Ukraine Russia talks go wrong as Trump decline unavoidable

Summary

The David Pakman Show

Episode Title: Ukraine Russia talks go wrong as Trump decline unavoidable
Date: December 29, 2025
Host: David Pakman
Guest: Dr. John Gartner, former Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University and founder of Duty to Warn

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Episode Overview

In this end-of-2025 episode, David Pakman dissects the latest developments in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, focusing on a disastrous meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The episode further scrutinizes the fading "anti-war" narrative around Trump amid escalating military actions in his second term, addresses mounting concerns about Trump’s cognitive and physical health, debunks prevalent vaccine misinformation propagated by Joe Rogan, and highlights a shifting dynamic in right-wing American politics post-Charlie Kirk. The show features an in-depth expert discussion with Dr. John Gartner on the evidence and implications of Trump’s cognitive decline.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump-Zelensky Meeting at Mar-a-Lago: Missteps and Decline

[03:00–17:55]

• Pre-meeting promises: Pakman reminds listeners how Trump’s campaign trail bravado shifted timelines for ending the Ukraine war ("within 24 hours of being sworn in," then "within a month," then 90 days, now indefinite).
• Trump praises Putin: Hours after Russian bombing of Ukraine, Trump calls Putin "serious about peace" ([04:30])—a stance Pakman calls "so wrong" and dangerously naive.
• Confusing moral equivalence: Trump suggests both Russia and Ukraine are engaged in comparable attacks, failing to acknowledge Russia as the aggressor.
  Quote:

  “I think Ukraine has made some very strong attacks also. … There’ve been some explosions in various parts of Russia, and it looks to me like … it possibly came from Ukraine, but I haven’t asked that question. Maybe I won’t bother. They’re fighting a war and we’ll see what happens.”
  — Donald Trump ([06:31])

• Snapping at reporters: When asked pointed questions about security agreements, Trump responds, “What a dumb question. Nobody even knows what the security agreement is going to say” ([07:49]).
• Awkward press conduct: Trump awkwardly offers food to reporters, musing if accepting it would be a bribe ([08:50–09:29]).
• Post-meeting takeaways:
  • Trump emerges without substantive progress, continues to praise Putin, and claims, “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” citing supposed Russian generosity ([11:24]).
  • Pakman: “It was actually sort of difficult to watch … Trump just can’t, it seems, control himself.”
  • Trump reiterates faith in Putin’s intent:

    “I saw a very interesting President Putin today. I mean, he … wants to see it happen. He told me very strongly. I believe him.”
    — Donald Trump ([12:57])

  • When asked about American casualties in Ukraine:

    “The message is so obvious. It’s what a shame, what a shame. They died in a country, a foreign country.”
    — Donald Trump ([14:32])

  • Refuses to commit to ceasefire after speaking to Putin for “about two and a half hours… We discussed a lot of things. We weren’t talking about the weather.” ([17:00])

Pakman and Dr. Gartner emphasize Trump’s confusion, lack of empathy, and inability to distinguish aggressor from defender as signals of both political risk and cognitive deterioration.

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2. The Collapse of the “Anti-War President” Narrative

[30:25–35:36]

• Pakman traces the downfall of Trump’s cultivated image as an anti-war figure, highlighting several military operations:
  • Operation Southern Spear in the Caribbean: U.S. airstrikes and a naval blockade of Venezuela (over 100 deaths)—first major U.S. kinetic action in South America in decades.
  • Nigeria Airstrikes: Trump-authorized strikes on ISIS affiliates—announced triumphantly on Truth Social without public or congressional debate.
  • Operation Rough Rider in Yemen: Largest U.S. campaign in the Middle East since Trump’s first term.
  • Strikes in Iran: Direct bombing of nuclear sites, ratcheting up regional tensions.
• Narrative shift:

  “By no serious definition is this an anti-war presidency. … Trump is not treating military force as a last resort. He is using the military almost like a messaging tool. The strike in Nigeria becomes a Christmas announcement for his base.”
  — David Pakman ([32:30])

• Pakman warns: The increasing normalization of impulsive military action and the absence of robust checks and debate pose significant dangers globally and domestically.

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3. Trump’s Health: Growing Panic, Missing Transparency

[35:37–53:51]

Interview with Dr. John Gartner

• Topic: Trump’s cognitive and physical health in his second presidential term.
• Main takeaways:
  • Significant deterioration: Noted decline in language, behavior (increased impulsivity, paranoia), and motor function since first term.
  • Examples:
    • Language decline: From “articulate” in early public life to meandering, incoherent remarks now.
    • Paranoid/fantastical comments extend even to joking about “bad Santas” ([38:00–39:01]).
    • Increased impulsivity—erratic decision making, outbursts, and attacks on detractors.
    • Notable sleepiness; Trump reportedly falling asleep during important events and even at his own criminal trial ([46:12–46:18]).
  • Physical signs: Bandages, bruises, and what appears to be a lesion or indentation on his left hand. Speculation regarding regular IVs, possibly for cognitive or cardiac treatment.
  • Multiple cognitive assessments: Trump publicly boasts of “acing” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA) but has had it administered three times—a red flag, as repeat testing often signals observed ongoing cognitive loss ([47:30–48:59]).
  • Motor impairment: Trump displays a “wide-based gait,” dragging his right leg, trouble saluting, facial droop—highly suggestive of stroke or other neurological decline ([51:22–51:59]).
  • Lack of transparency: Dr. Gartner calls for the release of raw cognitive test data and MRI results, emphasizing that sanitized reports from Trump’s White House lack credibility.
  • Notable quote:

    “We are like three standard deviations from the mean here. This is not normal behavior by any conception.”
    — Dr. John Gartner ([46:18])

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4. Joe Rogan’s Vaccine Misinformation and Survivor Bias

[55:11–60:47]

• Pakman addresses a viral Joe Rogan segment that downplays the seriousness of measles and questions the value of the vaccine.
• Debunking Rogan's myth:
  • Rogan (born 1967) claims severe measles outbreaks were rare when he was growing up. Pakman shows that the measles vaccine—licensed in 1963—resulted in a 95% reduction in cases by Rogan’s childhood.
  • Rogan’s "natural immunity" narrative ignores hospitalization and death rates pre-vaccine and the role of herd immunity.
• Analysis:

  “The reason Rogan recollects that measles was not a huge deal when he was a kid is because the vaccine came out four years before he was born and it obliterated measles.”
  — David Pakman ([55:37])

• Pakman further notes the frequent confusion between chickenpox and measles in anti-vax rhetoric and reinforces the public health necessity of high vaccination rates due to measles’ high contagion.

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5. Right-Wing Legacy Disintegration: The Charlie Kirk Aftermath

[62:01–end]

• Post-assassination commodification: Following Charlie Kirk's killing, the right-wing machine quickly transitioned from mourning to monetizing his memory (giant banners, branded selfie spots at America Fest).
• **Kirk’s widow, Erica Kirk, rebrands as public face and leader of Turning Point USA, abandoning the organization’s familial “biblical woman” rhetoric in favor of power politics.
• Audience radicalization:
  • Many of Kirk’s former followers have drifted toward more extreme figures like Nick Fuentes, who now openly denounce Kirk’s legacy.
  • The right’s performative mourning quickly gives way to mockery and memeification of Kirk, demonstrating, as Pakman summarizes, “the modern right has a fundamental cruelty towards its own followers.”
• Memorable synthesis:

  “To the maga machine, Charlie Kirk was not really a person. He was a tool… Once he stops being a functional asset, a lot of them just throw him into the meme heap.”
  — David Pakman ([end])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Putin and Peace:

  “I think Putin is serious about peace.”
  — Donald Trump ([04:37])

• On the new “peace plan”:

  “Is a plan to get to peace. Putin gets out of the country he’s invading. How about that? As a starting point.”
  — David Pakman ([08:09])

• On American citizen casualties:

  “The message is so obvious. It’s what a shame, what a shame. They died in a country, a foreign country.”
  — Donald Trump ([14:32])

