Loading summary
Transcript65 lines
- [00:00]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox Onobotulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment prescription.
- [00:18]
Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injecting are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including als, Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.
- [00:54]
Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844botox to learn more. Get in the game with the College Branded Venmo Debit Card Rep your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month
- [01:31]
Onnit Alpha Brain Advertiser
ever feel like your brain just won't click? Onnit Alpha Brain is a daily supplement engineered to support memory, focus and mental speed. Made with science backed ingredients, Onnit Alpha Brain helps you lock in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. See what your brain can really do. Visit onnit.com and shop Alpha Brain to unlock your next level. That's O N N I-t.com
- [01:57]
David Pakman
a Democrat just flipped a Republican seat but it is not any district. It is Donald Trump's home voting district where Mar A Lago sits. Trump endorsed candidate in Trump's backyard lost. They thought it was safe but it wasn't and it is a signal about November. At the same time something massive is building this weekend Thousands of protests, millions of people expected at the next no kings. It is hitting MAGA just the way you would expect it to hit petulant, egomaniacal children. And we will also look at what is increasingly a very obvious pattern of suspicious trading tied to Donald Trump's decisions about Iran. Have crimes been committed? Could it be? Plus, CBS goes all in on the pro Trump direction and the ratings hit a century low. I will explain all of that today. Plus, videos of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth struggling through speeches for different reasons, to be clear, raising concerns and leading to calls for. Could you imagine a neurologist? Finally, who are voters blaming for the economic chaos and the travel chaos and the airport chaos in the United States right now? I'll give you a hint. It's not Biden and it's not Obama. All of that and more. Today. A Democrat flipped a Republican seat. All right, well, that's happening a lot in 2025 and 2026. But there's something special about this one. It is the district that contains Donald Trump's actual home, the district where Mar A Lago is and where Donald Trump spends a lot of time. I won't say the majority, but a lot of time. This is the same district that Donald Trump won easily in 2024. This is yet another major reversal, and it spells a lot of trouble for Republicans as the November midterms approach. I'm speaking, of course, about Democratic candidate Emily Gregory, who won 51 to 49, narrow margin, but a huge reversal from a district that has been very reliably Republican. Not only that, not only is it a Republican district, not only is it Donald Trump's home district, Trump endorsed the Republican in this race. Trump urged his supporters turn out and win this one for me in my backyard. And the Democrat still won despite Trump's presence, despite Trump's endorsement. We have a very important signal here about the forthcoming midterm elections. For Trump, this is yet another humiliation. As we know, his political identity, his personal identity is tied very closely to winning and to getting his endorsement victories. And he lost. Not only his home district, which will now be governed, represented, better said, by a Democrat, but the person he endorsed, all also lost. Now this has to be sort of contextualized in this bigger national pattern we've been following, which is that since the 2024 election, since Trump won, Trump won in 2024. That's it. He won. But then all of a sudden things have reversed. And Democrats are gaining and gaining in special elections, in off year elections and across the country we have seen, I think it's close to 30 flips at this point in time from Republican held state legislative seats to Democrats. And this is an imbalance in enthusiasm and it is an imbalance in passion. A lot of Democrats are more motivated to vote than Republicans, especially in lower turnout elections. Midterms like the one that we're seven months and a week from are overall, on average, lower turnout elections. And so these special elections can often be separate signals, indicators, suggestions of where the politics of the country are going. And the direction that we can deduce from these special elections and flips and state elections is the voters are moving away from Donald Trump and away from maga. Now combine that with Donald Trump's really, really, really low approval rating. We have an extraordinarily unpopular war with Iran, which has spiked gas prices, by the way. Now, 3,99 a gallon will probably be 4 bucks a gallon by tomorrow. I'll talk about that more in a moment. And so you have a population that on average, this doesn't mean there aren't millions of hardcore magazines, of course, but we have a country of 340 million people. So we talk about shifts, we have economic stress that is pushing people to say why am I struggling so badly right now? And, and it's hard to blame Joe Biden right now, very unpopular war voters saying, I'm frustrated. I have an opportunity to express that frustration by voting. So this, this Florida race in Trump's backyard reflects that. It's plain and simple. A candidate that focused on cost of living concerns in a pretty rich district, by the way, winning, and it should have gone to a Republican, it is a Republican leaning district that Trump won comfortably. So we look ahead at the midterms and we go, damn, if the midterms even at all reflect what we have been seeing. If voter behavior mirrors what we've been seeing in these one offs since 2024, it's going to be a disaster for Republicans. And so if Democrats are competitive and they can just mirror that, Forget about a 20 seat flip in the House of Representatives, which by the way, Now Democrats are 85% likely expected to take control of the House of Representatives, we could be talking not about a 20 seat flip, but a 40 seat flip or a 60 seat flip if, and this is why, if we go out and vote, if we go out and vote. And so I am going to keep building on this and we're going to talk about this weekend's protests in a moment. And the whole point of all of this anger and passion and Activation has to be redirected towards taking back control. Now if you're on the other side, not that I give Republicans advice, but if you're on the other side and you see practical victories happening for Democrats, gains happening for Democrats, red seats in Florida, Florida, both Florida and Florida, Georgia, all over the country, you see these red seats flipping blue, you should be very worried about slipping support for Trump, dragging everybody down and Republicans being tagged with the Iran chaos, the airport chaos, the TSA chaos, the gas price chaos, the affordability chaos, the energy chaos. So they should be extraordinarily worried and at some point they will have to decide do we try to stick with Trump and Trump ism and convince voters you should vote for us anyway or do we say I'm actually separating from Trump, I'm going to take a step back from what Trump is doing. So the significance of any one seat is limited, but taken in total, you see this very significant directional change, like an inflection point that took place after 2024. And Democrats have their work cut out for them, Republicans have their work cut out for them differently. And the I'm hopeful that we will see such strong numbers over the next six to eight weeks that Democrats can really say hey, we're going to make a play for the Senate, which is believed to be about 5050 right now in terms of who's going to control it. Maybe more like in the last few days the numbers have shifted a little bit towards Republicans 5248. But that compared to what two years ago was assumed to be an unwinnable Senate. In 2026 for Democrats it may not be so right in Trump's backyard. Democrat takes it from a Republican. Trump in shambles. Trump desperate, trying to figure out how on earth to get himself out of this thing. And in the meantime we are just hours, I mean it's a few days but quite literally hours away from what may be the biggest anti Trump protests ever. And if there's one thing that self centered egomaniacs don't like, it is public displays of displeasure and disgust with the dear leader. So let's dig into no Kings. We are seeing something massive build this weekend and it is hitting Trump at the worst possible time. We are talking about protests at scale. No Kings is back on Saturday, March 28, over 3,000 events across the country. Millions of people are expected to be out there. This could be. