War backfires, base revolts, gas prices spike as market collapses

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The David Pakman Show

Episode: War backfires, base revolts, gas prices spike as market collapses
Date: March 3, 2026
Host: David Pakman
Featured Guest: Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)

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Episode Overview

This episode offers a sharp, satirical, and incisive critique of the latest developments in American politics:

• Recent closed-door Congressional hearings with Bill and Hillary Clinton regarding the Epstein files,
• The political fallout of Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran—and how that decision is dividing even his core supporters,
• The resulting economic shocks, especially surging gas prices and stock market turmoil,
• Surreal moments at the White House and the United Nations involving President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump,
• Broader questions about legality, constitutional process, presidential competence, and political accountability.

David Pakman analyzes these developments with his trademark wit and skepticism, highlighting the dysfunction and absurdities at the center of U.S. politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Clinton Deposition: Republicans' Hearing Backfires

• Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton testified in a closed-door hearing about their connections to Jeffrey Epstein. The proceedings, contrary to Republican aims, made Clinton look measured and competent while exposing Republicans' own embrace of conspiracy theories ([01:56–13:20]).
  • Hillary Clinton openly addressed and dismissed conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, Comet Ping Pong, and “frazzledrip,” calling them “outrageous” and dangerous ([08:33]).
  • Lauren Boebert defied the hearing’s rules by posting photos from inside the classified hearing—further diminishing the Republicans’ credibility ([05:12]).
  • Republicans, especially Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, repeatedly brought up baseless conspiracy theories and were rebuffed by Clinton and her legal team.
  • David Pakman’s take:

    "It's hard to imagine...hearings that made Hillary Clinton look extraordinarily sympathetic." ([05:51])
    "You don't have to do anything to get these people to humiliate themselves. They're doing a good job on their own." ([11:05])

Notable Quote

• Hillary Clinton:

  "Pizzagate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people that caused a deranged young man to show up with his assault rifle and shoot up a local pizzeria. I can't believe you're even referencing it." ([08:33])

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2. Trump’s War on Iran: Political and Economic Fallout

• Trump’s invasion of Iran directly contradicts his long-touted promises to avoid new wars, resulting in visible revolt and confusion within the MAGA base ([13:20–21:10]).
  • MAGA-aligned figures (e.g., Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith) and establishment conservatives have turned on Trump over the war.
  • White House allies, like J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, are fumbling to justify the war as "defensive" rather than "proactive", with Marco Rubio famously invoking "proactively defensive" as the new party line—a phrase Pakman openly mocks ([19:52], [65:12]).
• Gas prices have spiked 13%, with more increases expected, directly affecting Americans’ cost of living.
  • Oil prices rose from $72 to $77 a barrel in one day, with some predictions of $120–$200/barrel if conflict escalates ([21:30]).
  • Stock markets tanked—Dow down 1200 points—impacting millions with retirement savings ([23:55]).

Notable Quote

• David Pakman:

  "Trump is burning up and skid marking to a stop over this Iran fiasco… the backlash here is starting to come from the MAGA right now." ([13:20])
  "We now have Trump openly launching a war in Iran. Republicans are falling all over themselves to say, well, it's not a war, or it is a war, but Trump didn't start it. Trump's going to end it. Pick your own adventure, mad libs." ([13:23])

• Marco Rubio:

  "We went proactively in a defensive way." ([65:12])

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3. Leadership Meltdown: White House & U.N. Optics

• While Melania Trump chairs a U.N. Security Council meeting, President Trump is at the White House, barely coherent, rambling about drapes during a ceremony for fallen soldiers ([29:28–31:27], [53:05–56:03]).
  • Melania’s awkward UN appearance raises questions about Trump’s capacity and priorities.
  • Trump’s bizarre behavior at public events—including focus on decor and apparent health issues (e.g., a mysterious neck rash)—draws attention to questions about his fitness.

Memorable Moments

• Trump at medal ceremony:

  "See that nice drape? When that comes down? ... I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold, but I think we can save a lot of money." ([30:23])

• David Pakman:

  "This was not a meeting of interior designers. This was a medal ceremony. ... Anything Trump does is bizarre." ([31:27])
  "Would Trump slurring his way through the meeting be more or less presidential than just sending Melania Trump, who has no business being within a mile of any of this stuff?" ([56:03])

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4. Is Impeachment Next? Political Consequences

• Growing calls for Trump’s impeachment over Iran, especially if Republicans lose the House in 2026.
  • Betting markets now say it's more likely than not that at least one Republican will join impeachment efforts this year ([18:30]).
  • Pakman:

    "Are we beyond the point at which MAGA loyalty is going to remain? Because this has gone so far beyond the pale." ([19:03])

  • However, conviction in the Senate is viewed as unlikely.

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5. Interview: Senator Ruben Gallego

Pakman’s interview with Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) explores:

• Legal and Strategic Failures:
  • The administration has failed to articulate a national interest for war in Iran or to secure Congressional authorization ([36:27–37:25]).
    • "We essentially went to war because Israel was going to attack Iran and Iran was going to attack back. ... Our war making decision was left up to Israel’s actions, which is ludicrous." —Sen. Gallego ([37:25])
• Dubious Justifications:
  • Contradictory rhetoric (“defensive” vs. “proactive”) signals confusion and a lack of clear strategy ([41:20]).
    • "We're like entering in like 1984 George Orwell, you know, like doublespeak." ([41:20])
• Elections and Political Motivation:
  • Gallego doubts Trump will use war to delay elections, but expects attempts to suppress vote-by-mail and sow chaos ([43:33]).
• Economic Crisis:
  • War and surging gas prices exacerbate Americans’ financial precarity, with direct, immediate impacts on families ([47:53-52:04]).
    • "Groceries are really, really bad right now. ... All these little economic indicators create such anxiety, especially for working-class people." —Sen. Gallego ([51:45])

Notable Quote

• Sen. Ruben Gallego:

  "This whole thing was just not planned out. It makes it extremely dangerous, extremely volatile... We have moved basically 50% of our war making capabilities to the Middle east ... [but] the President's not actually answering questions..." ([39:20–41:20])

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6. War Justifications: “Proactively Defensive” and the Nuclear Deal

• Marco Rubio defends the strikes as “proactively defensive”—claiming preemptive action was needed to reduce casualties ([64:10–66:33]).
  • This wordplay epitomizes the administration’s lack of clarity and avoidance of Congressional process.
• Trump’s remarks stress that Iran was “very nearly” an “intolerable” threat due to missile and nuclear capacity ([66:52]).
  • Pakman reminds listeners: Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal created conditions for the current escalation ([67:21]).

