The David Pakman Show - 6/25/25: Disaster Iran assessment triggers Trump, Rogan admits Trump lied

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Intelligence reports reveal Trump’s airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused only superficial damage, leaving key infrastructure intact -- Trump appeared confused and unsteady at the NATO summit, insisting Iran’s nuclear sites were “totally obliterated” despite intelligence showing otherwise -- Trump’s deportation policies fuel a lucrative “immigration-industrial complex” where private contractors profit from mass detentions and deportations -- Trump launched an erratic social media tirade against Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who responded by condemning his illegal bombing of Iran and broken promises -- On Air Force One, Trump contradicted himself, saying he does not want regime change in Iran while downplaying their nuclear ambitions -- Joe Rogan publicly acknowledged that Trump broke his antiwar promises by bombing Iran, highlighting a split in the MAGA base -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed widespread use of invasive wearable devices akin to “microchipping,” raising privacy and surveillance concern -- RFK Jr. admitted he did no fact-checking before publishing a conspiracy-filled report, yet still claimed its assertions were accurate -- On the Bonus Show: Zohran Mamdani wins New York City Democratic primary, Trump's Nobel Peace Prize nomination withdrawn, and much more... 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com/ -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

Welcome to the show. Greetings from insanely hot, humid, sunny Washington, DC. We start today with news that I think is simply objectively bad for probably 85 or 90% of political views that are out there, but it's acutely bad for the Trump administration. And the news is that even though you've now heard completely destroyed, obliterated, buried underneath mountains of rubble about the results of those missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, there is now new reporting that that is very much not the

case and that the total effect of Donald Trump's bombing campaign may be nothing more than setting Iran back on the order of a few months. Now we're going to get to the specifics, but of course the reason this matters is that part of the case that was made by the administration as to why they did these bombings without seeking congressional approval, without telling Democrats just, we, it was an emergency. We had to do it, but it was really effective. And now we have breathing room before Iran gets back to where it was that central crux

of it seems to have been obliterated. That act, the claims about what happened are what seemed to have been obliterated. Now, of course, Donald Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth and Caroline Levitt, they are continuing to insist that ordering these airstrikes succeeded in ways you couldn't even imagine. It was just a complete and total success, but we now have intelligence. We now actually have information from the defense intelligence agency. It's important to remember that the Trump administration and MAGA's relationship with

intelligence agencies generally is if what they say is convenient to us politically, we point to them and say, here's what the intelligence agencies are saying. On the other hand, if what the intelligence agencies are saying is not so politically convenient, we say they don't know what they're talking about. We are currently in the latter situation. According to a DIA assessment that was leaked to CNN and has been confirmed by multiple sources, the strikes did not destroy Iran's nuclear program and didn't even set it back nearly

as much as the most optimistic assessments said. The centrifuges are largely intact. The uranium stockpile as suspected was moved before the impact and it was mostly superficial damage above the ground, not inside the fortified cores where the real work is happening. Let's check out just a little bit of a CNN report on this. We have major breaking news into CNN. Three sources tell CNN that according to an early US intelligence assessment, the US military

strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back a few months. That's right. So this is an assessment that actually is out from the Defense Intelligence Agency. That is the Pentagon's intelligence arm. And it was based on a battle damage assessment conducted by U.S. CENTCOM after the strikes, according to one of the sources. Let's go to CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand, who has this exclusive new

reporting. This is to that question that has been asked about how much damage has been done. This is a real question. It's also a political question that has been to something that Donald Trump has been sort of dealing with here recently. What are you learning, Natasha? Yeah, look, Brianna, this is the first assessment that we are getting that the U.S. intelligence community has found about the battle damage that resulted from those U.S. military strikes

on these three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. And as you said, it was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is the Pentagon's intelligence arm. And it is worth noting that it is a very early assessment. So obliterated. You can flush that down the toilet. Trump's first claim was completely destroyed. We got an initial assessment and it said best case, best case Iran's nuclear program has been set back a year.

Now we can debate, was this worth it to set the program back a year? Who are we to say whether Iran can or can't have a nuclear weapon? What about the UN's nuclear energy working group or whatever they call it at this point in time? All perfectly reasonable discussions to have, but we have the discussions on the basis of what we know and what we knew was destroyed. Definitely not set back up to a year. Okay, maybe we now have a more accurate assessment which says, eh, probably set back by some

months. And of course, if it is a setback of only a few months, Trump's 12 day war, which he victoriously came out on top of and achieved peace for which he should get the Nobel peace prize. All of that, no congressional approval, not looping in Democrats to just be in the same damn situation again a few months from now. So there are layers of issues here. There are the layers of who gets to decide who has nuclear weapons. Well, different people have different answers.