• On Trump's cognitive decline:

  "One of the things I always say about Trump is look at Donald Trump today because that's the best Donald Trump you're ever going to see. Because if he does have dementia... Dementia is a deteriorating illness."
  — Dr. John Gartner ([36:37])

• On Trump’s “anti-war” record:

  “By no serious definition is this an anti-war presidency... He’s using the military almost like a messaging tool.”
  — David Pakman ([32:30])

• On Charlie Kirk and the right:

  “They turned Charlie Kirk into a commodity... They’re using his death to raise money, using his wife to rebrand the company, using his name to push more cancel culture and then moving on...”
  — David Pakman ([end])

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Important Timestamps

• [03:00] — Breakdown of Trump-Zelensky meeting preamble & context
• [04:30/06:31] — Trump echoes pro-Putin talking points
• [07:49] — Trump lashes out at reporter
• [11:24] — Trump recounts call with Putin, claims Russian "generosity"
• [12:57] — Trump: "I believe him." (on Putin’s peace intentions)
• [14:32/14:40] — Trump's nonchalant response to American deaths in Ukraine
• [35:37] — Dr. John Gartner interview on Trump’s cognitive decline
• [41:45] — Example of Trump’s diminished empathy and impulse control
• [46:18] — Dr. Gartner: Falling asleep in court is “not normal behavior by any conception.”
• [47:30–48:59] — Repeated MOCA cognitive assessments point toward ongoing cognitive monitoring
• [51:22–51:59] — Physical symptoms: wide-based gait, facial droop, possible stroke indicators
• [55:11–55:37] — Joe Rogan’s measles rant and Pakman’s debunk
• [62:01–end] — Charlie Kirk’s fading legacy and right-wing reaction

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Tone & Language

The discussion is incisive, often tinged with disbelief and sharp humor (a David Pakman hallmark), especially when highlighting Trump’s confusion, the lack of meaningful progress, and the right’s hypocrisy. Dr. Gartner brings measured clinical expertise, bluntly labeling Trump’s deterioration and the threat it poses, while Pakman delivers sardonic and data-driven analysis on political and public health topics.

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Summary Takeaway

Pakman’s year-end episode delivers a scathing assessment of the Trump presidency—politically, militarily, and personally—arguing that both Trump’s capability and credibility are in rapid decline. The show highlights the danger of impulsive governance, the collapse of carefully constructed political narratives, the importance of transparency in presidential health, the lasting threat of viral misinformation, and the transactional coldness of modern American right-wing politics. Throughout, listeners are encouraged to demand accountability and truth—whether about war, health, or history.

Transcript

[David Pakman]

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[Donald Trump]

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[David Pakman]

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[Dr. John Gartner]

I'm not. Of course he did. Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list. And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and.

[David Pakman]

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[Dr. John Gartner]

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[David Pakman]

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[Dr. John Gartner]

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[David Pakman]

And the best part, you can make the switch to T mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes.

[Donald Trump]

Nice.

[Dr. John Gartner]

My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber.

[David Pakman]

The holidays are better. AT T Mobile switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 34 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 vice connection charge credit. Sentinel balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel financing agreement. 256 gigs $830 eligible Ford in a new line, $100 plus a month plan with auto pay fees required. Check out 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.com it's the most wonderful time of the year and Valpak is here to make it even better. This month, as you sip through holiday mail, don't miss the blue Valpak envelope. From dining to holiday shopping, there's a slate full of savings in your mailbox, plus a chance to instantly win $100. That's right, you can find $100 Christmas cash inside. Want to save even more money on what you love? Go to valpak.com for local coupons and offers. It pays to open Valpak. No purchase necessary for instant win voip where prohibited prices are randomly inserted. See specially marked Valp Pack envelopes for details. One of the final shows of 2025, Donald Trump spent the day meeting with the Ukrainian president. It went about as badly as you would expect. Trump praised Putin while Putin was actively bombing Ukraine and kind of shrugged when asked about deadlines, snapped at reporters, rambled while confusing basic facts. And then we're going to talk about something maybe even bigger, which is that Donald Trump has spent years branding himself the anti war president and I believe that that brand is dead. I'm going to give you examples and of of all of the strikes that he has launched in this second Term. We're also going to deal with the Trump health panic that has gone mainstream because of Trump's left hand rather than right hand appearing bruised and with some kind of hole in it. It's bizarre, but I will show it to you. And we will also talk about Joe Rogan again spreading fear. Factually incorrect nonsense about measles. And it's actually a prototypical example of some of the reverse logic that we see applied to vaccines by a lot of these folks. And finally, the latest solution that Republicans are floating for housing affordability. The 50 year mortgage is not going to help anybody. It is a trap and I will break it down for you. Glad you were here in almost 2026.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Foreign.

[David Pakman]

President Donald Trump met yesterday at Mar A Lago with the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky. Remember that Donald Trump promised that within 24 hours of becoming president elect last year, the Ukraine, Russia war would end. Then he said, well, It'll be within 24 hours of being sworn in. Then it was within a month, then, then 90 days. Then it was, well, we might end up having to walk away with this thing. And it is particularly unlikely to be resolved as Donald Trump seems increasingly confused and disoriented and in decline at these events. We're going to look at the before of the meeting and the after. Now, in the before, prior to the meeting even beginning, Donald Trump says, oh, he, he thinks Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is very serious about peace. This happened just hours after Putin spent the night bombing Ukraine. How are you going to have a productive and substantive discussion if you believe at the core something that is just so wrong? See, They're posing for a photograph here. President, do you think a series about peace this time?

[Donald Trump]

I do, I do. I think he is. I think they both.

[David Pakman]

All right, I think Putin is serious about peace. Putin spent much of the previous night prior to this meeting bombing Ukraine. Asked about deadlines where we have been a week away, two weeks away, very, very close to Trump's final deadline, which he has said, if Putin doesn't, then I'm going to. And then now Trump is asked about it and he goes, no, I don't have any deadlines and we'll continue a negotiation.

[Donald Trump]

Pretty complex, but not that complex.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Head.

[Donald Trump]

I don't have deadlines. I have, you know, my deadline is getting the war. And.

[David Pakman]

What happened to all of those deadlines? Remember, if Putin doesn't accept this deal or that deal by Thanksgiving or by Halloween or by Easter or whatever the next timeline is, all of a sudden there are no deadlines. Which is a sign that Donald Trump knows, to use his own phrase, that he doesn't have the cards and that he is increasingly impotent and lacks leverage to accomplish anything, anything here. Now, fortunately, there was a reporter there. I think all of the reporters knew that there is a question about Putin's commitment to peace, given that just hours before he was bombing Ukraine and the question came up, how is it that Putin is so serious about peace given that he was just bombing Ukraine? And what does Trump say? Trump goes, well, Ukraine has also done attacks missing, of course, that Putin is the aggressor here and Ukraine is fighting a defensive war. Listen, they've both attacked another one of these soft and quite frankly, not so soft defenses of Vladimir Putin. Some are saying that the recent attacks in the past couple days on Ukraine, serious about this.

[Dr. John Gartner]

But what is your reaction to that now?

[Donald Trump]

He's very serious. I think I can say that I believe Ukraine has made some very strong attacks also. And I don't say that negatively. I think you probably have to. I don't say that negatively, but I think he doesn't tell me that. But there have been some explosions in various parts of Russia. And it looks to me like, I don't know, I don't think it came from the Congo. I don't think it came from United States of America. It possibly came from Ukraine, but I haven't asked that question. Maybe I won't bother. They're fighting a war and we'll see what happens.

[David Pakman]

But I believe, yeah, and of course, as usual, always deferential to Putin. You know, Putin started this war. Is Putin ready to end the war? Is he ready for peace? Because he's been just viciously attacking even in the hours leading up to this meeting. Well, Ukraine's also done some attacks, I presume, although I haven't actually asked him. Maybe I won't even bother asking him that. Right. But Putin's the aggressor. Russia started this war years ago. Trump then, of course, snaps at a reporter, as he typically does. Trump doesn't like real questions. He doesn't like serious questions. And he goes, what a dumb question that is.