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7. Broader Themes & Political Satire

• Contrast with Democratic conduct: Clinton’s steady performance versus Republican spectacle.
• Erosion of political norms: Blurred lines between policy and self-preserving theatrics; the normalization of dysfunction.
• Deteriorating transparency: Both in Trump’s health and foreign policy, the public gets only vagueness or misleading justifications.

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Summary Timestamps

• Clinton deposition and GOP embarrassment: [01:56–13:20]
• Trump’s Iran war & MAGA revolt: [13:20–21:10]
• Economic impact and gas prices: [21:30–29:28]
• Trump’s public appearances and health: [29:28–31:27]
• Impeachment politics: [18:30–21:10]
• Sen. Ruben Gallego interview: [36:00–52:18]
• Melania at U.N. and White House optics: [53:05–56:03]
• Marco Rubio’s statements: [64:10–66:33]
• Trump on Iran “threat”: [66:52–67:21]

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Notable Quotes (with Attribution and Timestamps)

• Pakman on the Clinton hearing fallout:

  "It is hard to imagine...hearings that made Hillary Clinton look extraordinarily sympathetic. ... And they expose themselves for the publicity seeking conspiracy theorists that they are." ([05:51])

• Hillary Clinton on Pizzagate:

  "Pizzagate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people... I can't believe you're even referencing it." ([08:33])

• Sen. Ruben Gallego on war motives:

  "There was no national interest for us to do this this way. ... We weren't even properly aligned to actually do it and have the protection that we needed." ([39:20])

• Marco Rubio:

  "We went proactively in a defensive way." ([65:12])

• Pakman on economic shock:

  "You just lost two and a half percent of your retirement account today. ... Expect, expect everything to get much more expensive." ([23:55])

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Conclusion

This episode captures a moment of cascading political and economic crisis: a war that undermines the President’s core promises, a political party fractured by its own contradictions, and a president whose erratic public behavior and stonewalled health concerns inspire only more doubt. Through incisive commentary and a revealing interview with Sen. Gallego, David Pakman exposes the derailing logic, economic jeopardy, and spectacle at the heart of American governance in 2026.

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Transcript

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

we have the Clinton deposition video and it is really something else. We're going to look at clips of Hillary Clinton eviscerating Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. It turned into a conspiracy hearing. It did not go well for everybody trying to make Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton look bad now. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's own base is turning on him over the promise that he made where he would never start wars, but he has started one. Gas prices have already spiked 13%. Oil is surging the affordability. President is now presiding over what could be another inflation shock. We're also going to look at Melania Trump chairing a United nations meeting while Trump is at the White House rambling about drapes. And what is Trump's newest symptom? A bizarre neck rash. And the White House explanation, as usual, only raises even more questions. Then was it a defensive strike on Iran or was it a proactive strike on Iran? Marco Rubio says it was both. And we kind of have to go back to what words mean to try to figure out what on earth they are talking about. Well, they trotted out Bill and Hillary Clinton for hearings about the Epstein files. And I couldn't imagine it backfiring any worse. So let me remind you, Hillary and Bill Clinton wanted open door hearings on camera hearings about the Epstein files. Republicans said, no, it will be a closed door hearing. It'll be recorded and then later we will publish the video that has happened. It was a complete and total disaster and seems to be one of the biggest political miscalculations that Republicans have made in a very long time. Now, maybe the most explosive moment, and a lot of these moments involve Lauren Boebert, who tried to show up with very stiff and firm questions, but ended up getting beat back brutally by Hillary Clinton. During the hearing, Lauren Boebert published a picture of Hillary Clinton, which is against the rules. Hillary wanted an open door public hearing. Republicans said, no, it will be closed door. That's it. And then Lauren Boebert publishes a picture which was then reposted by Benny Johnson. Here is the moment where Hillary Clinton's legal team interrupts and says, wait a second, wait a second. Who published a picture? Lauren Boebert says it was me and Hillary is not taking it from these

[Lauren Boebert]

people to the fundraiser to support my friend Nia Lowey.

[Donald Trump]

All right.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Excuse me, can I interrupt? I have another photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying from inside this room. Can you please advise me as to whether or not that's permissible and consistent with the rules, particularly given that we have asked for a public hearing. If there are photos that are being released of the secretary, she is testifying. Can you please explain how.

[Lauren Boebert]

I'm done with this. If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home. This is just typical behavior. Oh, for heaven.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

So I would like to understand how

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

that's permissible or the hearing was.

[Lauren Boebert]

It doesn't matter.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

We all so understand that. What's happening is that's Lauren Boebert saying, I did publish one and it was before the hearing started to which Hillary says it doesn't matter. You'll now hear Boebert say that she is going to take the picture down.

[Lauren Boebert]

Are abiding by the same rules.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

I will take that down.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Yeah. Well, I would like to take a break at this.

[Lauren Boebert]

I'd like to have for now go off the record.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

This was such a humiliation for Republicans who tried to trot out Pizzagate conspiracy theories Anthony Weiner's laptop frazzle. We'll get to all of it. But it is hard to imagine. I mean, listen, Hillary Clinton is not that well liked. Many Democrats don't like Hillary Clinton. Republicans really dislike her. And they came up with hearings that made Hillary Clinton look extraordinarily sympathetic. She showed up and answered questions even though she had never met Jeffrey Epstein, met Ghislaine Maxwell, I guess because Ghislaine Maxwell was someone's plus one at Chelsea Clinton's wedding. And they expose themselves for the publicity seeking conspiracy theorists that they are. Here is Lauren Boebert asking Hillary Clinton about Comet Ping Pong, John Podesta, Pizzagate and whether pizza was a code for something. You can't write this stuff. I mean, you, you don't. Why interrupt your adversaries when they are doing a great job at destroying themselves?

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Campaign $25,000 via affiliate.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Could you state for the record it was not to the campaign. So if you wouldn't mind just stating

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

$20,000 to Hillary's 1999 Senate.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

No, it was a joint.

[Lauren Boebert]

It was a joint state campaign.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Joint campaign. Okay, sure, fine. Okay. So we have talked about those connections in past public statements, as in 2017 speeches and interviews, you described Pizza Gate as a baseless conspiracy theory alleging you and others ran a child sex trafficking ring from a Washington pizzeria based. Pizzeria Basement from a pizzeria.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

I like that.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Have you reviewed any 2025, 2026 Epstein files that were released that you believe, reference or relate to those.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Now, what's funny is the questions are worded so poorly and Lauren Boebert is so terrible at reading that the syntax comes out garbled and you'll see that Hillary Clinton's lawyers have to clarify. What are you even asking?

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Specific 2016 claims regarding the Podesta emails. Comet Ping Pong pizza used as code.

