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This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up, required compatibility and availability. Various 18 Republicans finally found something to pass in the Senate that was going to help people. It was going to help people bring down the cost of housing. A housing bill, bipartisan. They were going to get it through. They were going to have Donald Trump sign it and Trump sabotages it and maybe destroys his own party. Just months before the midterms, this was one of the few bipartisan affordability bills that Republicans actually could have campaigned on and said, look, we do something. And Trump said, no, we will talk about it. We also have stunning new reporting that even Donald Trump's own aides have privately admitted for the first time that he is declining. And a new book exposes Trump's bizarre, emotionally dependent relationship with a 34 year old woman. It is wacky. We will also look at increasingly failed attacks on James Tallarico. The they're basically going with, he's gay, or at least definitely not a man's man. I don't think that that's actually going to work. We will also talk about a lawsuit from the administration that may open them to scrutiny over January 6, 2021. The last thing they want at this point. It's a packed show. We'll see if we can squeeze it. Republicans were finally about to do something that at least might have helped Americans and that they could have run on in November and said, hey, we did something. And Donald Trump was scheduled to sign it into law. Trump was going to sign the first major housing bill to reach a president's desk since the financial crisis into law yesterday. This was unlike Trump's executive orders or whatever. This wasn't symbolic. It passed Congress. It had bipartisan support. There were months of negotiations and going back and forth and they finally got it. And it wasn't a perfect bill, but it was at least designed to attack housing affordability from a few different angles. One of the most important, as I've been saying for a long time, is it must be easier to build homes. You've got to increase the supply if you really want to deal with housing prices. And it would have done that. It would have created some grants to increase housing supply. It would have expanded financing options, eased construction requirements for manufactured housing. It would have done a bunch of stuff. And interestingly, this bill was also going to put some restrictions on large corporate investors. Basically Wall street buying up homes. This is one of the biggest issues. Home prices are more than 50% higher than before the pandemic. Housing represents usually the biggest expense for most households. It would have been a big deal. And of course, rent has also been going up significantly. Mortgage rates are still quite high. And Republicans were getting ready to take a rare bipartisan win that they actually could have campaigned on in November. They can't campaign on. We've lowered prices because they haven't. They can't campaign on. Gas prices are down. Or we didn't start any wars because Trump has done the opposite. And they quite literally built a stage and put chairs out. The lectern was set up. They were ready and gathered in the Capitol to do this. And then Donald Trump takes to truth Social and he posts, quote, today's housing news conference and signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed Save America act, which I consider to be a national emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Total aside, I like Trump's use of the word hereby, as if this makes this like, more official. Dude, it's a truth Social post at the end of the day. But Donald Trump saying he is not going to sign that bill into law because he wants the voter suppression bill, the Save America act, passed or he won't do housing. Trump asked during a brief exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, will you veto the housing bill? And Trump says, I made billions with housing. No one knows housing like you beat her with.
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About what?
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The housing bill that you didn't signed today.
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I said I'm not signing the housing bill. I want to see what happens with Sam. Look, the housing bill is housing. I made billions of dollars with housing. I know housing better than anybody, maybe anywhere. It's all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rates. You can have all the housing you want. But you have to understand, I don't want to have. I don't want to hurt people that own houses, too. These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They become rich. I don't want to hurt them either. What you want to do is what good for everyone, get the interest rates down.
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This should be an ad. This is a campaign ad for Democrats. I am not going to do it. And I've made billions off of housing. Everybody else is struggling. We had A bipartisan bill ready to go could have done something to ease the pressure upwards on housing prices. And Trump goes, I'm not signing that unless you give me my voter suppression bill. And I've made billions of dollars from housing. What a, what a relatable thing to say. And he could be helping to address a major economic concern. And he goes, unless I get my voter ID bill, the Save America act, which, by the way, doesn't have the support to pass the House and Senate, it's not going to happen. So think about what that means. They had not only something to deal with, a campaign promise, but a bipartisan accomplishment. I mean, they had support from Republicans and Democrats. It was a concrete answer, addressing an issue that voters regularly say, this is one of my top concerns, housing, the cost of housing. And Trump throws it away. And he doesn't even really cite a problem with the housing bill, although he will. He alludes to one. He goes, well, if we were to lower the cost of housing, if you already own a house, you get hurt because your house goes down in value. Now, realistically, because it takes a while to build housing, all, all it might mean is that in some markets, people's houses might not appreciate as quickly, but then when they sell and want to buy a different house, that new house will also not be as expensive. So it all kind of works out as long as you're not completely upending the market. But they say, no, we're not going to do it. We're just, I would rather use this opportunity as leverage for this voter suppression legislation and squander an argument that Republicans could make for their own reelections in November. And he even kind of downplays it. You know, he's like, it's of minor importance. What really matters are interest rates and the Save America Act. So it's an interesting example of Trump being forced to choose between campaign on having lowered housing costs or campaign on election rules that you want. And Trump chose election rules. And that's kind of revealing because it exposes that Trump's political strategy is not about, hey, let me convince people about what I've done. It's about making election fraud allegedly the central issue. And I think that this is a major problem for Republicans because even though Republicans have had some success in convincing some voters we have a major voter fraud problem in the United States, most of the electorate knows that we don't have such a problem. We do have a housing cost problem. That's, that's a real problem. And if you look at Trump's approval on the economy, 27%, according to the American Research Group poll we looked at earlier in the week. We see that people don't think Trump's doing a good job on the economy. And this was an opportunity. Now, if Republicans go into November without being able to say, we've delivered on one of the major concerns, and housing affordability is one of those, what are they going to run on? They're surrendering what is potentially a strong talking point. We passed a bipartisan housing cost bill, and so they will lose on the policy, but they will also lose the campaign message. And maybe the most remarkable part of all of this is Trump keeps saying, we've got to win these midterms. If we don't win these midterms, they're going to impeach me and all this stuff. And here he is denying his own party a win, which then they could use to say, here's a kitchen table issue. We did it. We delivered on it. He wants to argue about election laws and voter id. Trump is becoming the biggest obstacle to his own midterm success. It's not. They had the bill, and Trump goes, I'm not going to sign it. They deserve to get crushed. And we'll actually come back to that a little bit later. Donald Trump did go to the Capitol yesterday, even though he ended up saying, I'm not going to sign the housing bill, he did go to the Capitol and he met with Republicans, and a number of very strange things took place. One is that Donald Trump is now struggling to breathe. So this is not the political part of it, but here is Trump approaching reporters, and he is having difficulty breathing. Now, I have an idea as to what this is all about.