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. This could be the largest single day of protest in all of American history. Trump doesn't like that Trump desperately wants to be liked and loved and respected and all that crap, and it's not happening. And forget about for a second the electoral disaster that Trump is facing. We just talked about a Democrat taking Trump's own district in Florida, which is a Republican district, but with everything else going on, very unpopular, volatile war with Iran. It's dragging on, it's escalating, it's costing more and more lives. Gas prices are now up 45% in two months. Economic anxiety is reaching a fever pitch. Trump's approval rating is, depending on where you look, 32, 34, 36. It's very low. His numbers on cost of living are in the toilet, flushable. Flush him. His numbers on the economy, an issue in which Republicans. Not for any reason that makes sense, but historically, Republicans poll well and his economic numbers are in the toilet and. And people are not respecting Donald Trump. People are not fearing Trump, they're not liking Trump. And Trump's identity is built on dominance through approval. Big rallies, cheering crowds, the validation and adulation that is the fuel for people like Trump. And he can't tolerate mass rejection. And if people disapprove and he sees it, it is not a polling dip where he can go, that's a fake news, pollster, fake news. He can't ignore the visual of millions of people showing up and undeniably protesting what he is doing. It gets under his skin in the way that few other things do. And what it may do, it's nice to bother Trump because he's such a terrible person, but I care about winning and taking power back. And what these massive protests can do is when people who are kind of on the fence see it and they go, well, I've been loyal to Trump for a while, but he is kind of screwing everything up. I don't know. They see record protests and all of a sudden they say, hey, you know what? This is a movement. This is a big movement, and I want to join this movement because Trump has really screwed things up. And so I think that this weekend's protests have the possibility of shattering any last image that this is a country that thinks Trump is doing a good job. The war, the affordability crisis, four hour waits at airports for security, and all of this different stuff. Now, I am sort of an advocate of change comes over time. I'm not an accelerationist. And I think history shows us that change comes over time. In retrospect, the change can be rapid, but in the moment, it never feels rapid. We are potentially moving in a direction where the change actually Will feel quite rapid. Now if you are going to be out there and you are going to be protesting, a few important things I think to mention things that are good to do. Have a plan for exactly where you're going and what is your transportation. Logical. Okay, don't go alone if you can avoid it. Go with other people. Have a plan. Where do you meet if you get separated, Keep your phone charged. Bring water, snacks and necessary medication. Plan appropriately for the weather. There are going to be very hot parts of the country on Saturday and very cold parts of the country on Saturday. Follow instructions from the people that are organizing and of course from law enforcement. Be aware of your surroundings. Stay calm even if people try to provoke you. There were, there were probably, will probably be plenty of provocateurs out this weekend. Have your id, know your rights. Know whether you are in a state that is a stop and identify state where police can just go up to you and ask for ID or no, if it is not such a state where police actually need to articulate suspicion that you have maybe committed a crime. Understand all of that stuff, okay? What you don't want to do, don't create or escalate confrontations. Don't do it. It just, it's not going to end well. If you are thinking of bringing weapons, okay, this is, we have a lot of different states in this country. So if I were to just say do not bring weapons, a lot of people might write in and go, well, you know, David, you're not really giving legal advice. Understand the law in your state when it comes to weapons. But also, even if something is legal, think about whether it is advisable and a good idea for the circumstances and the protests that you will be going to. Don't wander off into unfamiliar areas. Don't block emergency vehicles. Don't block exits. Don't assume everybody around you has good vibes and good intentions and do not get pulled into arguments that detract or distract from why you are there. Do's and don'ts. It's going to be massive. Send me an email about where you will be info@david pakman.com Are you going to be out there? Where out there are you going to be? And remember what the broader point is here. We have a country that is increasingly struggling economically and embarrassed globally because of the actions of the President of the United States. Part of it is his policies. Part of it is his incoherence. Part of it is his corruption. Part of it is his incompetence. We want to take energy from the protests this weekend and turn them into action and economic pressure. I don't know that we are going in the direction of a general strike. I write about general strikes in my book the Echo Machine. In terms of protest techniques I don't know. I'm not saying I'm not here to tell you I believe we are going towards a general strike. But I think that there is more of an appetite than I've seen in at least a decade in this country for something that goes beyond just just showing up on one day for protests. So that's where I will sort of leave it. Let me know where you will be protesting. We've got so much more coming up on the show today. One thing that keeps coming up as AI becomes more mainstream is how casually people are handing over sensitive information. Think about how many private questions and personal struggles and business ideas people have typed into these AI tools. Assuming the conversations are temporary and and we're now learning that many of those platforms are storing or reusing the data in ways that users never really consented to. That's why the AI tool I use instead is Venice, our sponsor. Venice takes a different approach. Your conversations are encrypted and stored only on your device, not on company servers, never used for training data. Venice runs open source AI models for text, code, images and video directly in your browser or app. No surveillance or censorship. No content policing. And the Pro Plan adds features like PDF uploads, higher usage limits, custom system prompts and uncensored image generation while keeping control in your hands. If you want Private I go to Venice AI/Pacman to get 20% off a pro Plan. The link is in the description. Many VPNs claim they don't track you. Only one can prove it and that's our sponsor. Private Internet Access. Private Internet Access is the only VPN with multiple real world court cases showing that when law enforcement requests user logs, they don't have them because they don't log anything. Their software is open source. Anyone can inspect the code and confirm that there's transparency that you do not normally see. In the VPN industry. You can use one account on unlimited devices. Phone, laptop, tablet, even your router. Works with Netflix and YouTube and streaming services worldwide.