There's the layer more generally of seeking authorization for any such strikes, no matter where it is that the president wants to strike. Okay. That's another layer to the conversation. But the most sort of telling and arguably disturbing aspect of this is that after you sort out all of that stuff, the best assessment we now have is that Iran will be right back to where it was a week ago in a few months, and then we're going to have the exact same situation all over again.

Now, Trump is of course doubling down. He's in Europe for the NATO summit, which we'll look at. He started posting in all caps that everything was completely destroyed. You know, when I engage caps lock on my keyboard, it doesn't make things more true and the same thing applies to Donald Trump. But even Israel, who Trump again, typically believes in terms of intelligence. Even Israel said the deeper bunkers were not neutralized. Best case we're looking at like a year plus here, but this is the latest assessment that says a setback of just a few months.

The official response from the administration is, oh, the assessment's wrong. Remember when intelligence agencies tell you things you don't want to hear, you just say that they are wrong. What everybody does seem to now agree upon is that Iran's nuclear capability has certainly not been completely destroyed. It's now we're now in the shades of gray. You do have Trump saying completely obliterated, but now we're mostly operating in was it set back months?

Was it set back a year or more than a year? And again, the latest assessment says it is just a matter of months. So what we have is Donald Trump taking action, potentially illegal action, um, selling a fantasy to justify the action all wrapped up in military uniforms and a flag and pumping out images of B2 bombers on social media. And then when reality catches up to this, hoping nobody notices Iran's nuclear program was not ended. It didn't buy a longterm piece.

It didn't fix anything that was, uh, uh, that that wasn't already broken. And Trump is desperate for legacy here. That's fundamentally what this is about. Trump wants to be the winner of the so-called 12 day war that he named as part of the branding efforts. He's extraordinarily jealous of Barack Obama because Obama got a Nobel peace prize that Trump didn't think Obama deserved. Trump wants the Nobel peace prize and he has enough sycophants around him saying, give

it to them that it's convinced him that maybe he's eligible. But the core of this, the supposed obliteration of Iran's nuclear capacity, best case scenario, according to our own intelligence now, a few months disaster. And this led to Donald Trump showing up at the NATO summit, quite frankly, looking very, very depressed. A, um, a diminished, depressed, low energy Donald Trump struggled to speak at the NATO summit. Donald Trump showed up looking like a man who I guess stayed up all night arguing with

his own reflection and losing to it. He lost to the guy in the mirror that he was arguing with, just dejected, low energy hunched over. He was asked a number of very reasonable questions that we should all be wanting answers to from the president of the United States. One was, Hey, we now have a report about your strikes against Iran, which shows the nuclear sites are not destroyed. That Iran's nuclear program has been set back on the order of a few months.

What do you think? And Trump goes, they don't know. I believe that it was all completely obliterated. Here's Trump. Mr. President, what's your reaction to the intelligence reports saying that the Iranian nuclear sites were only partially devastated, not entirely? Yeah, well, they said it was actually the report said it could have been very, they don't know. I mean, they did a report. I could have Pete talk to it because his department

did the report. They really don't know. I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon because Bibi is going to have people involved in that whole situation. We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration. When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget the flame is all underground. But everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned black, the trees, everything.

There's one building, but that's a building that sunk substantially into the granite so that, you know, the fire goes right over it. It was, I believe it was total obliteration. I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast. If it would have taken two weeks maybe, but it's very hard to remove that kind of material. Very hard and very dangerous to have to remove it. Plus they knew we were coming and if they know we're

coming, they're not going to be down there. There aren't too many people that are going to be down there. Pete, do you have something to say about that? So this is not a surprise. As Trump has told us many times, he's the expert when it comes to assessing complex battlefield damage through satellite imagery and working in concert with nuclear experts and former inspectors, throw it all in the trash, flush it down the toilet. Trump knows better and Trump feels just like he felt the forecast for a hurricane was wrong. So we took a sharpie and changed the direction of the hurricane.

Just like he felt so many things before. Trump feels that the actual intelligence community with the salad satellite images and the signals intelligence and the ground sources, they aren't getting it right. Uh, he really did destroy everything in terms of Iran's nuclear capabilities. That's all that matters. And it's a perfect example of they have this principle, Oh, the intelligence agencies can't be trusted or they can depending, right? Depending on what's convenient to Trump. Trump also asked about what is his response to Iran continuing to say, we're going to

keep enriching uranium. We're going to keep pursuing nuclear weapons. And this was really difficult for Trump, who again is just getting bad news after bad news. His polling has collapsed. We'll talk about that later. Trump struggles through a barely coherent answer where he basically goes, I don't know what they said, but they really shouldn't be enriching anything. And then sort of issuing a thinly veiled threat as Trump regularly does.

Take a look. What is your response to Iranian foreign minister continue to say Iran will enrich uranium and pursue nuclear weapons? Well, I don't know if they've said that, but I'll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover. And we won't let that happen, number one. Militarily, we won't.