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Iran is making very big concessions. We'll see what happens. But it's been very, very, very powerful.
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Iran is making big concessions, and we'll see what happens. It's very powerful. He's having difficulty breathing and speaking up. This is not like a big, mysterious symptom. I think Trump's heart cardiovascular health is so poor that simply walking around and walking into the Capitol winded him to the point where he was struggling to breathe and speak. Okay, we then have a very interesting moment where Donald Trump is walking. He was there to speak to Senate Republicans, and he's walking with Senate Majority Leader John Thune. By the way, yesterday I glitched. I had a glitch, nasty glitch. I referred to Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader. He's the former Senate Majority Leader. John Thune is now the Senate Majority Leader. Thune clearly does not want to stop to talk to reporters. Reporters want to talk to Trump and Thune. Trump can't get away from speaking to reporters. If there's a camera and a mic, Trump wants to be in front of it. So he puts a hand on Thune, and then he stops to say, we're winning the war by a lot.
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The war is going very well. As you know, we're winning by a lot. Iran is making very big concessions. We'll see what happens. But it's been very, very, very powerful. It's going very, very well.
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So there is Trump, as you see in that moment, struggling to. To speak and breathe. But he wants the camera. He wants to get his message in front of these reporters. And Trump has an interesting trait, which is he believes that he is the most convincing, intelligent, charismatic person in the room and that he can convince people of anything. This is why Donald Trump wanted to testify and in his criminal trial, because he believes, I'm so convincing, I'm so smart that I can outsmart the lawyers, I can get the best of them, and I can come away looking really good. Fortunately for Trump, his lawyers in his criminal trial did convince him not to testify. But Trump believes he can convince people of anything. And in this case, we know. I mean, listen, we just talked about a poll yesterday. Only 25% of Americans believe that one, we won the war with Iran. So when Trump goes, we're winning by a lot. Maybe. Nice election language, but this is a military conflict. And it's the classic hyperbole of Trump where you take this really complicated issue and you make it a scoreboard who's got the higher score? And, of course, Trump always has the higher score. That's the way it always works. Trump knows that he is losing. He knows he's lost leverage with Iran. He can't accept it, so he lashes out and he makes these grandiose, delusional claims about how much we're winning by. Trump, after the meeting with Republicans, says the meeting was great, although there were some people in the room that he doesn't really like.
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I think we had a really good, great meeting, and we're very proud of the party here. We like everybody, really, in the room. I don't like a few people, but that's okay. I think you know who they are. But we. I'll give you. I'll give you that information someday.
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Someday.
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But for the most part, we have a really, well, unified party. And I said it very strongly, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the most powerful, we're the smartest, we're the most respected two and we're
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the most good looking as well.
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Years ago we were a laughingstock all over the world. We had a terrible group of people representing us. Every leader. I just left G7. Every leader. And we had a lot of people in addition to G7, as you know, came. Everyone said what we've done.
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And he's off the rails now into other topics. But again, there's people in there he doesn't like. Someday I'll tell you who they are. He's teasing. Secret information that never arrives. Wait until I Show you the 2020 election evidence, sir. It's been six years and it never arrives. We're two weeks away from signing a new health care bill into law. That was July of 2020. We still haven't seen that bill. This is a rhetorical device that Trump relies on and I would argue not with very much success. And if you've got unnamed enemies, that's always great for the authoritarian. You can keep your supporters engaged. There are enemies I know about, but there are also enemies I don't know about. And the mystery is sort of the point here. And then finally, Donald Trump saying, Iran is doing everything we want them to do. And of course this is very much untrue. Very much.
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And that's during a war. And Iran is being very nice. They're agreeing to everything that I want and they have to. Otherwise we just go back and do what we have to do. Do. Thank you very much.