[Donald Trump]

Security agreements, what a dumb question. Nobody even knows what the security guy agreement is going to say. But there will be a security agreement. It'll be a strong agreement. And the European nations are very much involved in that. They'll be very much involved in protection. Oh, yeah, European nations have been here.

[David Pakman]

Is a plan to get to peace. Putin gets out of the country he's invading. How about that? As A starting point. What do we think about that? Well, they're both launching attacks. And yes, yes, it is a war, but it is a war in which one country's territory is being attempted to be taken by the aggressor country. It is a war in which if Putin said, all right, we're leaving the country, we're invading, it would be the best possible first step to peace here. Now, as the meeting was getting going in earnest, there was this kind of bizarre moment where Donald Trump says, well, now we're going to meet. Do the reporters want food? I don't know. You can speak. Do you guys want a little bit of food here?

[Donald Trump]

Are you okay? Is everyone fine? Margo, if you would. I think you could sit outside and have some food. Would you like to have food? Or do you consider that a bribe and therefore you cannot write honestly, or therefore you have to write a bad story? Okay. Because if you'd like. Would you like something to eat at this time? Yes.

[David Pakman]

Would you like overcooked steak and undercooked shrimp? We call it surf and turf here.

[Donald Trump]

Yes or no? You can speak. Yes. Okay, Margo, take them outside. Tell the chef serve them.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Thank you, Press. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys.

[David Pakman]

Thank you, Press.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Thank you, Press.

[Donald Trump]

That should guarantee.

[David Pakman]

Thank you, Press. Thank you, Press. Thank you, Press.

[Donald Trump]

They'll only get worse.

[David Pakman]

We have to make a stick. So there. The meeting started in earnest. And unlike Trump's Cabinet meetings, which are simply produced for television events, it appears as though there was actually a meeting here when the cameras were removed, which makes sense. This is the way that this is expected to operate. So that was the lead up. Trump seemingly confused about the stakes and no level setting whatsoever. Listen, we're just here to negotiate, right? But you remember, there's an aggressor country here and a country defending itself. Well, everybody's bombing everybody. It's a war. All right. So not an auspicious setup for these talks to start. We now are going to go to the Post Talk press conference. I don't know how I would rank how the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky went, but what I can tell you is that after the meeting, Trump did not appear to be the guy bringing significant progress to report, embarrassing himself again and again and again. It was actually sort of difficult to watch, and we're going to go through some of it. Remember the broader context. Trump promised this thing would have been long resolved. We now have heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others. Trump may be preparing to just back away from this Thing, it may be intractable. He may not be able to fix it. Trump, starting with Russia, wants Ukraine to succeed. And Putin is feeling, oh, so generous, really, because he was bombing Ukraine hours before the meeting. So in your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss what responsibility Russia will have for any kind of reconstruction of Ukraine?

[Donald Trump]

I did.

[David Pakman]

An agreement.

[Donald Trump]

I did. They're going to be helping. Russia is going to be helping. Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed once. It sounds a little strange, but I was explaining to the president, President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding.

[David Pakman]

He's so generous that he invaded supplying.

[Donald Trump]

Energy, electricity and other things at very low prices. So a lot of. A lot of good things came out of that call today. But they were in the works for two weeks with Steve and with Jared and Marco and everybody.

[David Pakman]

Yeah, a complete and total embarrassment, quite frankly. And Trump just can't. It seems that he is unable to control himself where even when he's with Zelensky, he praises Putin, he defers to Putin. Putin's so generous. Putin wants peace. Putin is ready. What about, get out of our country? How about that as a starting point? It's hard to imagine a worse person, a worse person to have in power right now. Trump saying that he saw a very interesting Putin today. And I guess the way that this went is Putin was on the phone either during, before or after the meeting with Zelensky. Trump, it was. Putin was so interesting today. I believe him. I believe him. We know you do. You've been saying that since the, the summit in Helsinki during your first term, during which he said, of course we didn't do any hacking. Sir, you in the past have suggested.

[Dr. John Gartner]

A trilateral meeting between both Presidents Putin and Zelensky.

[David Pakman]

Right. Something that is also on the docket.

[Donald Trump]

I see that happening, sure. At the right time. I saw a very interesting President Putin today. I mean, he. He wants to see it happen. He wants to see it. He told me very strongly. I believe him. Don't forget, we went through the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax together. And he called me. I'd call him. I'd say, can you believe the stuff that they're making up? And it turned out we were.

[David Pakman]

And Putin goes, of course I can believe it. I'm involved in. Right.

[Donald Trump]

They made it all up. And despite that, we didn't get into wars or we didn't get into problems, but we weren't able to trade very much or any of that, which was a shame because, you know, a lot of success could have been had by trading with Russia. They have Great land, great minerals and other things. And we have things that they want very badly. But the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which was a terrible, made up fictional thing by.

[David Pakman]

I don't know how Zelensky keeps his composure. I just, I just don't know how he does it in this environment. Trump was asked about the American citizens who have died on the battlefield helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Trump goes. I mean, listen, it's a shame. It's a shame. And you can really sense the empathy from Trump. In your conversation with you were saying that you've said multiple times that you.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Want to stop the killing and nearly 100American citizens died in Ukraine on the battlefield.

[David Pakman]

What's your message to their families whose.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Loved ones died fighting?

[Donald Trump]

Well, look, I mean, the message is so obvious. It's what a shame, what a shame. They died in a country, a foreign country.

[David Pakman]

It was a completely foreign country, by the way. They didn't die in a domestic country. Don't begin, lest anyone be confused. These were completely foreign countries in which these soldiers died. And it's a shame.

[Donald Trump]

And some are celebrated people. They're very celebrated. But so sad that a thing like that would happen. Yes, ma'. Am.

[David Pakman]

Obviously security. There you go. Just the Trump reeking with empathy and compassion. Trump asked, did Putin agree to a cease fire during these very high level discussions? Not exactly. Not exactly.

[Donald Trump]

Steve and with Jared and Marco and everybody. Russia agree or did Putin agree to.

[David Pakman]

A cease fire to allow a referendum to take.

[Donald Trump]

Not a cease fire. And that's one of the points that we're working on right now. No, not a ceasefire. He feels that, look, you know, they're fighting and to stop. And then if they have to start again, which is a possibility, it would.

[David Pakman]

Be really inconvenient to stop bombing Ukraine because we might have to start up again.

[Donald Trump]

He doesn't want to be in that position. I understand that position. The President feels strongly about that or something. But I think we're finding ways that we can get around that. But I understand President Putin from that standpoint. You know, you have to.

[David Pakman]

Trump is really empathetic to Putin on this issue, you know, to just stop fighting willy nilly when we might have to start fighting again. I just don't know. I just don't know about that. Trump then alluding, I guess to Joe Biden in one of these word salady statements where, you know, that he's running low on substance and so he's trying to ramp up the insults. And it really does seem as though former President Biden is Living completely rent. It's not even rent stabilized. He's living rent free in Trump's orange head.

[Donald Trump]

But I spoke to him, and we talk about Ukraine. I've said it before, it was the apple of his eye. But he wasn't going to do anything, but he didn't do anything about it until I was gone. And then a lot of really bad statements were made by people. By a lot of people, I guess, but by a certain president that we had who was a disaster.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Yes, a disaster.

[David Pakman]

Trump summing up his phone call with Putin, saying, it was about two and a half hours, and they talked about a lot of things.

[Donald Trump]

Snow.

[David Pakman]

We.

[Donald Trump]

Look, I was on the phone with him for almost, I guess, two and a half hours. They're just telling me now. It's a long time. We discussed a lot of things. We didn't talk about the weather. We weren't talking about how. What a beautiful day it is in Palm Beach, Florida.