[Nancy Mace]

Possibly.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

I'm sorry, you're Asking her about whether she's reviewed emails in the Epstein files which relate to the wacky Pizzagate scam.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

You can characterize it however you want. I just would like to know if she's familiar with any of them, so.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Excuse me. Your question is about whether or not she has reviewed any emails in the Epstein release files about Pizzagate.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Correct.

[Lauren Boebert]

Pizzagate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people that caused a deranged young man to show up with his assault rifle and shoot up a local pizzeria. I can't believe you're even referencing it. You should be there.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

There are connections to the language.

[Lauren Boebert]

Well, the QAnon people believe there are. So I don't know what have at it.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

But you've accused certain parties, and I think even right now today of promoting slow walking information in ways that fuels conspiracies. In your view, did any Epstein Maxwell related investigations or file handling Pre or post 2019 contribute to or intersect with the spread of Pizzagate style theories about Democrat figures?

[Marco Rubio]

Objection.

[Lauren Boebert]

I have no way of answer. That is the most speculation.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Ridiculous.

[Lauren Boebert]

Ridiculously.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Have you or your representatives identified any Epstein file?

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Notice that she won't even let her answer the question.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Content that has been misinterpreted online to revive those claims. And what steps, if any, have you

[Lauren Boebert]

taken to clarify Again, objects the ground of.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

I think that this is all very reasonable.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Well, first of all, Bo Bear thinks things. It's all completely reasonable. I like that. All right, one more example. Then they got into the extremely salient issue of Anthony Weiner's laptop.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

All sorts of things here.

[Lauren Boebert]

You certainly are. You certainly are.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

We're just trying to get the truth out to the American people.

[Lauren Boebert]

That would be very helpful.

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Are you aware of any files that were on Anthony Weiner's laptop in a folder that was titled and insurance, life insurance with a zip file titled frazzle Chairman's ruling.

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This is way out of the scope. This.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Is this within the scope?

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Mr. Chairman, Chairman rules that it's not when the scope.

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

Mr. Chairman, based on what you said in the public hearing. Is this within the scope?

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

We can go off the record For

[Hillary Clinton's Legal Counsel]

a moment, Mr. Chairman, is this within the scope?

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Record and consult.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

All right. So then they go off the record. And then here's one more. This is Nancy Mace kind of trying to do the exact same thing. And you know, you don't have to do anything to get these people to humiliate themselves. They're doing a good job on their own.

[Lauren Boebert]

Very much about at all.

[Nancy Mace]

And how do you know Howard Lutnick?

[Lauren Boebert]

I know Howard Lutnick because when I was senator on 911 the firm he headed, Cantor Fitzgerald suffered the greatest loss of life as I recall something like 650 of his employees were murdered.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

By the way editorial note. Hillary Clinton's almost 80 and she is

[Lauren Boebert]

sharp as ever by terrorists. That day Howard Lutnick missed being a victim because he was delayed dropping his child off to kindergarten. You asked the question. I'm going to answer your question. This was what I spent my time doing.

[Nancy Mace]

I'm a survivor trying to look out for others survivors trying to well and

[Lauren Boebert]

I was taking care of the people

[Nancy Mace]

who lost 3,000 lives and now you're being defined today you asked me I have Howard EPSTEIN, I have 16 survivors. I'm a survivor myself. You have emails, you've denied that Jeffrey Epstein that you tried to get Jeffrey Epstein to give money to you. I did not. Howard Lutnick was.

[Lauren Boebert]

If you have an email with me

[Nancy Mace]

asking Jeffrey Epstein for money from Howard Lutnick sending it to Jeffrey Epstein and his people to raise money. I don't know about an event, an intimate event for you at his office at Canter 50. Joe, you're going to sit here if you let me finish obfuscate and say to this committee you didn't try to get money from Jeffrey Epstein when there was an intimate event in an email that Howard Lucknow emailed to Epstein's people and Epstein to get him to come to your intimate event at Canter Fitzgerald. A very small event and so I'm not going to public. You want to yell at me, that's fine but I'll yell right back. Well, I am looking out for support. I'm doing the job that you would not do and if you to do as Secretary of state thank you and I yield back to you.

[Lauren Boebert]

No, I'm going to finish answering the question which I have a right to do. I am very sympathetic to your personal situation. I have read about it. I have seen you testify or speak on the floor about it and I very much sympathize with not only what you went through but appreciate your effort to stand up for survivors. I was a senator representing the people who were murdered on Anyway, I think