- [18:59]
Sponsor Representative
It is like a secure tunnel between
- [19:01]
David Pakman
you and the Internet that nobody can see into. I've been using PIA for years. It's one of the few privacy or security tools I truly trust. Get 83% off just 203amonth plus four extra months free at PIA vpn.com/pacman the link is in the description. We are continuing the one week Trump Gas membership drive. Every day this week we are discounting memberships down to the cost of a gallon of gas under Trump. Obviously gas is way up, but there's still really low prices for membership. Today the Trump Gas coupon code will discount memberships down to 399amonth. That is the cost of gas today under Trump. Now I'll be honest, I think it's going to be higher tomorrow. I think we're breaching $4 tomorrow. So if you've been thinking maybe I'll get myself a membership, I believe that today is the day to do it. You go to join pacman.com, use the coupon code Trump Gas. You can also use the code for a yearly membership and you'll get two months free on top of the discount, which is. I got to tell you, this is a pretty good deal. I would do this. I would do this. We have something fascinating and disastrous for CBS going on. I love it. I'm just going to be very honest with you. I love it. There is a total collapse of ratings happening at CBS since Barry Weiss took over and turned CBS into a pathetic, disgusting propaganda arm of the Trump administration. Under BARI Weiss's leadership, CBS Evening News is on track for its worst first quarter of the century, of the 21st century in both total viewers and key demographics. A historic collapse for one of the most established news brands in the country. Their flagship evening broadcast is getting a little over 4 million viewers in the crucial 25 to 54 demographic. They are down 18%. That younger demographic is the one that advertisers want to reach. And that is a major, major problem for cbs. Now. This is bigger than any one show and it is a network problem. Bari Weiss took over editorial control. They went pro Trump hiding stories that make the administration look bad. We salute you, Marco Rubio type of crap. CBS Mornings had its lowest rated quarter on record. Viewership is down 13% there compared to the same period last year. So it is not one struggling program. This is not only about one anchor or reporter. The network is collapsing after Bari Weiss made it a pro Trump media outlet. I love it. I love it. I think this is awesome. And meanwhile, meanwhile, independent media, critical media of this administration is doing so well. All of our cohort of shows, the folks that, you know are sort of like at our level of the David Pakman show, everybody's doing really well. And the timing of the CBS collapse lines up directly with the tenure of Bari Weiss. It started after A shakeup with regard to ownership. And then in comes Bari Weiss saying, well, CBS lost the trust of the public. We've got to rebuild it from the ground up to win back the audiences. And six months later, the problem is worse and the audience is shrinking like the size of Trump's hands. They've lost personnel. Internal conflict is going on. Editorial decisions that have sparked backlash from their own employees. Veteran staffers have left, layoffs have hit some divisions. 60 Minutes is having. There's like a dispute every couple of weeks at 60 Minutes about the chaos that's going on. And critics of the network have understandably raised concerns that they're just doing Trump friendly propaganda. And they are, and that perception matters. News audiences are very sensitive to credibility and to independence. And if there's big political tension, a war in Iran, possible corruption, insider trading, all these things going on, do people want to be getting their news from an outlet they perceive to have been taken over, permeated from the inside out by pro Trump bias? It seems that the answer is no. And so they are getting crushed. Now, forget about independent media for a second. Just think about NBC and abc. NBC and ABC are not struggling with the ratings declines of cbs. So it is not just all legacy and corporate news media is down. CBS is having the problem. They are falling behind NBC and abc. And when you hear from insiders at this point, they're describing it as a downward spiral. They say, you know, when a program drops below a certain threshold, you're not going to recover. And the next thing is more layoffs, cancellations, and all of that. So this is, I. It's not that I, you know, I'm an empathetic person by nature. It's really hard for me to take pleasure in the suffering of others. And even in telling you that I love that this is going on, I don't feel good about the fact that a lot of just camera people and editors who are not part of this editorial change might lose their jobs. I do feel bad about that. We also, at the systemic level, have to acknowledge that it is a good sign for the country that when you take a previously relatively trusted media outlet, you make it a pro Trump propaganda outlet, and the ratings collapse. That's good. You know, we talk about the country failed an IQ test when it elected Trump again, but this is the sort of thing you would like to see if people are at least somewhat thinking critically. So Bari Weiss didn't really have experience in broadcast television news. It was a political decision, was an ideological decision, and it's not working well for them. So I think that this is a good sign. Viewers get to make a choice in the same way that I say to my audience, hey listen, vote with your dollars, vote with your eyeballs. If you like this show, cool. Leave a comment, subscribe on YouTube, put a like up there. Maybe you get a membership. That's great. If you don't like a show, then maybe you vote with your dollars as well. A lot of people aren't aware that if you have a regular cable subscription that includes Fox News, you might think, Well, I pay 80 bucks or 120 bucks or 240 bucks. Whatever you pay, I pay that. But it's for the total package. I'm not paying for any individual channels. Well, the way that Fox News negotiates their cable carriage fees, they do get some number of dollars. I think it's three or four dollars per subscriber per month. If you have Fox News, even if you never watch it, you can vote on that by