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If Iran were agreeing to everything Trump wanted, we wouldn't have a situation where JD Vance flies home from Switzerland after 40 something hours with no deal. We wouldn't be seeing the public disputes over the terms. And it just doesn't reflect reality. And as we're going to talk about later in the show, I hate, I am completely opposed ideologically to these theocratic regimes like Iran. I mean, this, you know, I know that there's people out there going, oh, some of you people on the left are rooting for Iran. Of course not. But it is a reality that this horrible theocratic regime in Iran, which I've been opposed to for as long as I've known about it, has a bunch of leverage over Trump. They have, number one, the leverage that when the 60 day negotiation period would be over, people will be days away from starting to submit early ballots for the midterms. That would be a disastrous time for Trump to go back in if they don't do what we want. And so unfortunately, I mean Listen, I wish it were true that Iran were doing everything that we want them to do. That would be great. It just isn't the reality of the situation. I never really thought sheets were something I would ever care about that much, but after switching to Cozy Earth sheets, I miss them when I'm in a hotel for the night. There's something about getting into a bed that is cool and comfortable that makes a bigger difference than you might expect. Sheets from our sponsor Cozy Earth are cool to the touch, soft but not slippery and high quality but not too heavy. I've been using their Bamboo sheet set, made from bamboo viscose and designed to wick away heat and moisture from the body and those keep me cooler at night. Unlike a lot of products that feel great for a week and then wear down, these really hold up. They're soft, they're comfortable, they've become one of those home upgrades that I notice every single day. Head over to cozy earth.com and use my code PACMAN for up to 20% off the link is in the description if you're trying to get away from cigarettes or vaping, one of the first practical questions is what you replace them with, especially if you're not ready to eliminate nicotine immediately. Check out our sponsor Zipix Nicotine Toothpicks. Zipix uses quality plant derived nicotine with a very short list of ingredients. It gives you a another option for managing nicotine with no smoke or vapor. Zipix comes in six flavors. There's two or three milligram options lets you control the nicotine as compared to a cigarette or vape. They're also easy to use throughout the day and in places where smoking or vaping isn't allowed or it would require you to step out conspicuously for a cigarette, which can cause other problems. Zipix also offers caffeine and B12 toothpicks if you're reducing nicotine altogether or don't even use it at all. If you're tired of cigarettes or vaping, try Zipix Nicotine TOOTHPICKS and get 10% off your first order with code PACMAN@ ZIPIXTOOTHPICKS.COM the link is in the description. You must be 21 or older to order. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Concerns are growing that Donald Trump has entered a possible psychotic state. What is happening to Trump in the videos that I am about to play for you and these are of significant consequence with regard to the priorities of the federal government. Right now Trump is insisting about what is increasingly a fantastical series of claims about what happened at the reflecting pool, they took razor blades to 350ft. It was 150 foot slit, then a 200 foot slit slit, then a 300 foot slit. Now, with a razor blade and a knife, they made a slit that is 350ft long. And Trump goes, we've got pictures of a guy bending over. Oh, Leading a lot of people to say, dear God, what is he talking about?
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No, but the water looks way. But we will do the final fix up. But just remember this. They took razor blades 350ft coming from where he comes. They don't do that. They took maybe a little bit. They took razor blades and knives and they cut patches like that. 350ft long. A lot of them are like a foot, a foot, a foot. They cut the lining. And there's pictures of the guy bending over. I don't know if anybody saw that, but there are pictures of that. And you say, who would do that? Maybe it's Trump derangement syndrome. You know, we fixed over 50 fountains and monuments in the city. The city is the safest it's ever been.
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The fountains now have Diet Coke coming out of them. Listen, it sounds fascinating. I would love to see video of that, which I'm sure they have, since the reflecting pool is under 24 hour surveillance. Right. And of course, the person bending over had no knives, he had no blades. He was dipping his hand in the water and picking out a piece of the peeled liner from the reflecting pool. And one of the unfortunate things is that sometimes reality goes the opposite direction. The way you'd like to see reality go is things happen and then Trump reports them to us as the American people. The opposite is happening. Trump is saying, we've got a whole bunch of people doing this and we're arresting them for it. And so now the Park Service and the Parks Police have been detaining people who simply are sticking their hand in the water or pulling out a piece of algae or pulling out a piece of the liner. I don't know if they're being arrested, they're being detained. We're going to try to figure it out. But it seems as though in order to placate the Dear Leader, they're figuring out who can we at least plausibly claim was doing something bad. And it's pathetic and embarrassing. Now, Donald Trump. Then on one of the alleged vandals who made a slit in Trump's rubber, he says he's a big donor to Act Blue. He supports Hillary, he supports Sleepy Joe. It's all political what they're doing to my pool.
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The guy that one of the guys, he's a member or a big payer to act blue. He's a big Hillary supporter. He's a big supporter of sleepy Joe Biden. No, he's a. This is a very political thing. But as I understand it, six are under arrest.
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We've got six arrested and they're all nasty Biden donors. Now I told you yesterday that the new one is after a no bid contract for 15 million bucks to redo the reflecting pool bottom and the algae coming back and all of this Michigan now we are paying even more to put fencing around the reflecting pool. And so a reporter says, is that going to be down by July 4th? Because like kind of the whole point of this thing was let's have it looking nicer for the 250th anniversary of these United States. And Trump does not really like the question
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around the reflecting pool be down
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by July 4th or is that going
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to be the pool? Yes, it's in great shape. No ready. Thugs.
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I like that. You ready for this? Thugs. Thugs.
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They just told me a little while ago six have been arrested and like six or seven are underinvested pictures and everything else.
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All right. Eventually the topic did get off of this reflecting pool fiasco. Trump has an opinion about gas prices and his opinion is they should be 225 right now and it may be time to investigate. Of course, Trump's the one who should be investigating.
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Earlier today you instructed your Department of Justice to do an investigation for oil companies that you said gas prices were not coming down quick enough. That's right. You are concerned that there is price gouging, taking advantage of the crisis, sir, can you elaborate on that? So it's ExxonMobil, it's Chevron, it's Shell, it's BP. It's a lot of them. The gasoline or the oil prices have come down so much and, and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison to what it should be. We should be in my opinion at $2.25 right now and we're higher than that and we are doing a big investigation on it.
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Yeah, Trump should be investigated, quite frankly. We know why gas prices are up now. What Trump is claiming isn't even true. Gas prices are down. They peaked at 456 a gallon. They're down to like 385. So that's a decline. And proportionally, I mean, oil prices peaked around 112 bucks. They're down to 70. Gas prices lag oil prices to some degree. I don't really see any major cause for concern as to the validity of the, of the gas prices. The reason they're up at all is because of Donald Trump's war with Iran. Of course. Now Donald Trump is sort of cornered on this issue of affordability because he made such big promises that he couldn't possibly keep, especially after doing blanket tariffs and starting a war with Iran. So he's just going, affordability is fixed. It's. We're doing great on affordability.
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Despite that, we're doing well with housing, but where we're really doing well is oil is plummeting and costs are coming down. Affordability. We're doing great. The Democrats gave us a tremendous affordability problem and we're reducing prices a lot. New prime minister will be installed in a matter of weeks, three or four weeks.