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

you guys get it. Hillary Clinton just taking control of this as whack jobs like Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace try to draw her into discussions of conspiracy theories and the like. Completely not newsworthy in any way these hearings of Hillary or Bill Clinton other than the fact that Republicans so publicly debased and embarrass themselves. I hope they feel good about themselves. And now, now let's see whether Trump testifies because he's in the files. What, 100000 times? 20000 times someone said a million. That's probably hyperbolic. But if, if the Clintons need to testify based on their presence in the files, what argument is there for Trump not to testify? Donald Trump's base is starting to revolt and impeachment is now on the table. I didn't say conviction, but I said impeachment. Trump is burning up and skid marking to a stop over this Iran fiasco. Now let's set the stage. Trump ran on no new wars. I'm the anti war president. I'm the guy who will keep us out of wars. In 2016, it was Hillary will start four wars, but I won't. In 2020, it was Biden will take us to war, but I won't. And in 2024, it was Kamala Harris is going to start a bunch of wars, but I won't. We now have Trump openly launching a war in Iran. Republicans are falling all over themselves to say, well, it's not a war, or it is a war, but Trump didn't start it. Trump's going to end it. Pick your own adventure, mad libs. Whatever sounds better. It can be a war or not, depending on how you can praise Trump rather than criticize him. Now the civilian deaths are mounting. That includes children. U.S. troops have been killed. Trump says more will be killed. Pete Hegseth says more American troops will be killed. And Trump was running the entire operation over the weekend from Mar a Lago while dancing with people and looking swollen and sweaty and orange. As this was all proceeding, the backlash here is starting to come from the MAGA right now. I want to remind you this is not an adjudication of whether the Ayatollah was a good guy. He wasn't. This is not an adjudication of whether Iran is better off with the ayatollah gone. Iran is better off with the ayatollah gone. Of course, The Ayatollah was 86. They already had a succession plan in place. And it's not clear that this will even really change who's in charge. But the ayatollah is terrible. I'm against authoritarian regimes, theocratic regimes. I'm against Maduro. I'm against the Cuban regime. I'm against Orban. I'm against Putin. I'm against Kim Jong Un. And of course, I was against the ayatollah. But the questions are different ones. Was this legal? Does anyone care? Is Trump sticking to what he promised he would do during the campaign? And now we are starting to see people like Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, pro Trump pollsters who say this is the very wrong direction. Forget about Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has already abandoned Trump. And later in the show, we'll get to her latest statements about what is going on. A whole bunch of right wing people are saying, this isn't what we signed up for. This isn't what Trump promised and this needs to stop right now. Now, what we do have are people like J.D. vance and Tulsi Gabbard, who for the last eight years have been saying we shouldn't be doing stuff exactly like this, in the position of having to come up with justifications for it. Because, of course, they're in the administration now. You can no longer go with Trump the dove. Trump would never start wars. He would never attack anybody. It's having to shift because Trump is starting a war. So the shift is the, this is defensive. And later you'll hear from Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio goes, well, we had to attack them because if they were attacked, they might have come after us. So we were being proactively defensive. What do words have no meaning anymore? Proactively defensive. And so we now have a situation where for different reasons, a bunch of different factions say they've had it with Donald Trump. The constitutional conservatives say again, he didn't go to Congress. We have no authorization for military force. Congress determines whether we can do do this. Trump didn't do it. And so there is a legal and constitutional issue. There are those who are simply, they don't really care about the legality. They never have. They care about the fact that Trump is going against what he promised while he was campaigning and they want him out. And so the situation in which we now find ourselves is one in which especially, and I would say arguably only if Republicans lose the house in 2026, it seems as though Trump is likely to get impeached. But it is also increasingly likely to include Republicans. In fact, if you look at the betting markets and more and more people believe that at least one Republican is going to join the Trump impeachment call. There's a Kalshee betting market. Will a Republican member of Congress call for Trump's impeachment before 2027, meaning during this year that has breached 50% for the first time over the last few days. In other words. In other words, there is growing belief that even some Republicans are going to say yes, Trump must be impeached. Now they have a couple of options. The hardcore Trump base can go and do their mental somersaults where logic gets flushed down the toilet. They put themselves into any position they can because their dear and beloved leader has commanded it. We vote for him because he's the anti war guy. We support him because he's now the pro war guy. Who cares? But the question that's now growing is even though he will have his hardcore cult base there, are we beyond the fracture point? Are we beyond the point at which MAGA loyalty is going to remain? Because this has gone so far beyond the pale, I do expect that if Republicans lose the House in November, Trump gets impeached. I don't believe he will be convicted. There's not going to be a supermajority in the Senate willing to convict. But I agree with a lot of the people out there who believe that Trump is ultimately going to get himself impeached. The Iran stuff, by the way, is only one of about 10 different reasons he would be subject to impeachment. What do you think? Leave me a comment. Send me an email info@david pakman.com A

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

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Go to start mail.com/pacman to get 50% off your first year the link is in the description well, gas prices are spiking and the affordability President is down on his knees in shambles. Trump's war is pounding your wallet. Let me first give you the sort of generic 30,000 foot overview. That overview is that gas prices have spiked over the last three days. They are now up to the highest point in a while and as you can see, after reaching a low of about $2.73 just weeks ago, they are now around $3.10 a gallon on average. This is about a 13 or 15% spike in the last a couple of months, really under Donald Trump. Now let's talk about what we are to expect and why this is happening. The framing of course, is Trump's going to get gas prices down. Trump is the affordability president. Every American is going to be more comfortable affording their daily cost of living. Under Donald Trump, we are expecting gas prices to spike another 10 to 30 cents per gallon just this week. We might see gas go up 10% in the next seven days. That is a speed of gas price spike that we have not seen in the United States for a very long time. Why is this going to happen? It's going to happen, of course, because the peace president, the winner of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, who should have gotten 30 Nobel Peace Prizes, Donald Trump has decided to get into war with Iran. Reminder. The Ayatollah was terrible. I don't like the Ayatollah. I don't like theocratic regimes. The question is, was this legal? Should the United States be the one enforcing regime change? And even if you don't care about that, is Trump competent enough to do it himself? I would argue no. So what's happening here is that the Strait of Hormuz is essentially frozen. This puts in a quagmire about a third of global oil. That is a massive market calamity. We then have Qatari liquefied natural gas totally shut down. That puts 20% of global supply at risk. And we are now seeing people gas was somewhere or I'm sorry, oil. Let me even look because Yesterday it was 70 something. So yesterday oil was at 72 bucks a barrel. Now oil has already reached almost $77 a barrel. Just today oil is up nearly 8%. We are now looking at predictions from oil markets and oil traders of oil hitting $100 a barrel, $120 a barrel. There are even whispers about $200 a barrel. Now even the $100 mark when we had oil at $100, we had five dollar gasoline, five dollar a gallon gasoline. Last time oil was at 100, we could be looking at oil at 120 or even 200 here. Now initially we were told by the fearless orange leader himself that this was going to be a few day operation in the Middle East. We were then told this could be three to four weeks of hostilities in the Middle East. And now even the Trump administration is acknowledging this could be five weeks. Now there's another part to that. It's not only up to the United States how long this goes on. There is of course the growing concern that Iran is going to retaliate. There are concerns about sleeper cells in the United States. The point here is even if Trump's plan is for five weeks, if others like Iran want to come after the United States or our allies in Europe elsewhere more accessible to Iran, it's not only up to us how long this lasts. If this goes beyond three weeks, we could be looking at forced production shutdowns of oil and gas and there would be no real rapid off ramp to that and we would then see gas prices just explode. Now this morning, oil, I'm sorry, stock market futures were down very, very big, about a thousand points. And as of this moment that I am recording, the Dow Jones Industrial average is down 1200 points. Here it is on the screen. This. And if you go, well, I don't care about the stock market or gas prices, well, many, many Americans, tens of millions, is it hundreds of 100 million or more have much of their limited retirement savings in basic 401k index funds that track the stock market. You just lost two and a half percent of your retirement account today. Today. Now we are going to see if indeed gas prices spike like this, we are going to see grocery prices go up. Why? Well, gas prices affect how much it costs to truck your groceries from where they are either grown or where they are manufactured or where they enter the United States to your local grocery store. If gas spikes 3 to 5, going from $3 to $5 is nearly doubling. It's a 70% increase. You can be sure that your groceries are going to get more expensive in 2022. Every change to the inflation rate was Joe Biden's fault, by the way. When inflation under Biden fell, fell, fell, fell, fell to June 2023 and stayed down. Of a sudden, it wasn't. Biden didn't get credit anymore. But when it was up, it was Biden's fault. So who owns it now? Especially since it is the direct result of Trump's tariffs and Trump's invasion of Iran. Will voters care? Will voters punish Republicans in November? It remains to be seen. But expect, expect everything to get much more expensive. A completely demented Trump stunned a room into silence. He could barely speak. I want to quote fallen warrior of world of wars and really terror Tara, presented the President of the United States.

