- [58:43]
C
But are you worried about affordability right now, Kevin? I mean, when you look at the price of groceries and insurance and housing and all the rest a couple of months away from the midterms.
- [58:53]
D
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Like the price of gas has got to come down, that we've got to continue to do things like make sure that all the grocery stores aren't closing because of stupid rules about refrigerators. We've got to like do all of the above to get prices back down. We are 100% concerned about affordability, but we're doing micro things and macro things to make sure that inflation goes down. And I think that when you watch how steady core has been, then you see that our efforts are being successful. Like, we could do better going forward. Especially we get gas prices down, but inflation's coming down. You know, it's lower than it was when President Trump took office. And it's in the right trajectory once we get energy prices going in the right way.
- [59:32]
A
In fact, he is an incredibly dishonest and I would argue not even that effective communicator for the presidency of Donald Trump. He throws in this thing where he goes, we got to continue bringing down the prices of groceries, but grocery stores can't be closing because of rules about refrigerators. What on earth are you talking about? Well, he's talking about Biden era regulations around refrigerators and appliances. But the issue is food that is too expensive. That's the issue. And that has nothing to do with any regulations about refrigerators. Now he also threw in that inflation is lower now than it was when Donald Trump took office. That's also not true. As you can see if we look at the inflation chart, 3% in January of 2025 and we are now up to 3.8% in, in April. That's the latest number we have from April of 2026. So he's also lying about things that we can fact check. But here's the record setting lie per second moment. You've got to look at this really closely. Now some of you will say, well David, these aren't really lies. Maybe distortions, distortions per second in just about five seconds he slips in three doozies. This does take a little bit of care to see and to hear. Let's take a look.
- [60:59]
C
That is good to see where specifically the jobs and the, and the buildout is happening. But I mean, is that going to lead us to 6% growth? I mean, Kevin, the last time you and I scored spoke, you told me that you were expecting GDP growth to go 4 or 5 and then you said north of 6% later this year once the Iran conflict wraps up. Are you still expecting them? How do you get to north of 6%?
- [61:24]
D
Well, I can tell you that if you say, and right now even Economist magazine, everybody's writing stories about the productivity miracle and we're seeing productivity numbers unlike anything we've seen before. That of kind gets you about 2 1/2% growth. And that's probably under measured before you have more inputs, before you have more capital or more labor. And so then the question is how much extra growth are you going to get from, you know, building factories? Well that's actually really clearly in the data we just had March, that was one of the best months ever for capital goods orders. And so if you get say one and a half percent out of that, then you're starting even before you get labor's contribution to growth. And you know, I think there's been a little bit of Pent up demand because of uncertainty. You see that for example, when people are worried about energy prices, one of the places that you see it is that they hold up buying a new car because they're not sure whether they want to get the truck that's their dream car but has low miles per gallon or whether they need to get like the Prius or a hybrid that has high miles per gallon. They're really worried about the cost of gasoline. And what happens is that, that purchases of automobiles drop a lot when that happens. And we're seeing that in the data right now. But imagine if this is resolved, people have clarity, they make the decision based on what's best for them. All that kind of pent up demand is going to be layered on top of the numbers that I talked about. So I really do think you can see a quarter like that. And it's not unprecedented.
- [62:43]
A
There's the lie. I really do think so. He says a whole bunch of stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. Words, words, words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. And then to the question of, you've been talking about 6% GDP growth. Can't read right, Kevin. And he says, I really do think you could see a quarter like that. You have to be able to parse what he is saying. I really do think so. That's not based on any evidence that you could not that you will see a quarter like that. Now you might be saying, wait a second, David, I, I know something is squirrely there. Maria Bartiromo asked about annual GDP growth and he's talking about a quarter. Let me explain what he's doing. Kevin Hassett knows we're not going to have 6% GDP growth. He knows it. And so what he is banking on is that at some point there will be a single quarter which if annualized would work out to 6% GDP growth. So for example, now I know people will write, I know the numbers are not exact, but just imagine for a second. Imagine that we get one quarter with 1.5% GDP growth. He can then come out and say, I was right. A quarter at 1.5 annualizes to 6% for the year. We know that rarely do you have the same level of GDP growth or contraction every quarter. So what he is essentially acknowledging is he doesn't have any evidence. That's why he goes, I really do think that you could. And then he says, see a quarter like it? So that if they get one good quarter, which sometimes for seasonal reasons you can have, they can go, that quarter extrapolates to 6% GDP growth. Dear God. Dear God, what a liar. And then a bonus one here. He says, listen, people are spending more money on stuff. That's a good sign for the economy. Is it? There's another way we could interpret that, Kevin.