canceling cable or by getting a plan that doesn't include Fox News, although those are relatively rare. You have a lot of power as a consumer of news and people are switching off cbs. They're making a choice to go elsewhere. You're always welcome here, that's for sure. And I love it. If you are one of the people that has made this choice when it comes to cbs, you were in their audience and now you're not. Let me know. Let me know in a comment. Let me know in an email info@david pakman.com Folks, I think we've got them dead to rights and it is time to start investigating. And if they committed crimes, we've got to lock them up. Growing calls for investigations are happening after these massive, very suspicious trades were placed. Right before Donald Trump announced that he was going to delay striking Iran's power plants and that supposedly there were productive talks with Iran going on. Minutes before Trump announced this, we saw something very strange in the markets. Now on Monday, I already told you, right as Trump announced this, stock market futures went up a thousand points for the Dow and oil futures went down $10, which was at the time time equivalent to 10% because of Trump's announcement. But that was at the time of the announcement. What happened before the announcement? Well, right before Trump's announcement, not after, before nearly $600 million in oil futures poured into the market. People placing bets that oil prices would fall. At the same time, a billion and a half dollars flowed into bullish stock bets. People betting the stock market will go up and Then minutes later, Trump goes, oh, you know what, I don't have to strike Iran's power plants right now. And oil goes down and stock market futures go up. We've got a couple charts. One is from the Kobe ISI letter where you can actually see on screen the timing where the futures of The S&P 500 are purchased. And then Trump says, hey, we've got peaceful deal talks underway with Iran. And then all of a sudden the S&P 500 futures spike, adding the implied equivalent of $2 trillion. We have another chart from Axios, and the Axios chart shows that with oil we saw similar things going on. And Axios is now reporting. Before the Iran war Even started, over 150 accounts on prediction markets piled into bets that a strike was coming. So before the Iran war started, somebody was acting on information they had and money was turned into, you know, 30 grand was turned into 400 grand by a trader on Maduro's capture because they suspected that was coming. With every one of these big things. Trump's going to strike Iran, Trump's going to kidnap Maduro. People are betting on it. And right before Trump paused tariffs last year, stock markets surged and people seemingly with advanced knowledge bet on that happening as well. So it is abundantly clear that American military and economic decisions are being weaponized for financial gain, apparently by people who know about this stuff ahead of time. Now Senator Andy Kim said we need immediate investigations into this and if people did insider trading, they need to be held accountable. Yeah, sure, I agree, Sounds really nice. Except the same administration that now is facing these questions has gutted the Public Integrity section of the doj, which would look at exactly this sort of thing. They've blocked aggressive SEC enforcement of violations. They've dropped over one hundred and fifty federal enforcement actions, including against donors. So in other words, the people who would and should investigate this have been sidelined or laid off. Now, of course I want to be careful in what I'm alleging. I don't have evidence right now that Donald Trump himself or any specific officials executed these trades. What we know is there's a pattern with documented timing, massive amounts of money and huge amounts of profit with an explanation that is nonexistent. Does anybody believe this is luck or coincidence? I've got a bridge to sell you if that's what you believe. Now, my guess is maybe they thought nobody would notice, but people are noticing. And in a, in a normal country, in a sane country, the next step would be subpoenas, investigations and accountability. And, and if the Evidence points that way, people should be charged, and if they are convicted, then they should be sentenced appropriately. What does this mean in practice? I hate to make it something so specific and tangible that we may only possibly be able to achieve, but it's. Democrats have to take the House in November because when I tell you that Mike Johnson knows if Democrats take the House, Trump's presidency is over. When Trump says, I know that if Democrats take the House, I'm getting impeached, this is because the House of Representatives has the power of oversight and investigation. And there would be no better way to start punishing these people for their misdeeds than to take control of the House of Representatives and. And make it two years of investigation after subpoena after investigation after potentially criminal referral, if that's where the evidence points. So when we talk about not letting Trump pass any more wacky and crappy bills by taking the House of Representatives, of course that's important. That matters. We've got to do that. But we need the power of investigation. There are people making millions of seemingly trading on inside information after, by the way, it was all about Nancy Pelosi trading on inside information. They love to say now, I don't care who does it. You know, like with the Epstein stuff. Well, aren't you worried this might bring down Democrats, too? No, I'm not worried. Bring down whoever did something wrong. Oh, but what about Democrats who do insider Go after everybody, go after anybody. But the circumstantial evidence here is stunning and it needs to be investigated.
- [33:02]
Sponsor Representative
Most scammers rely on information that's already public. Your name, address, phone number, family connections. A lot of that is online and
- [33:10]
David Pakman
available to be scraped and abused.
- [33:13]
Sponsor Representative
Our sponsor, Incogni, reduces the risk by removing you from the Internet wherever that personal data appears. It works across many types of websites, not just one category. So scammers have fewer ways to piece things together.