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Would you want to be the first
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person on his list to visit? No.
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All right.
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So anyway, now they're talking about other stuff. The price of just about everything is up. I mean, it's. If you're sitting at home and you're trying to figure out, how do I make it to the end of the month and not have to go without something critical to my family, how do you feel when Trump goes, We've solved affordability. It's all totally fixed up. One other note, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mark Ritter, was sitting there with Donald Trump and he brought visual aids with which to kiss Trump's ass. This is really cringe.
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5,000 US planes taking off from European air bases.
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So that's about Iran.
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Now, I want to take you, if you stay here, I go over to
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these boards here because I want to
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take, show you what this president was able to achieve. And I start with this charge.
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This look, this. This is just disgusting. Charity is about the Trump trillion. The Trump trillion shows you the increase
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Europeans and Canadians are paying into defense
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since you took office in 2017, sir,
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everybody is doing exactly what you want in Europe, thanks to me. Now, one interpretation is that Ruda is kissing Trump's ass. The other one is he's playing him like a fiddle. And he's going to get Trump right where he wants him with his big poster boards of Trump successes. I don't know. But growing questions that Trump is completely disconnected from reality. And then he gave a speech last night, and that's when things got really weird. Donald Trump attempted a rally speech last night to kick off the 250th anniversary of the United States. He suffered nuclear glitches and the crowd was fleeing while Donald Trump was speaking. We're going to go through it piece by piece. Donald Trump opening the speech by saying, we are now finally, under my leadership, respected again around the world.
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Greatest tonight, as we stand on the edge of our 250th year of independence, I am thrilled to declare that America is back. As you know very well, a short time ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're respected by everybody. Nobody's laughing at us.
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And anymore, unfortunately, that happens not to be the truth. And listen, Iran was able to withstand Donald Trump's ill advised war. Al G. Was able to defeat Donald Trump. And we have the data. We've looked at the study. Pew Research center, in its extensive study of global opinion, finds that the respect for the United States has collapsed globally in some countries by double digits in a single year, a year and a half since Biden was president. The world is not pleased with what is happening here. Now you could say, well, maybe you don't care about that. But to argue that finally we are respected is very much not true. Donald Trump telling numerous lies about the state of those negotiations with Iran. And he says something funny. He goes, no president has ever accomplished Iran not having a nuclear weapon. Obama did. And you tore up that deal, sir.
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Things, we're once again putting a thing called America first. And last week we signed a historic agreement to end the conflict with Iran, fully open the Strait of Hormuz and accomplish what no president has ever been able to accomplish before. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. That's done.
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The only little problem is that is completely untrue. And in fact, it's sort of funny to see Trump say it because what we had under the jcpoa, also known as the Iran, Obama, Iran nuclear deal, was that Iran would not have a nuclear weapon. And until Donald Trump got out of that deal, when he was president, Iran did not have a nuclear weapon. Wasn't a perfect deal, but it was working to the degree that it could be expected to. It was working to the degree of what was in that deal. And Trump goes, it's got Obama's name on it. I'm going to get out of this one. Now. As is now a common theme with Donald Trump's speeches, people were just pouring out of this thing while the speech was still going on. Video shows copious audience members leaving while Donald Trump is speaking. They're bored, folks.
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The largest producer of oil and gas on earth, larger than Russia and Saudi Arabia. And under my most favorite nation agreement on drug prices, we are delivering the law.
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So as you can see, if you're watching just a lot of people peeling off from the back of the crowd and they're leaving, they're bored, they don't want to hear it. They're sick of the lies. At least, hopefully some of them are. Not only did people leave while Donald Trump was speaking, another classic now Trump glitching. Trump glitches at just about every single one of these. And this glitch really threw him for a loop.
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Our American answers, our American ancestors fought and won the most vicious battles.
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That was a different glitch than a lot of the normal Trump glitches because usually he immediately sort of twitches and then correctly says the word. He's looking for this one. You could see that vacant look in his eyes as he was looking at the teleprompter and going, wait a second, what is that word? So people left while he was speaking. He glitched. Cool. Now back to the substance. It was basically just recycling the same old takes. Iran has no missile launchers and will have peace for the first time in 3,000 years. A little bit of an exaggeration.
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And thanks to the power and skill of the United States Armed forces today, Iran has no navy, no air force, no anti aircraft capacity, no missile launches, no manufacturing. And their leadership has been obliterated. And for the first time in 3,000 years, we are finally going to have peace in the Middle East. We're going to have peace in the Middle East.
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A little bit of an exaggeration, just to pick one thing there, the missile launchers. Intelligence reports are that somewhere between half to two thirds of Iran's missile launchers did survive the war. Trump, with some arithmetic problems, says he already cut drug prices 400%, 600%, 800%. Which as a lot of 11 year olds know, thinking back to math class, as a lot of 11 year olds know, is not really mathematically possible.
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We are delivering the largest reduction in drug price history with price differences of 400, 500 and even 600%. Who would think that if you took down a half a percent, somebody said you were genius. 4005-006007-00800%. Nobody's seen anything like it. We had the highest drug prices in the world and now we're going to be having the lowest drug.
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I put this math into my calculator and it started smoking and I had to throw it out the window. But. But I actually want to announce something Today I am hereby, I need to use the word hereby. I am hereby announcing that I'm cutting website membership prices by 1300% today only. I told my team that we were doing this and they were like, we don't know what price that makes memberships. And I was like, I don't know. But if Trump can do it, we're cutting prices 1300%. Donald Trump announcing a sort of strange, almost like a Hunger Games thing. Really, really weird.