[Donald Trump]

Finally, we honor one more American soldier. Fallen warrior of world of wars and really a really terror Tara.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Tara and Luna. The earth and the moon, Tara and Luna. This guy can barely speak, folks. This guy can barely speak. Never mind the new syphilitic rash on his neck. We'll get to that later. Donald Trump silencing the room into confusion, discomfort, and then all of a sudden, he's off the rails. A shiny thing was visible in the background, and Trump started talking about the drapes. This is part of the same event, folks. This was not a meeting of interior designers. This was a medal ceremony. And after Tara, fallen warrior of world wars, Trump is off script.

[Donald Trump]

See that nice drape? When that comes down? Right now you see a very, very deep hole. But in about a year and a half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice, I don't think I'll even. I think I'll save money in the doors because it can't get more beautiful than that. I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold, but I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved. I just saved curtains. But. And it will be. It will be spectacular. It will be the most beautiful ballroom. I believe it's because I built many a ballroom. I believe it's going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world. And when you hear all that hammering out there, you know why The first lady is not thrilled, exactly. She said, will the pile drivers ever stop? You know, they go from 6 in the morning till 11:30 in the evening. Can you imagine? Here, you know what? To me, that's a beautiful sound. She doesn't like it. I love it. You know what, to me, other than here, because we're donating it, not a penny to the taxpayer.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

We have service members dying because of Trump's decision on Iran. Never mind civilians who are also dying. Trump is at a ceremony for fallen soldiers. He then places a medal on a veteran. And he is then, in a high contrast moment, ranting about the drapes and the curtains. At least he's not talking about toilets again, right? And flush pressure. Here Trump is as awkwardly as anyone putting the metal on this veteran. Everything Trump does is bizarre. He pats the guy on the back, he almost chokes him with the metal. It's all wacky stuff. And he just can't do anything normally. Anything, anything. Not really Trump's fault, I guess, that the metal is too tight. But look at Trump. Dear God. Listen, if this were Biden behaving this way at a medal ceremony, I can assure you that they would have said, just on the basis of this, he needs to be removed under the 25th amendment. This is the person making war decisions right now. Do voters tune this behavior out? Does it gradually chip away at the credibility of Donald Trump and these moments, these sorts of confusing moments. A lot of people are sort of in the mindset of just acknowledging it as normal or believing that it is normal because it's become so common. But this isn't normal. And we need to remember that the people that are just looking the other way are the same people that every single day we're saying, Joe Biden doesn't know what year it is. Joe Biden doesn't know that he's president. Joe Biden doesn't know his wife's name. Joe Biden doesn't have any clue what's going on. He doesn't know if it's day or night. And now all of a sudden, they've gotten acclimated to this sort of behavior. Little bit of a double standard, if you ask me. One of my close friends has a cat and I actually kind of like the cat, even though you all know I'm more of a dog guy. She is very picky about food, though, the cat, not my friend. Mealtime used to be this whole negotiation where she'd sniff the bowl and walk away like she was offended. Then my friend switched out the cat food by our sponsor Smalls. And the difference was immediate. They even tried the side by side test with the old food in one bowl, the Smalls food in the other. The cat goes to the Smalls every time. Suddenly, mealtime was no longer a daily standoff and became something everybody looked forward to. That's because Smalls is real food for cats, with protein packed recipes made from ingredients you'd recognize, no preservatives, no artificial fillers, all delivered right to your door on a schedule that works for you. And the meals are tailored to your cat so you're not at the store guessing anymore. It's also why cats.com named Smalls the best overall cat food and Forbes agreed. Give your cat the food they deserve. For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping at smalls.com/pacman. The link is in the description.

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Today we're welcoming back to the program Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego representing Arizona. Senator, it's good to have you on a lot of places we could start. I mean, let me start with just a very simple question. Just on the basis of this administration's decision making on the Iran strikes, do you think that this is impeachable behavior up to and including the President of the United States?

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Well, until I find a real justifiable reason for them to essentially go to war. And they actually haven't identified that. Yes, because what happens, you know, there's a very few exceptions of why you can, you know, essentially use our Men and women to, you know, put kill people basically go to war. And all of their justifications so far have not met that. And some of them are actually pretty

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

horrible justifications at this point in time. I've been pretty upfront with my audience that I'm an anti authoritarian, I'm against theocratic regimes. I'm not a Maduro guy, I'm not a Kim Jong Un guy. I don't like Orban. I think the Ayatollah is a disaster. But we do have to go a couple layers deeper than that, which include was this legal, is it appropriate or good for the United States to be pushing regime change in different parts of the world? And so I'm curious how you're thinking about the difference.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

I start from the, from the, another perspective, just more because I come from a military man. Right. Is this in our national interest? Number one, Right. If and if you have to do war making, like, is this the only way to actually effectively, you know, secure our national interests? Right. So that, that's the, the first thing that you, I, I always approach it when it comes to, to this. Right. Before you start getting into bad guy, you know, bad guy, worst guy, worst guy, worst guy. Right. Because like we make decisions all the time to negotiate with, you know, bad guys. For example, you know, the leader of China, horrible guy. Right. They have concentration camps of Muslims in, you know, in western China, but we decide to still engage in trade with them. Right. Is there a national interest to, to do something about that? It's in our moral interest. But are we going to go to war for China against that? No. Right. Because it, it just doesn't. That's not directly into our national interest and we're willing to actually sacrifice our men and women. Right. Is Iran a horrible, horribly run the regime, not the people, the regime. Is it horrible? Yes. Are they doing horrible things? Absolutely. Do they put our regional partners in danger? I think so. How is a different story. The, how imminent was that danger is a different story. And whether or not we're going to engage in fighting them right now. Is that international right now? Because like from what I've seen, it's not. It's from what we're seeing from reports from Marco Rubio, from Speaker Johnson, was that we essentially went to war because Israel was going to attack Iran and Iran was going to attack back. So therefore we decided to join in with, with Iran, with Israel, which is basically we're saying that we are. Our war making decision was left up to Israel's actions, which is ludicrous Right. And so that being said, were we properly, even aligned and ready for this war? It doesn't sound like it, it sound like we had some stuff there. We didn't have force protection lined up. We certainly didn't have our allies lined up. Bahrain right now is going through, you know, some internal struggles now because as a Shia, Shia majority and a Sunni ruling party, you know, we're running out of like our defensive capabilities and we don't really have an end goal, state goal of how this, this all ends. So number one, we didn't hit the first marker. There was no national interest in us for us to do this this way. There may have been other ways and we could have discussion about that, but certainly not this way, certainly not this timing. And number two, we weren't even properly aligned to actually do it and have the protection that we needed for ourselves, our allies and again, for, for, for the finishing and the conclusion of this war. So this, this whole thing was just not planned out. It makes it extremely dangerous, extremely volatile in the fact of the way they're doing it. And you can tell right now that this admin concept of a one to two, one to three day war and now they're finding themselves in a situation where we might be in this thing a longer time, which again, how does this deal with our, how does, how does this actually interact with our national interest? Because we're going to end up having to pull munitions and manpower from East Asia and from Europe to deal with this regional war that was essentially started by Netanyahu.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