I think we'll end up having somewhat of a relationship with Iran. I see it. Look, I've had a relationship over the last four days. They agreed to the ceasefire. And it was a very equal agreement. They both said that's enough. They both said it.

But no, they won't do that. The last thing they want to do, Katie, is enrich. They're not looking to, they're not, can you imagine after all that, they're going to say, oh, let's go and do a bomb. You know, there could be a day in the future and then somebody else taking our place will be saying, don't do it and

maybe they won't do it as well I don't know but they're not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich and we believe all of the stuff is down there we don't think they had nearly the time because to get that out is a very difficult thing it's not like it's not like moving a package or taking this carpet up and moving and it's very difficult and very dangerous to do we believe it's all down there. We had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit. And because of that, I don't think they would have been down there because they knew we were coming. When they know we're coming, they're not going to be down to that 30 stories underground. So now I think it was just a tremendous victory for everybody,

including Iran. Look, you know, they've got a country and they've got oil and they're very smart people and they can come back. Israel got hit very hard, especially the last couple of days. Israel was hit really hard. Those ballistic missiles, boy, they took out a lot of buildings and they've been great. Bibi Netanyahu should be very proud of himself. And they've really been great. But they're not going to be building bombs for a long time.

So this is the foreign policy version of leaving a voicemail at 3 a.m. that starts angry, but it's also a plea to get back together. I can't believe what you did to me and I'm furious, but also like it would be nice to have a relationship and do you want me to make you eggplant parmesan if you stop by tomorrow? It's simultaneously all of it combined with depression and the feeling that Trump doesn't really want to be there. It's sort of like he's trying to bluff his way through a nuclear standoff, but he's got to hang over and he'd really rather be home in bed. And then finally, and critically, Donald Trump asked about his upcoming meeting, uh, at the NATO summit with

a Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky and Trump kind of drifts off. You can almost see that his mind is elsewhere. He drifts off into something between like a passive aggressive detachment and the possibility that he's going to try to actively sabotage any chance Ukraine has of getting a favorable resolution to the war in which they are not the aggressor. They are the defender. Take a look at this. And then just changing gears to your meeting with Zelensky later today. Can you give us any preview of what the two of you might be discussing? No, well, we'll discuss the obvious. We'll discuss his difficulties, get a little difficulty.

Zelensky, the nice guy. I mean, I'm going to meet him today. I don't know. I assume we're going to be discussing Ukraine. Yeah. And then it seems like the most likely. Any of these starts there or anything that you might do? Well, we'll see. discussing Ukraine. Yes. It seems like it looks like it. Any research on there or anything that you might do?

Well, we'll see. I mean, I've spoken to Putin a lot and he actually was very nice. He volunteered help on, as you know, on Iran. I said, no, I don't need help on Iran. I need help on Russia. Okay? I said, do me a favor. Help us on Russia, not on Iran.

But he was very nice. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk. I think progress is being made. I think great progress is being made on Gaza. I think the because of this attack that we made, I think we're going to have some very good news. I was talking to Steve Witkoff, who by the way is terrific, and who knows more about this subject than anybody. The subject of what we were just talking about. He was on last night, uh, with, uh, Jesse and with Laura and with Sean and a boy, he has a, Susie has a great take on it. He just explains it so easily. He's really very knowledgeable, but he did tell me that Gaza is very close. A little difficulty. Trump says as in Zelensky's country is being invaded and bombed by the dictator that Trump

keeps praising and saying Putin's very nice and Putin's very strong and Putin's very smart. What? What what? I spoke to Putin and he was very nice. Imagine showing up to a NATO summit and basically telling the rest of the Alliance, the guy you're all trying to stop, whose authoritarian dictatorial aggression is causing global problems and calamities. I spoke to him.

He was really nice to me and as pathetic and humiliating as that is on the world stage, that's the currency of Trump. It's loyalty. It's who likes me or who pretends to like me if it's useful to them. And Trump is really slipping very, very much slipping here in front of the cameras and also behind the scenes and growing concern. I hope to speak to members of the house and Senate about this today during some of the interviews I'm doing in DC growing concerns that Trump just doesn't know what is going on around him.

Let's take a quick break. Make sure you're getting my substack newsletter, David Pakman dot substack.com. And of course, make sure you subscribe to my youtube channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. People in my audience know I am a bit of a pastry connoisseur. Yeah. I'm the at David Pakman dot com. Slash Pacman to start your subscription and get thirty dollars off your first box plus free croissants in every box every month. That's wild grain dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes.