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If you like fireworks, then in August we're going to have what's called the Patriot Games. A first of its kind competition featuring the greatest high school athletes from all across the United States. And applications are open through July 10th. These are the best athletes in the
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country, young athletes, not exactly the prestige of the presidential fitness test. I don't know if they will be fighting to the death and whether Dana White will make millions from it like he did from the UFC fight. But a very unusual announcement for a president to be making. So listen, he hasn't done these speeches for a while and I think we're seeing why. He's more boring than he ever has been and people are leaving in droves. He's glitching in a more notable way than he has before and at the end of the day, it's the same old speech. Someone was telling me yesterday that Donald Trump is planning to give a speech on July 4th. I don't know that anyone's going to watch that crap. Fourth of July holiday, cookouts, pool parties, some really good World cup games on that day. And Trump will probably be two hours late and speak at like 9pm I don't think anybody's going to watch it. And for good reason. I used to think that my phone was good enough for recording meetings until I actually needed to do a bunch of follow up, find something I missed. And if you miss one detail, all of a sudden you can't follow up correctly and you've got to listen to your entire recording. That's why the PLOD Note Pro has become such a useful tool for me. It's one of our sponsors today. It's about the size of a credit card, thin enough to slide into a wallet, attaches magnetically to the back of my phone. I hit record, I stay present in the meeting. PLOD transcribes the conversation. It'll separate speakers and it'll summarize key points, turns them into action items and later I can search all of it with Ask Plod. It has up to 50 hours of battery life, which my Phone definitely does not. It also is built around enterprise level privacy and security. Plot is for meetings, calls, interviews, any conversation where the follow through matters. Go to plod.AI/pacman and use code PACMAN for 17% off all products. The link is in the description. Identity theft usually does not start with some movie version of how hacking takes place. It's boring. Details that are easy to find. Your full name, current and former addresses, phone number, date of birth, employment history. If you put a bunch of that stuff together, people can then start to figure out do I know your security answers to security questions? Can I open accounts in your name? This is why our sponsor Incogni exists. Incogni works to remove your personal info from the Internet. Places like people search sites, online directories, commercial databases. Incogni starts by removing your info from hundreds of the most well known ones and will follow up until it's done. Done. And if you google yourself and find your info anywhere outside of this database of hundreds of these sites, you can submit a link to Incogni and they will do what's called a custom removal. All of these processes are independently verified by Deloitte and you can get 60% off an annual plan at incogni.com/pacman with the code Pakman. The link is in the description. Fox News revealed a very interesting strategy that they're deploying against one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party, James Talarico, who is the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat representing Texas in the U.S. senate. It's not particularly sophisticated. Here is Jesse Watters and they've. They allude. We knew they were going to do this. Here's Jesse Watters talking about James Talarico, the Texas state representative who's now the Democratic nominee. And see if you can sort of summarize the angle of attack here.
- [38:47]
C
And he spent the first month of
- [38:48]
A
the campaign trying to prove he loves me. Not that kind of meat. I have questions, okay. Is he a virgin? No. You don't know that. Does he own a gun? Does he own a gun? Has he gone through puberty? He's on puberty blockers. These are scientific questions. Does he have any controversial tattoos we
- [39:13]
C
need to know about?
- [39:14]
A
And if he did, it wouldn't matter unless it was a KKK tattoo, then they'd be upset. But a Nazi tattoo they're okay with. I think it's Tinkerbell. I think he's got Tinkerbell right here, Greg.
- [39:24]
C
Now listen. Glass houses, stones, you get it?
- [39:26]
A
We nominated a witch from Delaware.
- [39:29]
B
Oh, I remember her.
- [39:30]
A
Or what about the porn guy, the black guy in North Carolina that didn't go to Robert Robinson? Yeah, this is, he looks like he's a saint compared to this is Talarico in Texas is like, is like nominating
- [39:43]
C
Don Jr. To run for mayor in San Francisco.
- [39:47]
A
So if you're trying to suss out the substantive argument here, there just isn't one. But the gist of all of this is Talarico's definitely not masculine enough and he may even be gay. That, that's, this has been, from the day that he won the primary, this has been their approach to him and therefore nobody should take him seriously. Now if that's their strategy, it's kind of like, good luck with that. What's kind of funny is, is Talarico is really one of the most straight laced politicians you'll find. Like former public school teacher, openly Christian, talks about his faith, relates everything to Bible verses, and you know, he's very calm when he debates conservative Christians. He quotes scripture even better than the people attacking him do. He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't post inflammatory memes and insults to social media. He's just a disciplined kind of measured public figure. And that is why I think this attack is so interesting because Jesse Watters doesn't criticize Talarico's arguments, Talarico's political positions. He doesn't say, oh, Talarico is totally wrong on education. As a former teacher, he's just, he's got education all wrong because he doesn't have any substance with which to attack him. He doesn't debate Talarico view on health care. And in fact, Talarico has sort of included Christianity as, as part of the explanation for why everybody should have some minimal minimum level of health care. He doesn't even criticize Talarico's interpretation of Christianity, which it seems as though Jesse Watters knows very little about. Instead it goes into is he a virgin? Has he gone through puberty? What about a tattoo? And we've seen this many times in MAGA politics where there's a political disagreement, I guess, even though Waters isn't telling us what are the specific political disagreements. It's just like this guy's wrong on everything, but it becomes a masculinity test. And if you support diplomacy over war, oh, you're weak. You don't want George W. Bush doing the war in Iraq. Well, you must be some kind of sissy. Remember that from decades ago. If you support protecting the environment, oh, you're so soft. You're so soft, if you're not projecting aggression, you're not masculine enough. And it's an example of how politics has stopped being about ideas. And for a lot of these MAGA types, it's about, can you perform a version of masculinity? A version that's pretty toxic, actually. Like, this is not a show about toxic masculinity. I don't, I can't think of the last time I've used that term. But the version of masculinity that people like Jesse Watters and Donald Trump promote, you know, the Taint Brothers and those people, they go, we're alpha. This is why a lot of the online MAGA ecosystem revolves around proving who's the toughest guy in the room rather than who has the best ideas. Because if you're loud, you're perceived as strong, and if you speak confidently, even if everything you're saying is wrong, you are interpreted as being smarter, even though you might just be arrogant. And that's how our vision of leadership gets mixed up with the idea that you're dominating other people. Now, the irony to me of all of this is that a lot of these traits associated with being more mature, like, I'm patient, I'm humble, I have self control, I'm thoughtful. They have recast those traits as just being weak. If you don't loudly interrupt people, well, you must be weak. If you're