- [33:26]
David Pakman
About you.
- [33:27]
Sponsor Representative
Incogni automatically submits removal requests to hundreds of sites on your behalf. But the standout feature is custom removals, where you find your information on any website, even one not in their database. You paste the link, and Incogni's team
- [33:43]
David Pakman
will get to work to remove it.
- [33:45]
Sponsor Representative
I can tell you I've personally been getting way fewer scam and spam calls and messages ever since I started using Incogni. You can accomplish a lot quickly with Incogni. Protect yourself before your data is used against you. Get 60% off when you go to incogni.com/pacman and use the code PACMAN. The link is in the description.
- [34:07]
David Pakman
President Donald Trump had a disastrous day with a press conference and public statements so deranged that the room was again stunned. And Trump continuing to struggle to read at what, at the end of the day is only a fourth grade level of speech to begin with. And it is still difficult for him to do it. Now, one of the sort of interesting things is that Trump, even during this event, went back and forth between saying, what is happening in Iran is a war and what is happening in Iran is not a war. Which is kind of strange that even within minutes it goes back and forth, but it is Donald Trump. And Trump did at one point say, this is a perfect, amazing thing. Not exactly the adjectives, I would think. Ask the families of the dead soldiers, is this a perfect, amazing thing? I don't think so.
- [35:02]
Donald Trump
But we're actually talking to the right people and they want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal. And we'll see what happens. I want to thank Pete Hagseth. The job you're doing over there is really incredible. You and the general and all of the other generals and colonels and captains and majors and everybody else. Right, right. It's a perfect, amazing thing. We have. We make the best military equipment in the world. Now we're going to make it faster. Yeah.
- [35:28]
David Pakman
It's a perfect, amazing thing. The perfect war that we can't seem to win and that we can't seem to end. I don't know, guys, this is sounding a little. This is sounding a little weird. It's sounding so weird. It's creating a weird problem with my hair that I can't seem to fix. Trump is again confused about asylum. Insane asylum versus political asylum. Trump still hasn't been told by anybody, hey, sir, that thing you keep repeating doesn't make a damn shred of sense.
- [36:01]
Donald Trump
People came in from all over the world from prisons and gangs, gang members, drug dealers, people from mental institutions, insane asylums. That's the mental institution times two. And what they allowed to happen to our country can never be allowed to happen again.
- [36:18]
David Pakman
And Trump still doesn't get the whole asylum thing. I know a lot of you, every time Trump says this, you write in and you go, david, you know, I've been looking like they're emptying insane asylums into the United States. That doesn't really make any sense. Also, how could any country that doesn't even, even Mexico is not doing it. But what about countries that don't even share a border with the United States like, how would Honduras empty an insane asylum into the United States? They have no border with the United States. And of course, you're correct. What I believe is happening here, and Senator Ruben Gallego happens to agree with me on this one and some others agree as well, is that Donald Trump heard the word asylum from people seeking political asylum. And he goes, oh, insane asylums, like mental institutions. And of course that's not what it is. And apparently people around Donald Trump are so afraid of his wrath that they don't go up to him and go, sir, with tears in my eyes, you're confused here. And you know what, Quite frankly, even if someone around Trump did try to explain that to him, I don't know that he would understand it. Trump continuing to claim that everything is going so well and we're negotiating with the right people in Iran and everything's going to be great. He still can't tell us who those people are, but he's like, basically, we won. Except if you listen closely, it doesn't really sound like it.
- [37:36]
Donald Trump
We're having, by the way, a tremendous success. As you know, in Iran. We had one in Venezuela, now we're having one in Iran. They have no navy left, they have no air force left, they have no anti aircraft equipment left, no radar left, no leaders left. The leaders are all gone. Nobody knows who to talk to, but we're actually talking to the right people and they want to make a deal.
- [38:03]
David Pakman
No one knows who to talk to, but Trump knows we're talking to the
- [38:05]
Donald Trump
right people so badly, you have no idea how badly they want to make a deal. And we'll see what happens. I want to thank Pete. Hag says the job you're doing over there is really incredible. You and the general and all of the other.
- [38:18]
David Pakman
It's all going great. No one knows who the hell to talk to, but we're talking to the right people. And when Trump is asked, who are those people, by the way, because Iran is insisting we're not talking to anybody, Trump goes, well, I can't tell you for security reasons, of course. Of course, for security reasons, I am unable to tell you in the middle of all of this, as gas is about to breach four bucks a gallon and people are dying in Iran and there seems to be no movement on getting the Strait of Hormuz opened and all of it. Trump wants to IQ test Kamala Harris. Hey, voters, is this a good idea right now? Is this what you want from your president?
- [39:01]
Donald Trump
Explain that to me. He's the worst. She was as bad as he was going to give him IQ tests next week. Under the Trump administration, we've achieved.
