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David Pakman (1:56)
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. 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