What do you make of the conflicts between a lot of the statements and contradictions? I'll give you a couple of examples. On the one hand, arguing that going through Congress wasn't necessary because this isn't a war. But on the other hand, people like Larry Kudlow and other kind of hangers on to the administration saying this is going to be another war that Donald Trump ends. Or I'll give you, I'll give you one other example. This was defensive but proactive. Both words used by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, because the, the defensive part was if Iran was attacked, they might have then come after the United States. Therefore, even though we acted proactively, it was in some sense defensive. It's almost like words have no meaning anymore.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Right? Yeah. This is like we're like entering in like 1984 Georgia, Orwell, you know, like double speak. That's happening right now. So what, what, let's, let's get down to why we're here. We're here in this situation where there's like multiple reasons for this because the President himself has not taken the time to actually address the country and, and answer questions why we're at war. Think about that. We have moved basically 50% of our war making capabilities to the Middle east and have contributed, have at least contributed to the region in terms of, you know, bringing in, you know, whether it's our, our platforms in the air, our assets on, on sea, all this kind of stuff, probably also our intel. But the President's not actually answering questions and so now he's leaving this up to his lieutenants and they're basically road testing different ideas to figure out what is the actual message that will resonate first with their MAGA base, then with the general public and then with, with Congress versus a real President. First of all would never have done this. Let's be clear because this is a dumb way for us to go about this. But let's say if you decide to go down this road, you would have actually had the logic, the reason down and you would have actually been showing the country why we're, we, we are where we are. Look, I hated George Bush, Donald Runsfield, Dick Cheney when they sent me to that illegal war, but they at least managed to lie to us.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Yes, right.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

These guys are just telling us like we don't have to tell you we're going to potentially put your sons and daughters at risk. We're going to end up spending millions and billions of dollars on these, you know, weapon systems and you know, we'll, we'll, we'll come up with decision why we went there later and by the way, to pay for all this, we're probably going to end up cutting more Medicaid and more food stamps. Good luck. Right. That they, they don't even give us that respect.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

What do you think about the timing of this in relation to the midterm elections that are now just eight months away? In this sort of context, I don't believe that Donald Trump would try to use Middle east conflict to justify delaying or even attempting to cancel or mess with the November election. But I do think that he would use equivalent domestic unrest to try to do it. What do you expect right now with regard to the midterm? Yes.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Yeah, I, I would agree that there are some conspiracy theories that this is him going to use this to stop elections. I actually don't think that, that his, his rationale for doing this. His rationale for doing this is because his domestic, his domestic policy is so messed up and he's so underwater. The only things he has seen success at has been, you know, essentially engaging in, in war. Right. So if you think about the first 12 day war with Iran, it's a good example. Then you have the operation in Venezuela. Both went fairly well in terms of our perspective as Americans. Luckily, no Americans were killed in either one. And when elected officials, especially presidents, see that they're failing, they try to find other places that they could somehow do better and thinking that that somehow is going to help them out. The only thing that he never quite realized is that the American public is sick of foreign adventures. They're sick of, of, of wars and it doesn't matter even if a war goes well. Right. Like, like, you know, I could honestly say it, I think that the, again, I was against it, but the operation went well from a tactical level. People were still against it. Right. And now you're seeing the same thing here. People are against this even though, you know, it so far has not gone as bad like without, of course, you know, let's not forget the six men and women that have died so far and those that are injured. But that's where this is all, this is all heading. He's, he's desperately trying to figure out how to control or change the narrative of, of his office when the, the real thing he could do right away is get rid of tariffs. But that would mean that he had to go against, you know, 40 years of messaging that he's been talking about, which is the fact that tariffs fix everything. And so what does the November election look like? There may be a, like, I think we have to prepare for the possibility of this man trying to do anything he can to stop the election. He'll use first of all, any legal method, let's be clear. And then if that doesn't work, then he'll try to do anything else that's less than legal but questionable. And then finally the last step would be like trying to do something like overtly illegal. So how does that look like number one less legal but questionable will be, you know what, the US Postal Service is not going to deliver any vote by mail ballots.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Right.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

And maybe he'll start like anything that any vote by mail ballots that are post, you know, postmark election because, you know, there are some states that you could return your ballot as long as it's by the postmark election date. Maybe he says we're not going to take that. And then he feels empowered. He'll actually move forward and say like, you know what though, the whole thing is Fraud. So the post office can't. So no more vote by mail. When he realizes that American citizens are going to be pissed about that and they're going to just go vote in person, then he'll move to something that's like second, that is less than, than legal, which would be, you know, trying to influence, you know, the counting of the ballots, trying to see if there's ways for, for him to slow it down. And then lastly, the, the, you know, the overt, you know, authoritarian move, which is this was a corrupt election in these areas, that it was influenced by these outside influences. You know, you blame them. You know, he, you, you pick your bag. It could be the immigrants, it could be the foreigners, whatever it is, China, Iran, whatever the flavor of the day when it comes to who he wants to scare. And I'm going to seize the ballots. Right. Those are the steps. If he feels that any of this is going easy, he'll just continue doing so. The first step is to actually stop him and show popular resistance to the things that, you know, are, are questionable but legal. Right. When he tries to stop, you know, for example, the, the, the mailing of ballots by the post office.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Last thing I want to ask you about generally is the economy. What we are seeing right now is going to have a significant economic effect. As you and I are talking. The Dow and NASDAQ are each down two and a half percent just today. Gas prices average nationally are up 5% in the last two days. They're now up 13% since January. And there's the expectation that in the next week gas prices could go up another 10 to 30 cents, which would be like another 10% just in the next year. This was supposed to be the guy who would keep us out of wars and the guy who would oversee the prices on everything coming down. Are you. How deep do you believe the economic calamity that's coming could be?