not putting insulting phraseology out there, you must just be a beta male. If you're not behaving like you're in a cage fight all the time, you're simply weak. And it's a worldview where politics starts to look like high school social dynamics. It's not governance. And Talarico doesn't fit into that. That's absolutely true. He's a softer spoken guy, he's more thoughtful, he's religious, but in a way that doesn't turn his religion into a culture war. He's just kind of like a calm guy. And so they are struggling to engage with what he says, and that's why they go to this. Is he masculine? I wouldn't be surprised for Jesse Watters to go. I, I bet that Talarico can't even bench press some amount of pounds or something like that. But what I think the, the problem is, now, I know that it's Texas, so I'm not totally sure to what degree this will work, but what I think is a problem for convincing a lot of voters in this way is that masculinity isn't really what's on the ballot. People want someone who can solve some problems. Will they believe that it's Ken Paxton in his Republican nominee opponent who can lower costs and improve schools and reduce crime, protect rights, or will they believe that it's Talarico? Most candidates are not chosen by or most winners, I guess better said aren't chosen by whether Jesse Watters thinks that they're alpha. So they started with this strategy. I don't remember when the primary was, but when Talarico became the nominee, they started with this he's probably gay kind of stuff. And it's been a while now and they're sticking with it, which to me says they just haven't found anything else that's going to be more effective. Their strongest response to Talarico, even weeks after he became the nominee, is to still be questioning is he manly enough? You're not debating him. You're not challenging any single one of his ideas this way. You're just trying to be like the oldest middle school bully that there is now with a job on Fox News. I would love it if we were able to prove that that doesn't work. Now the caveat, of course, is we've been down this road before. It's June into July into August, Texas Senate race, the polling looks OK for the Democrat, the Democrats up to the Democrats up three. And then it just doesn't work out that way. I'm not unrealistic. I've seen that before. But I do think this is one of the better opportunities and I hope that we take, take it. I want to tell you about the bizarre relationship that 80 year old Donald Trump is in with his 34 year old staffer Natalie Harp. And I'm telling you this not because I'm, you know, finding this kind of gossip interesting. There is a very real story here about how Donald Trump is the opposite in every way of what supposed right wing conservative Christians should be supporting and yet they support him anyway. So let me lay out what's going on and then I'll kind of explain to you the connection to the conservative Christians. A 34 year old Natalie Harp is sort of Donald Trump's right hand woman. She's part of this increasingly small group of inner circle people who have direct and constant access to Donald Trump. She has influence over him. Trump is clearly dependent on her. Now a lot of what we're learning is from the new book from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. It's called Regime Change and it's about the second Trump term. And Donald Trump was actually Caught bragging to other staffers. Natalie Harp loves me. She loves me as much as my wife and kids do, and she will never leave me. So this is sort of like pretty unhealthy language to be using about someone who, at the end of the day, is an employee of Donald Trump's. Now, Natalie used to be a TV anchor. Now she follows Trump around everywhere. She acquiesces to his every demand. She'll go and get Trump hats to hand out to people. She'll print stories from right wing websites or print tweets that are positive about Trump and bring them to Trump to make him feel good. She reportedly is one of the people proposing a lot of the most whacked out things that Donald Trump posts to his truth social media. Sometimes she's even kind of like drafting some of those posts, reportedly. And she also encouraged Donald Trump's makeover of the Oval Office, where he, like, covered more and more stuff in gold leaf and gold paint, which is a reminder that, no, no matter how much money you have, you really can't buy class. But that was Natalie Harp's idea. And when Donald Trump was spending a lot of time in Florida at Mar A Lago, Natalie Harp would follow him around the golf course as he golfed, and she would read off of her phone positive tweets and news stories about him. So that's already pretty weird. As if everything I've told you so far isn't weird enough. She would also write Trump little love letters of a sort that she would scatter around Trump's personal spaces for him to find. And one of those letters from Natalie Harp to Trump said, you were all that matters to me. Now, this is so wacky and weird that other Trump staffers agreed it was really strange. Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is quoted as saying about all of this. Where am I? And Secret Service considered Natalie Harp a potential danger to herself and to Trump, according to reporter Michael Wolf. Now, we do not have reason to believe, other than the fact that it's Trump. We have no specific evidence that Donald Trump is having a sexual or intimate relationship with Natalie Harp, although it sounds like certainly there's a level of intimacy there. But Trump started saying, natalie is the only one who loves me as much as my wife and kids. All of you will go off and make money, but she will never leave me. Now, that's really, really weird. Now, let's get to what I believe is sort of the more relevant political story here. For decades, the religious right has told us character really matters. Family values matter. Sexual morality matters, Humility matters. And in comes Donald Trump, who cheated on multiple wives, had children with multiple women, was connected to a poor porn star, hush money scandal was caught on tape saying, you can grab him by the pussy. He doesn't go to church, he has no pastor. You know, he, he claims to be religious as of becoming a political figure, but he doesn't go to church and doesn't have a pastor that he consults with or whatever. He has famously said he has never asked God for forgiveness. He's never said, I'm sorry. That's a different story. And now we have this incredible report about an 80 year old president, emotionally dependent at minimum on a 34 year old staffer who leaves him notes saying, you're all that matters to me. Imagine if this were a Democratic president. Fox News would be doing wall to wall coverage for months. They would call it inappropriate, they would question the influence of this 34 year old and they would go, who's really in charge here? Trump or the 34 year old? They would question the marriage of the person, if it were a Democrat, that they would question his judgment. Now instead, Fox and the right wing media ecosystem, silent, silent because these were never moral principles. I write in my first book, the Echo Machine, about how it's a waste of time to debate these moral principles with these people because they don't really care about them. They'll abandon them as soon as they were inconvenient. If they can wield them as political weapons or cudgels, cool. But then when they're inconvenient, they abandon them. And what is funny is that I don't know if funny is the right word. What's sort of ironic is that Trump really represents the opposite of everything the Bible says. The Bible warns against pride. It warns against vanity, against surrounding yourself with people who are constantly flattering you. And what we're learning is Trump is spending hours having positive stories and tweets read to him, printed out, surrounds himself with people whose jobs are basically telling him how awesome he is, and staffers are leaving him sweet nothings in notes around the office. So whatever is the full scope of this relationship with the 34 year old that Donald Trump has, it is not the model of Christian humility that conservative evangelicals spent decades telling us we needed. And you need only go back to the 2016 Republican primary to realize that. Never really cared about that. Because for all of Ted Cruz's faults, he at least is playing the role of the modest conservative Christian, far better or at least he was in 2016 than Donald Trump is. And what was initially a significant amount of support from the evangelical community for Ted Cruz in that primary, as soon as it became clear, clear that Ted Cruz was not going to win, the evangelicals went for Trump. And so we knew a decade ago that all of these values claims were basically bs. But look at what is now going on with trump and this 34 year old as he is clearly estranged from Melania and potentially even to some degree from some of his kids. And the conservative, supposedly conservative Christian community, the evangelicals, they still have a very high level of support for Trump. That's why it's just not worth wasting our time, our arguing with them. 