- [39:13]
David Pakman
Guys, I don't know that anybody's falling for this stuff anymore. You know, I admit, even though I find it deplorable and disgusting, I have the sense that there was a time where a lot of voters saw Trump's ranting about Biden's IQ and Kamala's IQ and cognitive tests and all of this stuff. I think there was a period where a lot of voters saw it and they went, it's kind of charismatic. It's kind of funny. I don't know, I kind of like it. It's, it's, it's sort of interesting. I believe that there has been a 180 on that. And the 180 on that partially is because of the gas price chart. Now I'm simplifying. Obviously it's because of the broader economic chaos and global humiliation of the US based on this Iran war. But I believe that there is a growing portion of the electorate that found Trump's antics cutesy. You know, the men and women's sports. Trump's trans weightlifting routine. Remember when Trump would do that? Pretend to be lifting weights as I don't know if he is pretending to be the trans person or not. Doesn't matter. There was a period where it was like sort of entertaining. But a lot of that period was when Trump was campaigning for president, Biden was president and the economy was more or less okay. Not a perfect economy by any means, but it was more or less okay. I think that a lot of this electorate has soured on this crap because things are getting so chaotic. Their 401 is. Remember Dow 50,000. Well that's long gone. Gas prices record low. Well, we're about to hit four bucks a gallon. I think there are people who sort of like that stuff and they're sick of it right now. And we'll see how they vote in November. Final thing, Trump still unable to say the word mutilation.
- [40:59]
Donald Trump
And we have a few others that we, we call them the best of best of Trump. But if you look at transgender mutilization of children, we don't want that.
- [41:09]
David Pakman
It's transgender mutualization of children. Mutualization is not a word. And so called men and women's sports are simply not a real problem. A lot of states have zero to two trans athletes at a competitive level. He is trying to distract you. For a long time. It worked. I don't know that it is working anymore. Calls for a neurologist have exploded after Donald Trump was standing unsteadily with an asymmetrically droopy face. And I've got to tell you, nobody's falling for that. Completely clashing makeup on his right hand meant to cover bruises from who the hell knows what. This video raising a lot of concerns. This was at a ceremony celebrating the swearing in of Mark Wayne Mullen as Donald Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security. Trump also struggling with the acronym for DHS we'll get to that. But major concerns about Trump's appearance and unsteadiness during this event.
- [42:19]
Mark Wayne Mullen
It just seems surreal being in the Oval Office and having the President of the United States speak so highly of me and then recognize my family and know my family by name. It's, it's humbling and, and I never take it for granted. But I made this very clear that I don't care what color your state is. I don't care if you're red or you're blue. At the end of the day, my job is to be Secretary of Homeland and to protect everybody the same. And we will do that. I'll fight every single day. Today I got the privilege of meeting so many.
- [42:52]
David Pakman
It just seemed Trump very, very concerning, Very, very concerning to people with regard to his appearance. Now then it got even worse as Donald Trump struggled to read a three letter acronym from his pre written speech. Trump's speeches are written at the fourth grade or lower level and he often
- [43:12]
Donald Trump
just struggles as he takes the helm of DH s. Mark Wayne will fight for, for homeland Security, the United States and securing the country and making it really strong and the way it should be. Country has come a long way in the last year.
- [43:29]
David Pakman
Yeah. More substantively, Trump says during this same event, we have won the war. And later Trump says he doesn't call it a war. So which is it, Mr. President?
- [43:43]
Donald Trump
You know, I don't like to say this. We've won this with this war has been won.
- [43:48]
David Pakman
I don't know that that's true.
- [43:49]
Donald Trump
The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. I mean, the New York Times. Do you want to give about a 3 minute statement on how we're doing in this, as I call it, military operation? People don't like me using the word war, but so I won't. But the Democrats go to war and at a very difficult time because, you know, we are at, as they would say, a war. They call it a war. I call it a military operation. A very successful one. Like successful like nobody's ever seen before.
- [44:19]
David Pakman
Now you might say who cares? Why is it there's two sides? Who cares whether it's a war or not? And why is Trump calling it one thing and then not calling it that thing? Well, it actually goes to the heart of the legality of this entire thing. And as we've talked about before, in theory, and I hate to use that term because it's, it's not in practice because Trump's not doing it, but in theory, presidents are supposed to go to Congress if they want to declare war, and you need congressional authorization. There are limited exceptions when there is a certain level of urgency and risk to the United States is present. And when Donald Trump said, well, they were imminently going to get a nuclear weapon in a few weeks, and that doesn't really sound like you imminently needed to go in without congressional authorization. And then when Trump says, well, the reason was their ballistics missiles, their ballistic missiles can't reach the United States, so that undercuts the urgency as well. Sounds like you should have gone to Congress or it's an illegal war. So then he goes, well, it's not a war at all. It's just a military operation. That's the entire point of the going back and forth and back and forth on that. Trump, on the Iranian leaders, he says they're going to make a deal. They're going to make a deal because
- [45:36]
Donald Trump
they're going to make a deal. They're going to make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present and the president arrived today, and it was a very big president, worth a tremendous amount of money. And I'm not going to tell you what that president is, but it was a very significant prize and they gave it to us and they said they were going to give it. So that meant one thing to me, would deal with the right people. No, it wasn't nuclear related. It was oil and gas related. And it was a very nice thing they did. But what it showed me is that we're dealing with the right people, because, you know, you don't know, because the leadership was.
- [46:18]
David Pakman
One of the funniest things about all of this really, is about whether or not there are productive negotiations taking place. And for productive negotiations to be taking place, number one, the right people do have to be engaged. Iran has said this is imaginary. Those negotiations are not taking place. We then get to, well, maybe they're negotiating through an intermediary. And that is indeed what the administration has stepped back to. Who is the intermediary? They can't tell us for security reasons. Not a lot of people are buying that right now. We then get to the topic of regime change, and I got to tell you, I love this. Listen to Trump's argument that regime change has taken place even though supposedly it wasn't the goal. But it did happen and it didn't happen. Just listen to this and see if you can make heads or tails out of it.
- [47:17]
Donald Trump
Sounds like adults to me. Even though they are sort of children, right? They'll always be your children. But I hate to say it, but we killed all their leadership and then they met to choose new leaders and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that, but let's see how they turn out. It's. We have really regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the one you know.