- [64:54]
D
Credit card data and other things that I can get for the private sector is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they've been spending more money and everything on everything else, which means that they're still very, very optimistic about the state of the economy. And they should be. If you look at GDP now, right now it's north of 4%. And so despite this disruption, all the momentum that we built with the big, beautiful Bill and I and everything else.
- [65:17]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy's pathetic. Did you. Are people noticing what this guy's doing? People are spending more on gas. That's true, Maria. But they're also spending more on everything because they feel so good about the economy. The fact is, consumer sentiment is at an all time low. People feel terribly about this economy. 80% of people expect the economy to be worse a year from now. They're spending more because things cost more. Let me do a thought experiment. Imagine an economy with one product. Avocados. Beautiful, delicious avocados. If avocados go from a dollar to $2 each, people would be spending more now. Some would buy less. But let's ignore that for now. People would be spending more. There's only one product. It's avocados. They just doubled in price. Imagine bragging. The economy is doing so well because people are going out there and spending more. Well, the one thing they can buy got more expensive. We would all say, I don't know that that really is a good sign. And by the way, are they making more money? They're spending more on avocados. The one thing they can buy. But are. Can they even afford that? Or are they charging avocados to a credit card? The same guy who said people are charging stuff to credit cards. So the economy is good, therefore, and now wants us to believe that because people are spending more, they have a positive opinion about the economy. They don't. We have the consumer sentiment numbers. Kevin thinks he's clever, but it's very easy to see through the lies. Donald Trump suffered another multiple overnight meltdown. He's up all day and all night and it is getting really scary as he goes for the third time in 13 months today to Walter Reed Hospital for yet another totally healthy, healthiest president ever. Checkup. Trump was spiraling all night long with endless memes and conspiracy Posts images of himself touching pieces of a building. Memes of Trump looking strong and de aged with AI significantly to look much younger. Praising conspiracy theorist Victor Davis Hansen and saying that he is great. Comparing the length of the reflecting pool to the heights of different buildings, which seems really strange. Hey, look at, look at how big my chapstick is compared to an ant. Okay, yeah, but how big is it compared to other chapsticks? Oh, I don't know. Forget about that. Posting conspiracy articles from conspiracy websites endlessly praising people appearing on Fox News to praise him. Posting a cartoons of President Biden sleeping while Hunter snorts coke and all of this other stuff endlessly. All night long, all night long, all day long, all night long overnight endless. This is the President of the United States and a few messages that I want to focus in on because they are so unhinged. And by the way, you might be saying, wait, David, did he post the size comparison of the reflecting pool to buildings multiple times? Yes, he did. Trump regularly posting the same thing multiple times to his Truth Social. Eventually we get to Memorial Day material and on Memorial Day material, after Trump posts various videos and different things, I'll go back to his Iran messages. Trump writes about Memorial Day. Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Democrats. He I think he wants it to be Democrats, but the spelling is a real problem. Who disrespect our military and all of the tremendous success that that it has had over the last year. God bless those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. I love you all. Trump. Again with this Democrats. The Democrats have bad policy and bad communities candidates other than that, they're doing quite well. And then on the topic of negotiations with Iran and this is really wacky stuff, I won't read the whole thing. He posts an unhinged wall of text. Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are proceeding nicely. It will only be a great deal for all or no deal at all. Back to the battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before and nobody wants that. During my discussions on Saturday with President Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the uae, Amir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman bin Jassim bin Jaber al thank you. Okay, I'm not going to read all the names. This can't be a show where I just read long names. Trump is saying he wants more countries to join the Abraham Accords now. Mixing and confusing different issues to claim this thing is almost over now. Trump has already claimed that we won seven or eight times. And yet it is Schrodinger's War, which just continues coming up again and again and again. And then maybe the most disjointed and wacky statement of all came when Donald Trump addressed the issue of the uranium. Trump posting the enriched uranium nuclear dust will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed, or preferably in conjunction in coordination with Iran, destroyed in place or at another acceptable location with the Atomic Energy Commission or its equivalent being witness to this process and event. First of all, the Atomic Energy Commission hasn't existed for a long time, Trump does say. Or its equivalent. He does say that. But some people read this to say, wow, Trump's getting them to get rid of the enriched uranium. This is an incredible achievement. But we understand that Trump posting on Truth Social that he wants something to happen doesn't mean that it's going to happen. And what is unbelievable is that after claiming seven or eight times that this war is basically over, we've won it. Ba, ba, ba. We not the Strait of Hormuz. It's open. It's closed. We double closed that. We double opened. We threw a coin into it. We are in a situation where he is still struggling to get back to something like the Iran nuclear deal, which was supposedly so terrible that it was worth the US Getting out of. And now Trump is desperate to get Iran to agree to go back to something that would approximate that very deal. Because it turns out it wasn't really so bad after all. Trump spiraling all night. The President of the United States, he is not well. Trump was completely passed out as Pete Hegseth spoke on Memorial Day. We'll get to that in a moment. Donald Trump announced during his Memorial Day speech that we waged war against Venezuela. We won, and we have taken over the country. Wait a second. We waged war on Venezuela? Certainly was not a war that was declared. Of course not. We took over Venezuela. I didn't think that's what was going on. Well, Donald Trump suffering a scary cognitive event where he has, I guess, come to believe that we invaded Venezuela and
- [73:16]
E
took it in two wars recently, we've lost a total of 13 service members in Venezuela, which was a complete and total victory where we're working very closely with the Venezuela. Venezuela government right now. We took that over in one day, lost no. 1. In Operation Epic Fury. We lost 13 wonderful souls, wonderful special people. These incredible men and women gave their lives to ensure that the world's number one state sponsor of terror will Never have a nuclear weapon. Oh, and they won't. They will never.