[David Pakman]

I love how Trump goes. They've. They told me, we spoke two and a half hours is like, don't. Don't you have an awareness of how long you spoke to the guy? And then finally, finally Trump winding this thing down by saying, you know, Mar a Lago is so cool. I don't even know that Zelensky wants to go to the White House anymore. To which Zelensky goes, I would go to the White House.

[Donald Trump]

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

[David Pakman]

Thanks for lunch.

[Donald Trump]

I don't know. Was it a good lunch? Yes, sir. There's no lunch. He walked in, he said, this place is gorgeous. I don't think he wants to go to the White House anymore. That's the problem.

[Dr. John Gartner]

I'm ready to go to the White House. I know it is.

[Donald Trump]

The White House is a very special, special place, and so is this. I hope you enjoyed it.

[David Pakman]

You know, Trump saying Mar a Lago, like, the White House is a beautiful place. I think part of the reasons Alinsky is not super impressed with Mar a Lago is that it's sort of like dripping in gaudiness in a similar way to Kremlin and other facilities under Putin. And I just don't think Zelensky is impressed with that kind of Gilded Age, gaudy kind of stuff. Are we any closer to a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine after this meeting at Trump's house with Trump at the helm? Listen, I hope we are. I hope we are. But I struggle as I see Trump disoriented and confused about what even are the parameters here. I struggle to think that we are rapidly accelerating towards peace. Let me know what you think in a comment or send me an email info@david pakman.com all right, so we all know Alexa listens to us, recommends products based on our conversations. Metta retargets us based on our browsing and engagement history. 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As we wrap up 2025 and head into 2026, I want to talk about the narrative of the anti war president and what that really means. There is a very specific and carefully crafted narrative that Donald Trump has spent years sort of cultivating and that many of his supporters have actually Fallen for. And it's the idea that Donald Trump is truly deeply anti war as a matter of principle. He's the guy who finally stood up to the deep state. He's the guy who rejects the forever wars of the neocons and of the Democrats. And on the campaign trail, Trump would repeatedly sell himself as the only real candidate and, by the way, the only president during his first term who didn't start any new conflicts. And for a long time, that branding was kind of sticking. It never really made sense, but it was kind of sticking. But if you now look at 2025, as we get ready to head into 2026, that is a narrative that is not just falling apart, it is reversed. Where now I look at Trump and I see a guy who is actively starting all sorts of new conflicts. You look at Trump's second term, and he is governing as a president who is quick to reach for military force. He's using military force more broadly. He's using it with fewer institutional checks than almost any modern predecessor. And hilariously, a lot of the same people who fell for Trump as the antiwar president are the people who fell for Tulsi Gabbard's grift as the only true liberal, the only actual Democratic candidate against the forever wars back when she ran for president in the Democratic primary. And it starts with something that might sound symbolic. Then we're going to get to the specific instances of aggression. But this year, the administration started informally. I say they say formally, but it's sort of informally referring to the Pentagon as the Department of War in all official communications and internal materials. Now, that might sound like a gimmick. You go, that's just that that's bluster. Well, it isn't really, because it reflects how this presidency now views the military. It doesn't view the military and war as a last resort. It views it as the default tool. That's our default. Let's get going with some kind of military intervention. And look at the examples we have from the first year of Donald Trump's second term. The US Started executing airstrikes on vessels in the Caribbean as part of what the administration called Operation Southern Spear. Now, Trump said this is a maritime operation against narco traffickers. In practice, it was a naval blockade of Venezuela. It is a formal. Sorry. It is a form of an act of war without formally declaring that it is a war. And we know that at least dozens of strikes were carried out. It resulted in over 100 deaths. And this was the first major US kind of kinetic action in South America since the invasion of Panama in 1989. That is a huge escalation under the anti war president Donald Trump. Then came Nigeria. Now, I know that many of you are probably saying Nigeria, this happened just days ago. We had a holiday here in the U.S. maybe people didn't, didn't see this. Days ago, Trump authorized what he described as numerous perfect strikes against Islamic State affiliates in northwestern Nigeria. He made the announcement on Truth Social where he said, quote, tonight, at my direction as commander in chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS terrorist scum in northwest Nigeria who have been targeting and viciously killing primarily innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years and even centuries. I have previously warned these terrorists if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay. And tonight there was. The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes as only the United States is capable of doing under my leadership. Our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosperity. May God bless our military and Merry Christmas to all, including the dead terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues. No authorization vote, no public discussion, just missiles. The anti war president. Earlier this year we saw Operation Rough Rider in Yemen, the largest US Military operation in the Middle east since Donald Trump's first term. This huge air and naval campaign against Houthi targets that resulted in hundreds of casualties and escalated regional tensions there as well. Then we have Iran, where over the summer, Trump authorized direct stealth bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Not a warning shot, not a symbolic thing. It was an offensive gamble and it pushed the region closer to a full scale war. So by no serious definition is this an anti war presidency. Trump didn't end the wars. He isn't acting like an anti war president. He's not treating military force as a last result. With diplomacy is the ideal and the goal. He is using the military almost like a messaging tool. The strike in Nigeria becomes a Christmas announcement to his base. A blockade in the Caribbean is proof of how tough Trump is. And you could make the case, I believe pretty accurately that this is more dangerous than traditional interventionism. When a president sees missiles as a way to project dominance rather than as part of an actual strategy, the guardrails disappear. If presidents see missiles as part of a strategy, then and we might go, I don't think it's the right tactic for the strategy. That is one sort of disagreement. But Trump is merely using missiles and bombings to project strength and dominance. And there's no diplomatic off ramp when it's not really about Resolving conflicts. What's also telling is the reaction, or lack thereof, from his so called antiwar base. The people who spent years saying Trump's the anti war guy. These Democrats are obsessed with starting wars. Hillary would start four wars. Biden would start four wars. Trump then launches attacks in Nigeria, escalates in Yemen, authorizes more bombing in a single year than previous administrations did in four. And it suddenly becomes peace through strength. And they go, no, Trump knows what he's doing. They aren't really anti war, they were anti Obama war, they were anti Biden war, but they don't care when it's Trump. A functional democracy has to treat war as something that is difficult to start. There would have to be debate, There would have to be transparency. There would have to be authorization. Trump's dismantled all of it and he governs with this impulsive escalation and almost no oversight. Thirty years from now, I hope that 2025 won't be remembered as a period of restraint under an anti war president. It should be remembered as a moment when the world's most powerful military started to be the personal instrument of political theater for President Donald Trump. So Trump is not the anti war president. He's the most unpredictable war president that we've ever had, but maybe one of the most bloodthirsty as well. The reaction to online photos of Donald Trump's hands has gone off the rails. And we've got to reset what's going on now. This is not about some secret disease. It is not about wild speculation. It's not about turning a blurry picture into a specific diagnosis. This is about transparency, or more accurately, the lack of it. Let me tell you what's going on and the next shoe that has dropped. Trump's almost 80 years old. He's the president. His health matters. He has a long history of hiding, minimizing, or lying about his medical state. The context people keep skipping when they look at just a picture is that we have years of Trump propagandizing about his health and lying about it. We've now seen the bruising on the tops of Trump's hands. In newer pictures, what looks like an indentation or hole on Trump's left hand has appeared. On its own. It proves nothing. There are normal explanations for any one of these things, but the totality of the picture is now raising real concerns. It's even getting more mainstream coverage. The Daily Beast with a piece about it, pointing out that the latest images of Trump's hands directly undercut the story that we have gotten from Caroline Levitt Donald Trump's press secretary. It is not, excuse me, it is not just Trump's right hand. It is also Trump's left hand that is now raising questions, including what some are describing as a whole. On that left hand. We have still images from yesterday with President Volodymyr Zelensky. We have a better image, which does seem to show some kind of around something or other there. So there's a few stories here. Number one, they refuse to explain it honestly. We were told it's from handshaking. Trump doesn't shake hands with his left hand. He once bragged about acing a cognitive test and being in perfect health. But we get very little information or even braggadocio when it comes to what's going on with Donald Trump's hands. And that is where a lot of the concern is coming from. So the bruising on the backs of Trump's hands is arguably common in older adults. The combination of bruising plus an indentation that looks circular. Listen, this increasingly points in one direction, which is some kind of iv. Could be routine bloodwork. But would Trump have that on both of his hands? It's kind of less likely, is it that there is some kind of treatment for which Trump is regularly getting IVs in both hands? That's the natural speculation, but we have nothing to go on. There's no acknowledgment, there's no explanation, there's no update, there's no, oh, you know what Trump's regularly getting, you know, these lifestyle IVs that are now in or Trump is getting, and I'm not even going to speculate, but fill in the blanks. The sorts of things for which you would regularly have IVs in both your left and right hand. Some of them are relatively serious. Now, if this were just normal aging, they could be transparent. Tell us what's going on, and we would go, oh, okay, we had a question, we now have an answer. Trump's almost 80. No big deal. But we have a very different situation here. People wouldn't be zooming in on his hands. If there was a baseline of trust, people wouldn't be saying, what are the list of? What is the list that. That this could be explained by. If we felt all along like this was a White House that was transparent one about Donald Trump's health. So this isn't about saying, we now have a picture of a hole in Trump's left hand. We know exactly what it is. That would be irresponsible. This is about saying, in the midst of this total lack of transparency. We now have images of yet another problem. It's a visible sign of a medical intervention. They won't tell us what it is. They refuse to explain what's going on. It's handshaking. We are increasingly lacking confidence that we are ever going to get the truth until it's arguably too late. When the president's health is this black box, people will notice every new data point. And the newest data point is it's the left hand. Now, very clearly, Trump only shakes hands with his right. It's now the left hand and it looks like the sort of thing where you would be giving some kind of medication or drawing blood for reasons which we can only speculate about as to why he would be so regularly having blood drawn from both hands that he is bruising and and that visible round thing on his left hand. So this is only going to grow if and until we get a real explanation that seems genuine and transparent. This is only going to grow. Daily Beast is now covering it. New York Times, CNN have even started to cover it, albeit maybe somewhat reluctantly. What do you believe is going on here? Leave me a comment. Send me an email info at David pakman dotcom In 2025, Christian nationalism is no longer fringe. It is in policy. It is on school boards. It's in the courts. And it is not just a threat to atheists or non believers. It is a threat to pluralism, equality and even democracy itself. And this is why I support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They're one of our sponsors. They have been fortifying the wall between church and State since 1978. Their work is critical whether it's legal action against unconstitutional government prayer or stopping religious indoctrination in public schools, or defending the rights of nonreligious Americans. If you want to do something meaningful before the year ends, something that is aligned with your values, join the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Your support helps keep religion out of government and reason in the public square. Or you can gift a membership in someone else's name as a holiday gift. Visit ffrf.us/winter25 or text my first name David to 511511 before December 31st. This isn't about being against religion, it's about defending the freedom not to be told how or whether to believe by the government. The link is in the description text. Fees may apply. It is great to welcome back to the program today. Dr. John Gartner, former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and also founder of Duty to Warn. It's great to have you back on today. I really appreciate your time.