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Well, I think we were moving in a direction already that was a slowing down, continuing slowing down the economy. Plus you have a problem with AI and again, AI, it's going to do some really good things. AI is going to do some really bad things. I think this is where government needs so kind of figure out how to regulate the bad things and encourage the good things. Yes, but there's going to be unemployment. That's happening. You know, right now we have the highest amount of unemployment among college grads since the Great Recession of 2008. Right. That is all AI induced. What's going to happen even further now is with this kind of war is that. And with the increase in gas prices, first of all, consumers are going to retract because, like, if you're living basically on, you know, in a paycheck to paycheck situation and now your gas prices have just jumped, you're going to, you know, take care of those gas prices because gas prices get you to work, get your kids to school, right? That means you're not going to buy anywhere else or invest anywhere else. Where to because of that, I also think there's going to be a lot of companies that are just going to hold still. They're going to hold still and not do any type of investment, not any type of retooling, any type of rehiring until this all settles out. And when you do that, it takes a while to kind of restart that momentum. And that all ties into going into this election because we're less than probably what we're in March right now. First early ballots, by the way, drop in mid September in Virginia. Yeah, right. So we're less than six months away from, from that or seven months away from that. And the economy doesn't get restarted. You don't get any momentum going. Rehiring doesn't happen. And I think it's just going to create a stagnation in the economy of a lot of people that are unhappy. Number two, it is just a general feeling, this is kind of like talking to everyday Americans, not politicians, that there is no focus on the fact that people are hurting. Like they, they don't want the government, whether it's, by the way, Democrats or Republicans to be focusing on these foreign adventures right now when people are suffering. Right. People can't buy homes, people can't buy cars, people can't start businesses, they can't pay their bills. Groceries are really, really bad right now. I have three kids and thank God I make a good salary. I have no concept or clue how someone like my mom who raised four kids on her own could have, could have made it through. Right. Like, this is, this is ridiculous. You know, we're dealing in a time that people are really hurting. And you have again, the president who is focused on, you know, these foreign adventures that aren't directly right now in the national interests of this country. And I think that's going to just hurt people and it's going to end up, you know, pissing them off to the point that they're going to come out and vote against them.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

I think you're absolutely right. And the economic pain is really going to be. It's Not a theoretical thing. It's going to really be a week to week thing that affects people. We speaking. Yeah, go ahead.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

I mean just like I'll give you a good example right now.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Yeah.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Mortgage, the mortgage rates are the lowest it's been in quite a while. Yeah, but nobody's buying homes.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

That's right.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Right. When, when that, what, what that means is that people are, you know, have the money, may have the money, but they feel so uncertain that they're not even willing to take advantage of the fact that mortgage rates are finally below 6% and maybe they're going to go down a little further to five and a half, five. They probably won't go further than that. Especially how much money money we're borrowing, all this kind of stuff. But that tells you a lot, right? Because people have been anxious to go buy new homes and anxious. You know, I've, I got three kids and like I'm busting at the seams at my house in Phoenix. I would love to go buy a new home, but people like, I don't feel comfortable doing it and I know there's a lot of people also, they won't do the same. This is driving people nuts. All these little economic indicators create such anxiety, especially for working class people that are just trying to live one check to another and every little bump is just another little thing that makes your chest go a little harder and it's causing them to go nuts. Like the amount of like stress that the American public is in, parents are in right now. These guys just do not understand. They are so removed, they're so isolated. They're such in a bubble. You know, they go to Mar a Lago every weekend and they don't know what the hell is happening on, at the Circle K, you know, at the. Oh, you guys don't have Circle. You know what people are thinking at the 7 11s, at the gas pump, you know, at the grocery stores.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Yeah. Trump in a tuxedo at Mar a Lago. Dancing while all of this was happening is really a microcosm of what you're describing. Senator Ruben Gallego, always great to talk to you. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Thank you, man.

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[Senator Ruben Gallego]

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[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

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 youm'll get the Daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at Join Pacman Dotcom. Melania Trump sat in as the chair of a United Nations Security Council meeting. This looks like it would be AI. This looks like it would be fake. This looks like it would be impossible. But it is truly horrifying and all too real. Here is Melania Trump, the First lady of the United States, with the Rule

[Melania Trump]

39 of the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure. I invite Ms. Rosemary DeCarlo, Under Secretary General of Political and peace building affairs, to participate in this meeting.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

A very awkward moment as Melania unsure of what on earth to do. I have some other videos of this and I will warn you, this stuff is difficult to watch.

[Lauren Boebert]

We must all work together toward this goal. Thank you, Madam President.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Madam President is how Melania was referred to there.

[Melania Trump]

Thank you. I thank Ms. DeCarlo for her briefing. I shall now make a statement in my capacity as first lady of the United States.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Right. First, by the way, the looks on people's faces behind her are really something.

[Melania Trump]

My heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost their heroes, who sacrifice their lives for freedom.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Yeah.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

And then I've got one more of these for you, which is really something.

[Senator Ruben Gallego]

Something.

[Melania Trump]

We must capture this positive energy and ignite it cross continents to transform our world Right throughout our digitally connected human race. Intellect blossoms humanity's fundamental needs. Shelter, food, security, clean water and health care.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

I'm going to stop it. I'm going to stop it because it is nauseating. But this was the first lady, Melania Trump, sitting in the chair of the President of the United States at the United Nations Security Council meeting. What was Trump doing at the time? Well, you saw it earlier.

[Donald Trump]

See that? Nice drape when that comes down? Right now you see a very, very deep hole. But in about a year and a half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful building.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

Right.

[Donald Trump]

And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks all right.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