- [73:52]
A
They won't ever have a nuclear weapon. Listen, the military went in and they took Nicolas Maduro. Was it legal? Probably not. Was it logical? Probably not. Is Maduro a bad guy? Of course he is. But that is a completely separate story from, we went in and we took over Venezuela in a day that didn't happen. These are not differences of opinion. These are not semantic differences of, like, well, what do we mean by took over? You went in and you extracted Maduro and then left. That's it. There was no taking over of anything. And this is raising, as seems to happen daily, more concerns that Trump truly has no idea what he's up to. He seems so addled and feeble cognitively and physically, that he is remembering things that never happened. Now, there's a simpler explanation if you want one. He's lying. That, you know, either Trump believes things took place that didn't take place and it's a cognitive issue, or he's lying because he thinks you don't know any better. Neither inspires confidence. Neither is a good reason to vote for him again. Trump then, during what was supposed to be a very powerful, inspirational Memorial Day speech, really struggling to read off of the teleprompter, which, remember, Obama needed a teleprompter, but Trump didn't. Obama, Biden needed a teleprompter, but Trump doesn't. Well, here he is, trying and failing. Swing and a miss today here at
- [75:28]
E
Arlington, a very special place that how burial grounds, battlefields. Across the country and around the world, we unite in solemn observance. Observance with reverent hearts. We honor those who fell so that our republic might stand, those who died so that our nation could live, those who gave up their sacred light on earth so that the sublime light of American freedom would shine forever and ever.
- [76:04]
A
He doesn't know what he's reading. This is what happens. There two things have to happen here for you to end up reading like this, okay? Number one, you struggle to read, and number two, you don't give a damn about the subject matter. Because even if there were difficulties reading, if Trump really cared about this, there would be a little more emphasis on the correct syllables. For lack of a better term, the sublime light of American freedom would shine for ever and ever. He can't do it. He can't do it. And going back to our earlier conversation, years of saying everybody else needs teleprompters. Trump needs them and doesn't even know how to read off of them. That seems to be a real problem. And then finally, again, do you give a damn about why you're there? While Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, was speaking, Trump was out. He was completely passed out, asleep. The speech wasn't about him. And so he was bored, plain and simple. And he can't stay awake. The mourners of that first Decoration Day knew what we know on this Memorial Day, right, that these graves are more than names and dates with a dash in between each grave marker is a story. The young American on the battlefield, away from home. He stayed in combat with loved ones by. Stayed in contact with loved ones by writing letters. Matters. Yeah. You know, you know what it reminds me of when Rogan does UFC commentary, he goes, oh, he's out. When a fighter, when a fighter is unconscious. Or sometimes Rogan does it when the fighter is not unconscious. But that's. That's a totally different story. We should have a. Oh, he's out. Because Trump is completely and totally out. A vision of strength and virility. There is no one stronger and more powerful as President of the United States. Does anybody believe this crap? I don't think so. Now we are really up against it. We have an election coming up that is an inflection point to end all inflection points. Does MAGA continue in a position of power or do we relegate MAGA to the lamest of lame duck statuses in November and start to say bye bye? It's not going to be J.D. it's not going to be any Don Jr. And part of what we need for that is really strong independent media. Tuesday, June 9. We are doing our biggest single day membership drive ever. We will be dramatically discounting annual memberships to lock in support for the forthcoming year. We will be emailing everybody on our newsletter June 9th. If you're interested in signing up and recommitting. And you know what? If it's not this show, if it's a different independent media show, fine. But understand that shows like these exist because of the people in the audience. Get on my newsletter. You'll get all the info on June 9th. Sign up free at David pakman.com/substack. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Tool C is out. The Texas runoff is today. All of that on today's bonus show.