[Dr. John Gartner]

No, thank you for having me. And I just want to say I really appreciate all the reporting you've been doing on Trump's cognitive decline. You're really one of the leaders, I think, in the media who's really been covering this in a more granular way on a day to day basis. I know, because I get you in my feed every day.

[David Pakman]

Well, I appreciate that. And you know, one of the, one of the things that I think is changing is that this is a story that is starting to be at least somewhat more covered by legacy in corporate media. I saw Daily Beast is now talking about the round lesion on Trump's left hand. The New York Times, Jake Tapper is even talking about it. I want to hear from you, though. I mean, as a layperson, without making any diagnosis, I have 10 or 12 different things that I could just casually mention. I'm observing in Trump in this second term. But I kind of want to hear from you. I mean, what is different about Trump in this second term than while Biden was president and we saw Trump and even during Trump's first term.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Well, you know, one of the things I always say about Trump is look at Donald Trump today because that's the best Donald Trump you're ever going to see. Because if he does have dementia. Dementia is a deteriorating illness. And I've been writing and talking about this. We're doing op eds about this since 2019. As you can imagine, he's deteriorated quite a bit since then. All the people who've worked with him in his first administration now say that he's not the man that he was. They see the deterioration just in that brief period of time. So what we see in general when we diagnose dementia is we see deterioration in at least four areas. So one is language. Now, people don't realize this, but actually, Donald Trump used to be actually quite articulate. Yeah, he used to speak in polished paragraphs. He was always an asshole, if I can say that on YouTube.

[David Pakman]

You can, you can. But. Well, one of the things about that is recently we were preparing some content, you know, like Christmas related content about Donald Trump. And one of the, one of the videos that came up is when he was asked about his favorite Bible verse. This was when he was first running. And he gives this wacky answer about how it's. It's so deeply personal to him that he wouldn't want to privilege any one Bible verse over another. You know, it's just like a crazy answer. But the funny Thing is, he is extremely coherent and articulate in his speech compared to what I observe today. As wacky as the answer was.

[Donald Trump]

Right.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Exactly. And one of the things that happens when people develop dementia is whatever personality problems or personality disorder they have, it gets dramatically worse. So what we're seeing is really the worst version of Donald Trump. Right? So all of, as you say, he gave wacky answers. He was always paranoid, he was always prejudiced, he was always narcissistic. But, for example, now the paranoia is seeping into even deeper levels. Like you mentioned his Christmas behavior. I'll just jump to that. You know, he has this little child that he's talking to, right? He's playing Santa. Remember that scene? And he has the children phone and he goes, oh, well, we track Santa all over the world, and we have to make sure Santa is being good. I mean, Santa's a very good person, but we have to make sure he's not infiltrated, you know, that we're not infiltrating into our country. A bad Santa. So now his paranoia extends to Santa. Santa could be an illegal alien. Right.

[David Pakman]

And you see that as. You don't see that as just him making a joke.

[Dr. John Gartner]

It's not that funny. He's not really a real jokester to per se. It's. It's. It's that the level of his paranoia, you know, first they're eating the cats and the dogs. That was a deterioration. No, it's dumbing down to a more infantile, primitive, and sort of incomprehensible sort of level. But it's the same malignant personality traits. The other thing that we saw over Christmas was, you know, his posting 150 poison pen letters, you know, over the. Over the night. And one of the things I think has been underappreciated about Trump is that I think he's on the bipolar spectrum. I think he has hypomania, which is Greek hypos. Greed for less than. I wrote an article in 2015 in the New Republic in which I argued both Bill Clinton, who I wrote a book about, and Donald Trump have hypomanic temperament. However, because their personalities are so different, that energy and that charisma and that confidence gets expressed in almost polar opposite ways. But I think that the fact that he is so driven is part of what makes his disinhibition so dangerous that he's already at a kind of impulsive, hypomanic, driven kind of biology. When people become demented. I was going into the four areas where people deteriorate. One of them is behavior. They become much more impulsive. And we've noticed that with him. Right. Even though even by his own low standards. Right. The way he's behaving is even more grotesque and crazy. You know, the way he's just attacking every reporter by calling him piggy or stupid. And the fact that he's making impulsive decisions, that he canceled trade talks with Canada because he woke up in the morning and was offended because Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, you know, wrote something where he quoted Ronald Reagan, gave some tape around Reagan talking against tariffs. Why would you cancel a head of state meeting where you're negotiating national trade policy because somebody from that country, you know, published something on social media you didn't like, which happened to be correct, by the way. That's irrelevant, of course. So, I mean, this is what I mean about the impulsivity is that he's becoming much more erratic, paranoid, sort of violent and. And dangerous, really. So he's already character.

[David Pakman]

The impulsivity. You know, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died about five years ago, there's a video of Trump walking on, you know, the tarmac somewhere, and he's told Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. And he has a reaction that is quite human where he says, she lived an incredible life. It's sort of like a normal reaction when you find out even that it's. Even though she's a political adversary. I contrast that with the unhinged post after the brutal assassination of Rob Reiner recently.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[David Pakman]

Where he says he died of Trump derangement Syndrome. Is that an example of the lack of control, the impulsivity that you're talking about?