So I won't play the whole thing. We played it earlier. Consider the Optics here. Melania Trump is at the United Nations Security Council meeting, chairing the meeting in place of Trump. And Donald Trump is at the White House talking about the drapes and the decor. What are the priorities right now? Is this delegation in the sense of Melania Trump being there in place of Donald Trump? Is it distraction? Is it that Trump can't do it? Is it that Trump doesn't care to do it, that he doesn't want to do it? And there's this kind of weird, broader question. I don't know who looks more presidential at this point? Like, would Trump slurring his way through with his makeup and his messed up hands and the neck rash and the entire thing, Would Trump slurring his way through the meeting be more or less presidential than just sending Melania Trump, who has no business being within a mile of any of this stuff? And it really kind of comes down to how supporters see it. I don't know. I want to hear from some maggots. When you see Melania Trump sitting in for Trump there at the United Nations Security Council, do you go, this is so pathetic and not what we voted for, and why isn't Trump there? Or. And I think this is possible because there's such antipathy towards the United nations among some in the maga, right? Do you go, I care so little about the United nations that I don't care who Donald Trump sends. I don't know the answer. I don't know what the maggots think when they see this. I see it as yet another humiliation for the United States. The larger theme is that both Melania chairing a UN Security Council meeting and Trump at the White House waxing poetic about drapes and curtains. Both are pretty unusual optics. And in the middle of a serious global conflict that some days is considered a war and some days isn't considered a war in Iran. And it really. Excuse me. It really goes to what I think is the core of this, which is Trump doesn't really care about any of this stuff. Trump's mostly bored with this. There's a reason that Trump was at Mar a Lago wearing a tux and dancing rather than in D.C. where J.D. vance was when the strikes on Iran were launched, which is Trump loves the idea of seeming big and strong when it comes to something like, I struck Iran. But he doesn't really want to be doing the work. He doesn't really want to be getting updates. And in the actual Situation Room, he'd rather be in, you know, the back ballroom of Mar A Lago bouncing in and out from playing DJ at the latest party at Mar a Lago. He doesn't really care about this stuff. He's not really interested in any of this. He is there primarily just to be framed as a big boy. And Melania Trump at the United nations only reinforces that that Donald Trump has another terrifying symptom. His neck now appears to be rotting and the White House won't say why. And Trump's neck rot is again raising major health questions. Take a look at this as you their speculation ranging from this is a syphilitic rash to looking in detail at the flakiness of it. Comparing and contrasting to Donald Trump's hands, which are increasingly caked with off color makeup to try to cover whatever is going on there. Now, because this looked so bad, Donald Trump's personal doctor, Sean Barbar Bella put out a statement about this and the statement is really, really weird. We are going to put that up on the screen. Quote, president Trump is using a very common cream on the right side of his neck which is a preventative skin treatment prescribed by the White House doctor. The president is using this treatment for one week and the redness is expected to last for a few weeks. That's Sean Barbabella, Donald Trump's personal physician. Notice a few strange things about this statement. Number one, it says it's a common cream, but it won't say what the cream is. Telling us what the cream is might actually give us insight into what the cream is supposed to do. They don't say why he's taking it. They say it's a preventative skin treatment. Now we can read into that. The fact that they're saying it's preventative suggests that the rash isn't the condition they're trying to treat. If it's preventative, in theory, he doesn't have anything other than a reaction to the cream. So what they're telling us is that Trump's neck looks like this because of an unknown cream to prevent an unknown condition. Does anybody feel as though this is Transparency magazine? Please tell me, do you feel as though that is transparency now? For at least six months, Donald Trump's right hand has been splotchy and covered in garish makeup. He is still clearly doing that. And now we combine this with whatever that is on his neck. We've been told he shakes so many hands he's using a preventative cream for what and which cream? The White House explanation is that it's common, but we have no skin cream name and no condition disclosed. The Word preventative really suggests that we should be told what we're trying to prevent. Is the redness a side effect? What is the underlying issue being treated? And so now we have a very acute pattern for six months and a broader pattern for eight years and an even broader pattern probably beyond that, where we just aren't really given appropriate and full information about what's going on with Donald Trump's health. The explanations are always either incomplete or they're extraordinarily vague, oddly vague to a degree. Presidents routinely disclose medical details. Why is Trump not disclosing the actual story of what is going on here? And meanwhile, look at the contrast. Trump is making war decisions while we have no idea what is going on with this guy's health. Is he even competent to be making these decisions? And as a much broader issue, if we want to zoom out, although it's probably bigger than what we would deal with today, declining trust when simple information isn't provided is not going to make anyone trust your foreign policy instincts either. Not, not that we do. But there is this broader connection between total lack of transparency, total lack of availability of information, and it's analogous to the Iran stuff. As Senator Ruben Gallego told us earlier, Trump hasn't laid out what is the ultimate goal of the operation in Iran, what is the, what are the metrics by which we will judge when it has succeeded. And if the goal is regime change, which Trump has said it is, but Petech has has that it isn't, are we really going to see regime change aside from the legality, aside from the value of the United States doing this, are we even going to see regime change because we know that the 86 year old Ayatollah, now deceased, had a succession plan in place. You might be saying, well, Iran and Trump's neck, what's the, the similarity is no transparent information as to what is the thinking of this White House and what is it that they are trying to do right here? All right, listen. You can agree that the Ayatollah was horrible. You can agree that Iran is better without the Ayatollah, even though the succession plan was in place. And I don't know whether there will really even be regime change. You can agree that theocratic extremist regimes are bad for the average person, including the average person of Iran. But you can also still realize that these are not serious people. And exhibit A for that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio being asked, why now? Why now? And what he is saying here is this was a defensive, proactive attack, defensive Proactive attack. Because if Iran were attacked, they would then have attacked us. Therefore it's kind of self defense in some weird way.

[Marco Rubio]

The second question that been asked is why now? Well, there's two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic. And in fact it bear to be true because. Because in fact, within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter, had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the President made the very wide decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

and didn't act right. So it sort of sounds like what Marco Rubio is saying is that we were kind of goaded into acting by, by Israel, which aside from making no real sense from a foreign policy perspective, it doesn't really project strength, that we weren't necessarily ready to do this and Trump wasn't even necessarily that interested in doing it, but he was sort of goaded into acting quickly. That doesn't sound like an alpha behavior. That sounds very, very beta. Marco Rubio then with the Kafka esque statement that we went proactively in a defensive way, proactively, defense.

[David Pakman]

Does Congress have to weigh it? Does Congress have to weigh in?

[Hillary Clinton's Lawyer]

Is the President declaring more and does Congress. Did you tell lawmakers that there was

[Marco Rubio]

an imminent, there absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

We went proactively in a defensive way. Words no longer have meaning. And then finally same kind of thing from Donald Trump. We were very nearly under threat from Iran. We were getting very close to being nearly under threat. Ay.

[Donald Trump]

An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle east but also to the American people. Our country itself would be under threat and it was very nearly under threat. I was very proud to have knocked out the Iran nuclear deal by President Barack Hussein Obama. That was a horrible, horrible, dangerous document they would have had.

[David Pakman (Main Host Commentary)]

And arguably we are in this mess because Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal of Barack Obama's era because he didn't like it. And that is exactly why Iran said started restarted its nuclear research program which led to the summer bombings which now supposedly has led to all of this. If you follow that logic, Trump generated the conditions in which this is happening. We were really close to potentially almost being under the possibility of a threat and therefore we went in proactively and defensively. It doesn't make any sense. Do words have meaning or not? At the end of the day, we are going to talk about American nationals being urged to leave the Middle east as the conflict is spreading. Today on the bonus show we will talk about a website looking to draft Barron Trump as Donald Trump strikes Iran. And a House ethics panel is now looking into Nancy Mace over alleged improper reimbursements. Why do they all have sketchy stuff in their campaign finance? Handling of funds, Endless, endless problems. We will look at all of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember, join Pacman Dotcom is the place to sign up. Get instant access to the bonus show.