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 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 slash pacman or scan my QR code to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. The link is in the description. All right, this may be one of the most politically significant revelations that we've gotten about Donald Trump since he came back to office for this second term. There's this new book we talked about earlier by New York Times White House reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. And what it alleges is that Donald Trump's own staffers are now privately admitting something that I believe is major and that they were never admitting before, which is that yes, Donald Trump is declining and he is seeming really old. And there's nothing wrong with that. He's 80, he's an elderly guy in rough shape. But there's been this culture of COVID up around it. And A lot of the reason for others to be motivated to cover it up is that Trump decided to build his political brand around, especially for this return to the Oval Office, around the idea that Joe Biden was just too old, too tired and too mentally diminished. He couldn't do it. He's sleepy, Joe. He doesn't have the stamina. And now we have stunning admissions from within this book from Donald Trump's own White House that Trump isn't doing so hot. According to the book, some of Donald Trump's own aides started saying for the first time that Trump is saying, seeming old. These are not bomb throwing Democratic operatives or MSNBC commentators. Trump is around these people. They see Trump day to day. Their careers depend on protecting Donald Trump. And they are seeing what we are also seeing and they are acknowledging it. The book also describes some specific changes that paint a pretty consistent picture. Number one, Trump is having trouble hearing. We've noticed that. Not a huge deal. Sometimes it happens as we age, but they pretend like that's not going on. We all saw the evidence where Trump goes, what? What? Can you speak up? Melania's repeating the question to him. We would see it. But there are people who have acknowledged to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Trump can't really hear well. Joint press conferences with foreign leaders we noticed have been moved to the Oval Office. Why? Because Trump can hear better in there and Trump doesn't have to stand the entire time. This is another thing we've observed. The number of events at which Trump stands is significantly curtailed. Last night's speech, in fact, was rare for that reason. And it was a shorter speech than Trump has typically been giving. Aides are confirming to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Trump needing to sit is part of it, not a huge deal. He's 80 and obese. It makes sense he would want to sit. But they're arguing that that is not the case. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan also write that whatever verbal filter Trump once had is completely gone, which can be interpreted a number of different ways. Sometimes that is disinhibition connected to cognitive decline. We don't know. And Trump aides also are reporting that Donald Trump is just way more tired than he used to be. And it's like, listen, he's falling asleep two or three times a week on camera. We've noticed it as well. The notable part is publicly, a lot of aides go, he's got so much energy, more energetic than ever. And in fact, they are acknowledging privately to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan that no he is really, really tired. Now, I do think it's important to mention that these are observations from people around Trump, and they're highly relevant for that reason. They are not diagnoses. Being 80 years old doesn't mean you have dementia. It doesn't mean you have a neurological condition. The book also doesn't claim that. But what the book does say is that if you're really close to Trump, you are now acknowledging a lot of what we see publicly, and they won't publicly acknowledge. Privately, they are acknowledging it. And I think that this has a major sort of significance when it comes to the political implications. We have had months of increasingly visible episodes, as we might call them. Trump, as I said, falling asleep, swollen ankles made up and bandaged hands. They go, oh, it's chronic venous insufficiency, and he's bruised from shaking hands. And all of this stuff, we see the rambling and the jumping from topic to topic and being unresponsive to the questions of reporters. And individually, it's always dismissed. This is nothing, and that's nothing. And these are just little irrelevant things. Physicians, voters, other people usually look at patterns. These are not necessarily just isolated moments. These are patterns. And what Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report is that the people around Trump are noticing these as patterns. They are not seeing these as isolated events. Again, the irony. Trump spent years insisting that Joe Biden was too old to serve. And age was central to Trump's argument as to why you should vote for him over Joe Biden when Biden was the nominee for 2024. And mental sharpness was a big part of that stamina. Trump regularly saying, you think sleepy Joe Biden could do this? Now, Trump's the oldest president in history, not a crime. And according to one of the most deeply sourced books about the presidency, those around Trump are recognizing something isn't right here. For all of the arguments about, there was an effort to cover up the decline of Biden, which there clearly was. We now have the exact same thing alleged in this book about the Trump presidency. Everybody knows Trump's age. That's not a crime, and it's not a fault. What is new here is that those with the strongest incentive to deny all of it are saying, I can't ignore what I'm seeing anymore. And, of course, the White House hasn't yet come out and denied any of this reporting. I'm sure they will, of course, but the people around Trump and Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, they're not going to. They're not going to make up quotes or anything like that. We can trust when they report it that this stuff took place. They are seizing on something that is not coming really as a shock to those of us who have been following this. We've observed all of this stuff publicly. It would be different and maybe less believable if the claims made to Haberman and Swan were completely opposite to what we see publicly. Imagine that we saw Trump wide awake at every event, not looking unhealthy, moving in a more healthy way, talking in a more healthy way, if that was the situation publicly. And then privately they go, oh, this guy can barely get out of bed in the morning. We would go, wow, that's really. It runs counter to what we're publicly seeing. That's not the case. What they are now privately acknowledging is exactly what we publicly see, which in addition to the reputation of Haberman and Swan, makes me think, of course it's true. Will any of them have what it takes to say it publicly? Maybe. But I wouldn't be surprised if it takes them until Trump is gone to really acknowledge this stuff. I have a very revealing exchange to play for you. Trump's judicial nominee nominee, Judge Byrne, is being questioned by Senator Richard Blumenthal. And a very typical question comes up in this environment. Who won the 2020 election? In other environments, we would go, why are they asking that? That doesn't make sense. In this environment, it's a highly relevant question. And look at how haywire this goes.