[Dr. John Gartner]

Yes, because, look, in private, he probably hated Rob Reiner and would have, you know, probably would have celebrated his death because he's basically an evil person who lives for the pain and destruction of his enemies. That's part of malignant narcissism. But he might have had the kind of frontal. Temporal. Frontal. Frontal lobe inhibition to know better than to say that. So grossly.

[David Pakman]

Right.

[Dr. John Gartner]

The other thing, by the way, about that post that I want to point out, is that it's much more dangerous than people realize because what he's saying is he was assassinated because he got someone mad. He got someone mad with the thing, the bad, anti Trump things he said.

[David Pakman]

Right. His opinions got arrangement syndrome.

[Dr. John Gartner]

So, yeah. So basically he had it coming and he got himself killed by speaking against me. And now you look at some of the tweets he's doing about Colbert, for example. He's a dead man. Walking. Someone should euthanize him. Essentially, this is part of his evil stochastic terrorism, which is kind of like I mistakenly attributed this to the wrong Henry on an earlier podcast where Henry II says, you know about Thomas Becket, will anyone rid me of this meddlesome priest? He's not saying kill the guy, but he's saying, kill the guy. He just doesn't want to have his fingerprints on it, you know, and so this is really. I think that that's even more ominous about that tweet is aside from the cognitive deterioration and the impulsivity it shows, it shows his true intent, which is basically death to anybody who dares to criticize me. You know, you mentioned that the dam is cracking now about people writing about his cognitive decline. Yeah, well, the New York Times came out with an article where they said, look, the guy only works from 12 to 5, you know, and meanwhile, he's falling asleep. You know, he's working 12 to 5, but he still can't stay awake.

[David Pakman]

Let me ask about that, because I have that on my list. You know, Trump famously has talked for a long time about how he only gets four to five hours of sleep. Now, there is a small portion of the population that only needs four to five hours of sleep. We don't know if Trump is in that portion of the population, but at least theoretically, he might be.

[Dr. John Gartner]

I think he is, actually. That's what it means to have a hypomanic temperament.

[David Pakman]

So the issue now is the limited schedule. Sometimes his online posting is interrupted only for a few hours in the middle of the night where he's presumably sleeping. But the theory is, well, what if he's getting even less sleep and that's why he's falling asleep during the day versus it's the daytime sleepiness associated with cognitive decline. How can we distinguish one from the other?

[Dr. John Gartner]

Well, I'm not sure we can. I think it's both. As a baseline, he has always been hate tweeting into the night.

[David Pakman]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Gartner]

This is not unusual for him to send out dozens and dozens, even hundreds of angry tweets in the middle of the night, so. Which is pretty disturbed when you think about it, and disturbing as a usual behavior. Right. You know, I just couldn't go to sleep tonight because I had 100 people I wanted to tell off, you know.

[David Pakman]

So you think it's a. It's not. It's some combination of. He probably is getting less sleep, and also it might be related to age or decline or whatever else.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Well, and this is a very common symptom. Of dementia, where people have this involuntary and inappropriate somnolence where they just pass out at random times. And now we know that he's very sensitive about this issue. The Daily Beast, which you mentioned, has been one of the, I think, on the vanguard of reporting about Trump's symptoms, reported that the one story he's the angriest about is the stories about him falling asleep. That's the one story. Forget Jeffrey Epstein. He doesn't want people to see his cognitive decline. And of course, unfortunately, the person that was cited in that article was me. And then the assistant White House press secretary went on to say, well, this just shows how invalid the Daily Beast is that they would, you know, quote, such a unprofessional, you know, partisan loser. But the thing is, it is indicative. But my point is, he knows it makes him look horrible, right? But he can't stop doing it. He can't stop himself from passing out. He, you know, fall asleep recently at that marijuana conference where they were signing something decriminalizing marijuana. And so he knows that it makes him look weak, but he can't stop.

[David Pakman]

It when it comes.

[Dr. John Gartner]

He fell asleep at his criminal trial. I just want to point out people.

[David Pakman]

He fell asleep at the trial. Yeah.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And I've asked, and I'll throw this out to your listeners, because I have asked dozens and dozens of lawyers, I'm saying, in your entire career, even once, in any case you've participated in or one you've heard about from a colleague, have you ever heard of a defendant falling asleep at the defense table? And they all have said to a man or a woman, never, not once. I've seen jurors fall asleep. I've even seen a few judges fall asleep. But when you're in the dock, right, and everyone's looking at you and your life is on the line, it's pretty hard to fall asleep. He didn't just fall asleep once. He fell asleep most days. So the reason I'm pointing this out is we are like three standard deviations from the mean here. This is not normal behavior by any conception. And the people who I think really know actually are his own doctors. You've been reporting on this very assiduously. All of these, you know, shifting explanations about what tests he got, why he got them, what the results were, none of which seemed to be true. It seems like he's telling one lie after another. And the medical report seemed very sanitized. But here's just one statistic, because he's the one who's really giving away the game. Here's what he's told us. He's taken the MOCA three times.

[David Pakman]

Okay. So before I have. This was on my list of questions. I want to understand this.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Yeah.

[David Pakman]

He talks about the MOCA test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test, which he says that he aced. A cognitive test. Right. He talks about the number of times it's been administered and that he did well as a badge of honor. A lot of people have written to me, and they've said. They've said being administered that test so often is itself a red flag. Flag. Why is he getting that test so often?

[Dr. John Gartner]

That's exactly the point.

[David Pakman]

Is that the point?

[Dr. John Gartner]

That is the point. Well, because we only. We might give it to someone as part of a normal physical. Like if it was, you know, an older person, an executive physical, you might include that as part of the battery. So there's been. Some people have recommended we do that with older people. We not don't often do it, but we do it sometimes. But if you're giving it to someone repeatedly, that means you're monitoring cognitive technology decline. You wouldn't be giving it to someone more than. I mean, even once a year would be a lot. But let's say you're doing a full physical every year. Okay? You could make it part of your standard battery if you're giving it to them again six months later, which is what they did when he went back to Walter Reed. You, as his doctor, believe he is showing such serious symptoms of cognitive decline that you believe it is your medical duty to monitor those symptoms on an ongoing basis. And I suspect they're doing the same thing with head MRIs, right. That they are monitoring his cognitive decline on a. On a regular basis.

[David Pakman]

Now, hold on. The MRI is. As far as we know, the MRI was not of his brain.

[Dr. John Gartner]

As far as he's told us. That is true. I am making a kind of a leap here because I think they're lying about that. Is that. That's my. That's my belief. I believe they're like, either they asked. Either he refused the test, which is possible, or he's lying about it. But no doctor who deserves to maintain their license, okay. Would suspect cognitive decline in an elderly patient and not give them a brain MRI if you're giving them a neuropsychological battery. And by the way, I think they've given him more than the MOCA because he's described how, when he was at Walter Reed, they gave him multiple tests, plural. Well, if they're giving him multiple tests, plural, that Means they're not just giving him a screening device. He's failed the screening device. And now they're giving him a more intensive neuropsychological workup, which takes about three to four hours. And that's how long he was at Walter Reed. If he was just there for a stomach MRI, he would have been there all 15 minutes. So I really don't think we can believe anything these people say. Obviously they lie about everything and even their own explanations about these medical reports have been shifting. But either they're giving him head MRIs and they're lying to us about it, or they deserve to have their licenses taken away because they're completely incompetent.

[David Pakman]

Do you believe that the hand bruising, makeup, bandages, and potentially what some are describing as a quote hole, which we are like, is that for an iv. Do you believe that's related to. Even though it's outside of area of expertise, do you believe it's related to what you are talking to us about today or that there are two separate stories here of the physical and the cognitive?