- [47:47]
David Pakman
I don't know that going from old Khamenei to young Khamenei is regime change. Is there anyone in my audience who thinks the regime has changed? Or do you realize that what's going on is that it is the exact same regime still in power who is being negotiated with, by the way, if they're out of power, then you must be negotiating with a totally different entity, right? Wrong. And when it's the son of the longtime supreme leader who becomes the new supreme leader, hard to argue that that is regime change. Final clip. Pete Hegseth bringing the psychotic edge Lord energy by saying we negotiate with bombs in the United States as viciously as
- [48:30]
Pete Hegseth
possible from moment one. And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs. You have a choice. As we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about about your future president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees our job is to ensure that. And so we're keeping our hand on that throttle as long as it's hard as is necessary to ensure the interest.
- [48:56]
David Pakman
Anybody see Trump's eyebrows go up when Pete says long and hard? All of a sudden, Trump perked up. Take. Take a. Keep a close eye on Trump's face. When Pete starts jerking and saying long and hard.
- [49:10]
Pete Hegseth
Keeping our. Our hand on that throttle as long as. As hard as is necessary to ensure.
- [49:15]
David Pakman
There you go. As long as. As hard as it's necessary. He really has a way with words. Folks, we're getting globally humiliated. Not only do we not appear to be winning this war, not only is this war devastating Americans economically, the world sees the people that are in charge in this country and they go what the hell is going on? Even just right now. I have, I have emails in my inbox from the uk, Germany and Sweden just in the last couple of hours from people saying what is happening to your country? I wish I had an answer.
- [49:56]
Credit Karma Advertiser
Are you stuck staring at your W2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO the fear of messing up the fix using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app.
- [50:24]
David Pakman
The David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member. @join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at Join Pacman Dotcom Donald Trump has replaced a dog killer as Secretary of Homeland Security with a kid beater. I know that that sounds shocking, but it is where we are today. We have unearthed video of the recently confirmed shiny new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen admitting that he spanks his children. And he seems to just love it. He seems to be proud to be announcing that. Let's take a look at the first clip.
- [51:21]
Mark Wayne Mullen
I'll talk about my kids a little bit here, right? My two beautiful twins that are sitting down there. Guys, I'll tell you right now, I do spank. I have no problem with that.
- [51:35]
David Pakman
Sparse applause in the audience Listen, I'm not naive to the reality that hitting kids was common in a different era, and it still is in certain parts of the world. I'm aware of that. But we also now have the benefit of hindsight and a lot of data about the fact that hitting kids is not a good idea. And at the end of the day, it is a form of abuse and it's mostly illegal. Depending on the state. I'm talking about the United States, depending on the state and the circumstances. And as sort of like evidence of the traumatizing nature of this sort of thing. We have more unearthed video of the now Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullen Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullen describing his daughter pleading, please don't spank me, please don't spank me. And he just seems so proud, so proud.
- [52:39]
Mark Wayne Mullen
Now, you take Lara, for instance, when she was a girl trying to spank her deal was like a four minute
- [52:44]
David Pakman
ordeal because she's like trying to spank her deal.
- [52:47]
Donald Trump
No, Daddy, no, Daddy, no, Daddy, I'm
- [52:49]
David Pakman
sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry.
- [52:50]
Mark Wayne Mullen
And then she'd get madder and madder and she just couldn't bring herself to even bend over for me to bust her butt. And I was like, honey, you got like two seconds. Seconds. Are you going to get two set of one?
- [53:00]
David Pakman
Oh, my God, are we. Did, did you hear what the guy said? She couldn't bring herself to even bend over for me to be able to bust her butt, pleading with me not to hit her. What on earth is happening here? We went from a puppy killer to a guy who is gleeful about his daughter bending over so he could bust her butt. It's 2026 in the United States, I think. Anyway, unless I've lost my orientation to time and place, here he is in these same unearthed videos from a few years ago, talking about how he threatened his daughter's boyfriend. What? Sounds like a good guy, huh?
- [53:53]
Mark Wayne Mullen
Right? Okay, so anyways, but it's, it's Friday night. What's going on at the high school tonight? And he's here, so I appreciate that. I appreciate him being here. And then I have Lara here, who's a freshman. She's here because her boyfriend's not playing football because he's hurt, and I really don't like him anyways, tell you what, he's a great kid, but he's dating my daughter and I don't like him. I just can't. I told him, I said, if I ever see you kiss her in front of me, I'm dragging your face across the asphalt.
- [54:33]
David Pakman
Did he say dragging your face across the asshole or asphalt?
- [54:37]
Mark Wayne Mullen
And that's a true story. I told him that. And he's a good kid. He's big, so he better do it now. I don't know if I'm going to do it much longer anyway.