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Who won the 2020 election? 2020. Joseph Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election by a joint session of Congress. He was declared the winner? Yes. The people of America declared him the winner. Correct. There was an election and it proceeded through the normal procedures outlined in the Constitution, including including. And he won the popular vote. Correct. As a judicial nominee, it would be inappropriate to comment on a disputed political. I'm asking you. As a matter of fact, everybody in America knows the answer to this question. Why are you refusing to give it before this panel under oath? He won the popular vote in the 2020 election, correct? Senator, as this is a disputed political matter and there is ongoing litigation, and as a judicial nominee, I'm not. Who won the. Who won the Electoral College in the 2020 election? A joint session of Congress determined that Joseph Biden won the Electoral College. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? A joint session of Congress determined that President Trump did not win the Electoral College. Was the Capitol attacked on January six? Senator? There was violence and vandalism on that day, including with regard to Law enforcement officers. I think all of that was inappropriate and wrong and illegal. Certainly there were court findings of. There were convictions. That's correct. And people were convicted of attacking the Capitol. Correct. I don't know if any court used the phrase attacking the captain Capitol. I think the Supreme Court wouldn't. You use it to describe what happened on that day. Everybody in America has seen the videos. Everybody in America knows that Capitol Police were injured, some died. Wasn't it an attack on the Capitol, Senator? It was an attack on a number of individuals. And that was.
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All right. I. I think you kind of get the picture. Think about how bizarre this is. It's. It's not a trick question. It's not even a question about a political opinion. It's not asking, was the election close? It's just, who won? Joe Biden won. Every state certified it. The Electoral College voted, Congress counted. That's it. The. They go to this thing of, well, it was determined that Joe Biden should be sworn in because he won. These are historical facts. Now we don't. I don't know people on the left who have a problem going, Trump won in 2024. What do you mean by that? Just that he won. He won the election. I wish it were different. Republicans love to talk about voter fraud and they do voter suppression. We can have all that conversation. But Trump just won. The polling suggested Trump was going to win, and Trump won. See how easy that is? They can't do it or they won't do it because they would fail the loyalty test. Trump's nominees, Trump's allies. There are elected Republicans who do these verbal gymnastics where if you acknowledge reality, it's dangerous. Trump might be mad. He might pull your nomination. Joe Biden was declared the winner. Like, the winner materialized out of nowhere. No voters were involved, Nobody won. Just Biden was declared the winner. Like a phoenix rising over the horizon, apropos of nothing. And this is, if you ask who won the World Series, you go, listen, there was a baseball season. Games were played. Umpires decided that one of the teams won. Now just. Just tell me who won. The question has an answer. You only dodge it if you don't want to upset Donald Trump or you don't want to upset his supporters. And this is very disturbing. These are not. You know, there's anonymous people that post on Twitter with this crap. These are people seeking lifetime appointments to positions of massive public trust. Just straightforwardly acknowledge one of the most well documented election results in American history. If you can't do that, what does that say about whether you'll follow the facts as a judge. And I think that that's really what's being tested here. It's not, do you like Biden or did you vote Trump or whatever? Are you willing to acknowledge objective reality under oath? And it kind of seems like they are not willing to answer that. Now. How long will this go on? I don't know, because I, maybe I was naive. I might have thought back in 2020 into 2021, you know, maybe early 2022, when there's this idea that at some point the evidence is going to come out because they've been promising the evidence that 2020 was stolen now for six years. Maybe then it would have been like, all right, I expect that this will have a little bit of staying power into 2021 or 2022. It's been six years and they still have presented not a shred of evidence. And Donald Trump keeps going, oh, soon we're going to knock your socks off with this evidence that we have. It's been six years. What possible reason would there be not to have presented that evidence, especially since it would vindicate you? But there seems to be very little urgency. So at this point, I don't know how long this is going to go on. My hope is that once Trump is gone, fewer people will still insist that he really won 2020. But I've been wrong about the staying power of this before and I might be wrong again. On the bonus show Today, Trump wants $87 billion, mostly for the Iran war, which is supposedly over. We are now about to see the United States turn 250 years old. And 77% of Americans say the founders would be disappointed in the country today, the why is what matters. And Metta will be releasing their own AI powered prediction market app. How will that affect or influence the prediction market space? All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Make sure that you are subscribed to my YouTube channel or podcast. It's free. It really helps us. And I would love it if you became a member and got access to the bonus show, which you can do very quickly and very beautifully@join pacman.com.