[Dr. John Gartner]

Well, I think that there is speculation for which I have no evidence that he may be getting an infusion of an anti Alzheimer's drug, but it's just speculation. It would certainly make sense. We've covered that one that we're saying. Right, and you've covered that before. But the other aspect that we're seeing here is we are seeing a lot of physical decline. Some of it, I believe is related to his dementia. For example, he's been showing signs for a long time of a very specific symptom that's very diagnostic of frontotemporal dementia. Elizabeth Zafman, a neurologist, wrote an article about this about a year ago in Salon. It's called a wide based gate where he, his right leg, he kind of swings it in a semicircle like it's a dead weight.

[David Pakman]

Yes.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And that has gotten dramatically worse since I think he had a stroke. Because we're seeing we that the wide base gate of his right leg has gotten worse on his right arm. He has trouble raising it to give a salute. He swings it like it's a dead weight. And he couldn't flip a coin at the football game, if you remember that.

[David Pakman]

Yes, I do.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And also his right side of his face was drooping.

[David Pakman]

Right.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And then he stopped doing that. I think he realized you can voluntarily stop doing that, but when he falls asleep, you'll notice his right face starts to droop again.

[David Pakman]

We've seen that.

[Dr. John Gartner]

So all of these are very suggestive that he's had some kind of stroke. And when people have dementia, they often die of strokes. So they go together is what I'm trying to say. People who are suffering from dementia, and in his case also, he has, you know, he has circulatory problems. Maybe it's venous insufficiency, maybe it's something more serious like a congestive heart failure. But in other words, there's a lot going on in this elderly man. He's aging, he has dementia, and I believe he's had a stroke.

[David Pakman]

Last, last question. We haven't gotten transparency from the White House really on any of these issues. Issues. What would transparency look like? Given that even when they put doctors up to make statements, that statements seem to be sort of propagandistic in nature, how would we get transparency?

[Dr. John Gartner]

Well, I always kind of jokingly say, forget the Epstein files, show me the mri.

[David Pakman]

Right. You mean the underlying, the actual document, not the, not the summary from the.

[Dr. John Gartner]

White House, not the report. I want to see the data. I want to see. I want to see the, the psychological test data. I want to know what tests he took, when he took them, how he performed. I want to know exactly what imaging was done and what was performed. And as you say, to see the raw data, not to see their sanitized version.

[David Pakman]

The other thing, they doctor that data as well though, couldn't they doctor those reports?

[Dr. John Gartner]

I mean, of course, you know, look, the problem is we're dealing with the most duplicitous administration in American history. I don't think there's anything they wouldn't do or say.

[David Pakman]

Hmm. Wow. Well, I appreciate you level setting at least. So we know what's happening and what we're looking at and then we will continue to seek that transparency. I think that's really all, all we can do. We've been Speaking here with Dr. John Gartner, former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and also the founder of Duty to Warn. Always appreciate your insights on the show.

[Dr. John Gartner]

I always appreciate you having me and please keep up the good work.

[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@join pacman.com this bums me out, but something seems to be going very, very wrong with podcaster Joe Ro. And the latest is a completely dilapidated rant about measles. Rogan gets the facts wrong, and therefore he gets the conclusion wrong. And one of the things that is a feature or a bug, I would argue, of some of this anti vax and pseudoscience rhetoric is that if your inputs are bad, your outputs are likely to also be bad. So here is Rogan talking about measles when he was a kid. Rogan was born in. Hold on, let me double check. I believe it's 1967. Rogan was born in 1967. That is relevant to our analysis here. Okay, so here is Rogan talking about measles and why the vaccine is really no big deal, and everybody got measles and everybody's fine. Okay, Check it out. Measles included. Speaking of the current thing, which is.

[Dr. John Gartner]

A controversy infection that everyone got when I was a kid. And what happened was you'd get sick for a few days and then you'd be immune for life.

[David Pakman]

Yep.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And they're making it look like everyone's dying from measles. Like, no, if you're dying from measles, you're sick, you're already compromised. Which is exactly what happened with COVID where 90 plus percent of the people who died at 4 plus comorbidities. Yeah. Jesus Christ.

[David Pakman]

Is why I. It was such a red pill for me because I was like, literally an ultra marathon runner that was going to the gym like, three, like three hours a day. Like, I don't. I need natural immunity. I already have natural immunity. Go fuck yourselves right now. I don't. I don't know who this guy is, but we have proven that going to the gym was not protective. It just was not protective. But I don't even. I don't even know who this guy is. I don't. I don't want to deal with that. Something is really off here about Rogan's measles take. Now here is the specifics of it. Rogan was born in 1967, and that really matters because the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963. And by 1967, the number of people getting measles was down more than 90%. We have the chart on the screen, and what you see is that at its peak, we had 8228-0094-7006-3000 measles cases a year. You go to 1967, 62,000 cases. Measles was well on its way to being eliminated when Rogan was born. When Rogan was 5, we had only 32,000 cases by the time Rogan was 5 or, you know, maybe 6, 7, 8. Right. I don't know when he's thinking of when he was a kid, we had seen a reduction in measles cases of 95%. This is a classic anti vax thing, which is the memory that I don't know when I was a kid, like nobody was really getting measles. Nobody was really getting very sick. I didn't hear about people dying from measles. So it couldn't be that the vaccine is necessary. The reason that Rogan recollects that measles was no big deal when he was 5, 10, 15 years old is because the vaccine came out four years before he was born and it obliterated measles. By the time he was growing up, 95% of the people that would have gotten measles were no longer getting it because of the vaccines, not because measles wasn't serious or it wasn't highly contagious. Now, the other possibility is, is Rogan confused between measles and chickenpox? I don't, I'm not. I'm just not sure. Chickenpox was really common in the 70s and 80s and that often was treated really casually. People would do chickenpox parties. You get a kid with chickenpox, you get a bunch of kids together, so they all get it and then they recover. And relatively few major issues. Maybe Rogan's confused between measles and chickenpox. I don't know. I looked and I wasn't able to find any evidence that measles was treated as this harmless childhood rite of passage where we would, you would try to get everybody to get measles to get over it. Before widespread vaccination, it was hospitalizing tens of thousands of Americans every year, and it was killing hundreds annually. Brain swelling, neurological damage, sometimes fatal, degenerative stuff would come up years later. And so that's why the framing here is so misleading. When he goes, you were sick for a few days and then immune for life. Of course, infection can provide immunity, but it comes with serious risk. And the vaccine also provides really good immunity without the risk of brain damage, without the risk of death. And that's the whole point. Presenting infection as he does as this kind of natural, low cost alternative just ignores why public health moved aggressively to vaccinate. And of course, his recollection ignores that he, as a youngster was the beneficiary of one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in American history, with cases coming down 95%. The other thing I think is relevant here is that there's a sort of survivor bias which is like my dad got measles also. We were just talking about it in fact. And most people who got it did survive, but the ones that didn't survive, many of them didn't live long enough to even have children. So like no one's around to talk about those individuals. And the reminder here is that the, that the are not. The contagion rate of measles is so high that the reason we vaccinate is because you need a really high level of vaccination to get herd immunity because it is that contagious. Totally incorrect. I don't want to say fabricated. He just seems to be remembering incorrectly. And to the extent that he accurately remembers that measles was not a huge deal when he was a kid, that's because of the vaccine and maybe he should be grateful for that. All right, let's now talk about the 50 year mortgage. I believe that this administration is completely out of ideas as to how to actually help people. And so they're coming up with anything they can and they are going to tell you it'll be great for you. But this is an example of something that would be a financial disaster. It's a solution that fixes absolutely nothing. So as a reminder, we've talked about this a little bit before. Scott Turner is here on Fox News talking about the 50 year mortgage. We're being, we're exploring it, we're discussing it. Take a listen and I'm going to tell you why this makes no sense whatsoever.

[Donald Trump]

I did mention it before and I'm going to ask you again about the 50 year mortgage. That's a really out of the box idea. The immediate criticism was it would lock younger people into longer interest paying payments.

[David Pakman]

Do you believe like some, something like.