- [54:48]
David Pakman
You can just. He's such a good guy, isn't he, this Mark Wayne Mullen, by the way, big, tough Mark Wayne Mullen. Here is an image of him cowering in fear on January, 6, 2021. Just for comparison, one of the things that we've kind of come to expect and be familiar with, really, in the way Trump runs things, is that as unqualified and sycophantic as Trump's initial choices for positions are when they get replaced, when he fires people or people quit, when that happens, he often brings in even wackier, more unqualified people and Listen, on balance, I don't know that this is just about killing a dog or beating your daughter. It's not just, that's like, which one's better, which one's worse? They're both bad. But Mark Wayne Mullen does seem more prepared to be so loyal to Trump that he would never even suggest as Kristi Noem did. Of course, Trump was involved in planning this ad campaign in which I'm featured and my face is plastered at all airports. Yes, I talked about it with Trump. I think Mark Wayne Mullen knows you can't even do that. You've got to take responsibility for everything and never even put Trump's name in your mouth when it comes to anything that might have not been on the up and up. So another dignitary, the luminaries and dignitaries of the Trump administration, Mark Wayne Mullen, he had to bend his daughter over to bust her butt. God, it's disgusting. This guy is disgusting. And Trump is thrilled with him. Hey, you know what's good news? Americans are not buying the BS from Trump and from this administration. Americans are not as stupid as Trump thinks they are. Many of them did fail a national IQ test and voted for Trump three times, getting him elected twice. That's true. But a lot of them are not as dumb as Donald Trump thinks. Some really interesting callers to c span over the next couple of days weighing in about the airport chaos and what's going on. And they seem pretty clear eyed that, hey, listen, Republicans are in charge of everything right now. We should probably blame them for what's happening.
- [57:06]
Caller 1
It's the Republicans. It's their fault. And that leadership right now, he got a basic control of the House incident and the White House too. It's not right, though. You know, come on, you got to be accountable then you got to be responsible to your people. And the people who work with TSA need to get paid, and it's only right to pay those people they work in and deal with all the stress. There were people traveling and right now it's a crucial time. We got spring break going on. Got people traveling on vacations with everything. So they need to get paid.
- [57:35]
David Pakman
Listen, it's basic accountability. You look around, you go, okay, let's see, Trump's the president. Republicans control the House. Republicans control the Senate. Trump's Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, former reality show contestant, in charge of the Department of Transportation. Donald Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security was Kristi Noem. Now it's Mark Wayne Mullen in charge of everything that is Homeland Security. That includes tsa, it includes cbp, Border Patrol, ice, all that stuff. They're in charge of everything. Maybe we should blame them. We're in an optional war in Iran, period. And sometimes we as people who follow this stuff daily get sucked into ideological framing and the use of jargon. And there's a lot of people out there who are intelligently just looking at cause and effect. It is not a both sides situation. And so I believe this is getting very dangerous for Donald Trump politically. It's getting very dangerous for Republicans politically, as we have seen. And when voters are able to abstract their views from beltway infighting and back and forths and you simplify it to one party has total control, it is your responsibility. Here's another caller also on the DHS shutdown.
- [58:48]
Caller 2
It's definitely the Republican fault, especially with the, well, I want to say about the SAVE act though people got in the red states. They have to realize like, well, let's
- [59:01]
David Pakman
go back to your initial why is it Republicans fault?
- [59:04]
Caller 2
Because they already, you know, they have the power to move. They can move money. Like they take money from Social Security on Social Security. They take money from Social Security and they put it in other places. Well, if, if ICE has all these billions of dollars from the big beautiful bill and you need money for TSA agents and the Coast Guard, then move the money around, take that money. There's already more than ICE can use. Why do you need more money? And that's the thing. They want more money for ice. ICE already has more money than they can spend and they are holding up the Coast Guard and TSA just to get more money for ice. But ICE has already been funded past where that's what and they don't want to fund ICE because of the murders of the two people in Minnesota.
- [60:00]
David Pakman
You know, this is a far more sophisticated criticism of what's going on right now than simply Republicans are in charge and it's their fault. This is a caller who is identifying what are the budget priorities. It's not just about blame, but it's also what priorities do we see through the budgeting of this administration. And they're pointing out policy choices that are just bad choices. It's of course there is incompetence. Of course there's harebrained, shortsighted thinking going on. But this is a caller who has said, hey, I'm looking at the budgetary choices that represent priorities and it's really bad. So it's sort of like gone beyond can Trump fix it? It's look at what you're choosing to fund. And the the callers that are calling in, they're not pundits. These are people just connecting really straightforward and simple dots. And the model of someone like a Trump, as is the case with a lot of these authoritarians, it's not unique to Trump. You can only convince people that you're even potentially doing a good job for them if you introduce elements of confusion, misdirection and rely on low information environments like Fox News, for example, to do some of the tough work for you of propagandizing people. And when people start really thinking for themselves, that's a guy who's thinking, wait a second, there's incompetence. And like going to Iran is a bad idea.
- [61:31]
Caller 1
Cool.
- [61:32]
David Pakman
But this is my paraphrase and I'm kind of like layering my analysis on top of the caller's framework. But if I just look at how, when and where they are choosing to spend money and what their budget requests are, even if you didn't make some incompetent decisions, your priorities are all wrong. And hopefully voters will realize we got to punish some of these people for that in November. On the bonus show today, the Afroman lawsuit. This is a really interesting case and we're going to talk about it. We will also talk to you about, remember the old presidential daily briefing, which was extensive, which was shortened to a page for Trump, which was shortened to two bullet points and a picture for Trump. Apparently Trump is getting a daily video briefing on the Iran war, which is mostly news outlets talking about Trump looking strong when they can find him. And then finally, what about these gold coins that the administration is now promoting? We're going to talk about all of that and more. And remember that the Trump Gas membership drive is in its third of five days. Every day you can get a membership for the cost of a gallon of gas. In Trump's America, gas is up, but that's a very low price for membership. And today you can use the coupon code Trump Gas, all one word, all lowercase to get a membership discounted all the way down to 399. That's the cost of a gallon of gas. Today, the membership drives and drive ends Friday. Tomorrow the price will adjust to the price of gas. I think it's going up. So I think signing up today is better than tomorrow. I'll see you on the bonus show, of course.