[Donald Trump]

A 50 year mortgage could, could actually.

[David Pakman]

Work for, for people?

[Donald Trump]

You know, I think it's yet to.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Be seen, it's very early. I think more research needs to be done on a 50 year mortgage and.

[Donald Trump]

The other ideas that have been put forth. Because one thing from HUD standpoint, from.

[Dr. John Gartner]

My standpoint, we want to make sure that the housing market is secure and also for any fha, Ginnie Mae taxpayer backed market mortgages are stable and secure.

[Donald Trump]

For the American people.

[Dr. John Gartner]

And so the 50 year mortgage and other ideas that have been circulated through the public are being discussed, are on the table.

[Donald Trump]

But at the end of the day.

[Dr. John Gartner]

The President and the other leaders in the administration will discuss what's the best possible path a secure path to help.

[Donald Trump]

The American people to afford a home. Not just now, not just the younger.

[Dr. John Gartner]

Generation, not just Gen Z millennial, but all American people. And so again, it's a top priority for the President, myself and others. And so there's great days ahead and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

[David Pakman]

So Turner is being careful about saying, oh yeah, we're definitely going to do this 50 year mortgage thing. Because I think that for me, what's going to stop them isn't that it's a bad idea, which it is. It's going to be that they just can't get it done. And I think Turner recognizes that. They want to say that they are working at and looking at something, but they are not actually going to do it. And the 50 year mortgage is being pitched as an affordability solution and it really isn't. There is a difference between your monthly payment would be lower on the same home if you finance it over 50 years rather than 30, then arguing that this will actually deal with the housing affordability problem. And the problem with doing a 50 year mortgage is that it might look like an overpriced house is more affordable if you can spread the payments out over 50 years, but it will lock people into debt for most of their lives. Your monthly payment will be lower, that's for sure. But the total cost of the purchase is going to go way, way up because you're spending an extra 20 years paying interest, which can mean, depending on the price of the house, hundreds of thousands of dollars more over the life of the loan. Lower payment, much higher total cost now. Second, you build almost no equity with a 50 year mortgage. Your early payments are almost all interest, which is also the case with a 30 year mortgage. But with a 50 year, it's for even longer and that traps people. It's hard to refinance when you've built no equity by paying only interest for 5, 7, 9 years when you sell, you could end up being in a situation where you walk away with nothing, or almost nothing. Nothing. If prices were to fall, you would be completely stuck. Third, it doesn't do anything to reduce housing costs and if anything, it raises them. Why do I mean that? If you say, well, they're 2% of the population can afford a $500,000 house with a 30 year mortgage, but with a 50 year mortgage, all of a sudden, instead of 2% of the population, 3% of the population can afford this house, you've just added an additional 50% to the pool of people that can, quote, afford a house based on monthly payments that will drive competition for that house and it will drive prices up, not down. So we've talked about the real issues here. We've got to deal with zoning, we've got to deal with construction costs, investors buying homes, private equity buying homes. We need way more supply. The most direct path to reducing the price of something is to increase the supply. And a longer mortgage is not going to fix any of these things. And in fact, it's going to increase demand, increase competition and put prices up. So the message here that they're giving is we don't really have a solution, or at least we don't have one that we're willing to do because of our political biases. And so our idea is let's let people get a 50 year loan instead of a 30. Most of them, statistically, most people who get mortgages aren't even going to live 50 more years. I mean, that's just like actuarial tables. And it's a lifetime payment plan. That's what this ultimately is. Who really benefits if people spend 50 instead of 30 years paying interest? It's the people receiving the interest payments. And that is not what is going to really benefit the American people. It's not going to solve the housing issue. It's just going to stretch things out long enough that politicians hope you stop noticing that they made the problem worse rather than making it better. We have a truly remarkable and in many ways chilling situation developing on the American right wing right now. We are just a few months removed from the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. And what we're really witnessing is the disintegration of a legacy. Now, you might say, I don't think Charlie Kirk had a good legacy. I didn't agree with his political views for sure, but there was a legacy that they tried to prop up when he was killed, which the very right wing itself has completely destroyed. Let me explain. Right after the shooting, the Republican establishment went into what we might call martyrdom mode. We saw the flags at half staff. We saw the posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. We saw the calls for national unity, even if he had actually been a divisive figure in politics. But as we often see with these reactionary movements, the shelf life of sincere grief is very, very short. Trump changed the subject from Charlie Kirk's killing to his new ballroom when he was asked about Charlie Kirk, like a day or two after the assassination. Once the shock wore off, the right did what it does best, which is it turned Charlie Kirk into a commodity. Look at what happened at the recent America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona. It was not a memorial service, it was like a trade show. They had 50 foot barriers of Charlie Kirk's face. They weren't really a tribute, they were a backdrop for raising money. They had a prove me wrong tent replicas for selfies. So this was not about honoring Kirk, it was about protecting a revenue stream. And maybe the most kind of clinical part of this entire story is the role of Erica Kirk as widow. For years they built this Kirk brand on a very specific traditionalist vision of the family. The biblical woman who stays behind the scenes. And almost the moment that Charlie Kirk was gone, they discarded that Persona. And instead of the grieving widow that maybe was expected by the base, Erica Kirk emerged as this boisterous power wielding new person in charge of Turning Point usa. And she's no longer just maintaining the organization, she's rebranding the organization around herself. We saw her at the Dealbook Summit being interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin. We saw her on the main stages of America Fest with JD Vance taking this aggressive public facing leadership role, something she never did when Charlie Kirk was still alive. And it's a 180 that reminds us that entire traditionalist rhetoric thing, it was secondary. Primary is we must maintain the power structure. And the real kind of kicker here is that the young men that Charlie Kirk spent what, a decade radicalizing, they are not staying loyal to Charlie Kirk's memory. They're moving towards the fringe. We are seeing this migration take place from Charlie Kirk's former audience towards people like Nick Fuentes, the more extreme gripers. And they are now openly attacking Charlie Kirk's memory. They're mocking his ties to Israel, which they don't like. They're dismissing his brand of mainstream MAGA as outdated. And even Candace Owens, she's kind of still involved with the organization. I think in some way she's using her platform to kind of lean into the very criticisms there are. Eroding Charlie Kirk standing among the youth. And then of course, you've got the Internet. Because the right tried to force this image of the sainted martyr of Charlie Kirk. The Internet responded with a wave of Kirk ification. If you look up Charlie, I think that if you look up Charlie Kirk In 30 years, you are not going to see him remembered as the serious statesman that Trump and Don Jr. And others sort of immediately tried to make him out to be. You're going to find a footnote about a campus organization. And pages upon pages of AI generated brain rot videos and memes about Charlie Kirk's appearance and clips of his peers using his death to grift for more donations. And so the ultimate lesson of the Charlie Kirk story and the American right wing is that the modern right has a fundamental cruelty towards its own followers. To the maga machine, Charlie Kirk was not really a person. He was a tool. He elevated what they found useful. He supported Trump. He arguably helped Trump get elected by pushing young men to support Donald Trump. And then he stops being a functional asset. And now a lot of them just throw him into the meme heap and they're kind of eating his legacy. Using his death to raise money, using his wife to rebrand the company, using his name to push more cancel culture and then moving on to whoever is going to be the next avatar. I don't think it's going to be this. There's this kid, Brian Holly Hand, who's trying to become the next Charlie Kirk. It doesn't seem to be working. I don't think they're wacky enough to allow it to be Nick Fuentes, although Fuentes is definitely making a move. But the way that they have done away with even his legacy as they saw it, is a reminder that the people running the Republican Party care about power and power alone. And it is, in a sense, even though I didn't agree with the guy, it's kind of sad to see them do away with the legacy so quickly. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. I will see you there. Join pacman.com is the place to sign up. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits. Plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with 3 plus lines include 30 line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. 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[Donald Trump]

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[Dr. John Gartner]

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[David Pakman]

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[David Pakman]

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[David Pakman]

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[Donald Trump]

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[David Pakman]

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