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So especially in this economic situation, I really do appreciate everybody who's been signing up. Especially in this economic situation, I really do appreciate everybody who's been signing up. I know that you have heard about the military industrial complex, but what about the IIC? This is the immigration industrial complex. This is another layer to the mass deportation scheme of this administration that is important to understand because as immoral and unethical and economically counterproductive as Donald Trump's mass deportation scheme is as much as it violates the law, as much as it denies due process to people that have

a right to due process, there is an entire other layer, which is all of the ways in which this thing is monetized. And that's what I want to talk about today. When Donald Trump says deport them all, what he's really doing is opening the flood gates to billions of dollars in private contracts, no bid deals, occupancy guarantees at detention centers and quotas, detention quotas. And a lot of that money, it's not going to border communities. guarantees at detention centers and quotas, detention quotas. And a lot of that money, it's not going to border communities.

It's not going to struggling cities or struggling small towns. It goes to corporations like geo group or another one called core civic. Their stock prices did well when Donald Trump was elected for his second term. So it's important to understand that there was a bet made on deportation and the people who bet on the mass deportation scheme, they won these companies, geo group and core civic. They run detention centers and most of them are private. Some of them in rural towns where jobs have already dried up decades ago. And a lot of these facilities get paid per detainee, 150 bucks a day for adults, $300

for a family. And the kicker is that they often have minimum occupancy guarantees. And what that means is that their contract stipulates, even if there's no one in the facility, we're still going to pay you as if the facility had a certain occupancy rate. Maybe it's 80%, maybe it's 98%, maybe it's that it's full. And guess who is cashing in on this? Because this is not enforcement. Of course, this is a business model behind the scenes.

A lot of people affiliated with Donald Trump's very deportation scheme are making money from the fact that this is happening. You look at Trump's borders are Tom Homan. He helped ramp up the ice raids. He loves it. He thinks it's the best thing in the world. Well, one of the elements of Tom Homan liking this is that he was getting paid as a consultant by geo group just months before

he joined the administration. A clear conflict of interest. It's the business plan. It's the revolving door. You cash out, you come back in, you write policy that benefits your last employer, and then maybe after it's all done, he goes back to geo group or wherever. You've got Stephen Miller, evil figure in this entire thing. The central architect in a way of Trump's immigration policy in both of Trump's administrations.

Now it's his deputy chief of policy or staff, something like that. Steven Miller has disclosed ownership of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Palantir technology stock in one of his kids brokerage accounts Palantir as we've talked about is a major contractor for ice. They give ice tools that let them do real time tracking and coordinate the deportations systems for managing the so-called self deportations, identification of targets, he owns stock and he helped craft the aggressive deportation policies, including elements of it that rely on Palantir technology.

Stephen Miller benefits from the very policy that he wrote financially. Tom Homan benefits from his former employer and now going in and making a policy package that benefits Geo group. And then meanwhile, if you zoom out a little further, a lot of these same companies gave over a million dollars to Trump aligned political action committees for his 2024 inauguration. They were buying something. They got what they were buying. And then you now look at what we're seeing.

The raids outside of Home Depot, children taken from schools, families torn apart without due process. And meanwhile, we've got ICE air travel contracts, electronic monitoring systems, private deportation flights. This stuff is all making a killing for the contractors that are involved. So when you look at that, it becomes even more impossible to say law and order is the goal here.

This is logistical operationalizing to monetize human suffering. That's what at the core this is about and they're not stopping. The bills keep coming. There's a new 59 million, a $59 billion house Republican package for funding of the next five years of deportation operations. Uh, it is, it, these are investments. It's an investment in a removal economy. We've talked about the military industrial complex, military contracting economy built

to sustain endless war. Republicans love to talk about that when it's convenient. Sometimes they like to fuel it. Sometimes they go, it's terrible. But this is immigration as a permanent revenue stream. That's what they're, they really built here. And worse still, they're pushing to reopen closed prisons in places like Kansas and Louisiana, not because these are humane places.

It's because it's profitable. Those are profitable, cheap cost places to operate facilities like this. So Trump didn't need to say the quiet part out loud. When he was talking about his deportation plan, he didn't need to say, and this is a great opportunity for companies to make a lot of money. They understood it. They donated to Trump. The contractors are already cashing checks for it.

So understand that when Donald Trump promises mass deportations and screams about illegals, on the one hand it is placating his base. It's riling up his base, but it's also a sign that a lot of his friends are going to be able to make money. It is all fascistic, but it's also a business venture at the end of the day. And we shouldn't forget that aspect of it. Things went so poorly yesterday with Donald Trump's on again, off again ceasefire, which both wasn't working and also was good enough that Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize

that Trump cracked and he unleashed a wild unhinged tirade attacking women of color in Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Here's what Trump posted to Truth Social, quote, stupid AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the dumbest people in Congress, is now calling for my impeachment, despite the fact that the crooked and corrupt Democrats have already done that twice before. The reason for her rantings is all of the victories that the USA has had under the Trump administration.

The Democrats aren't used to winning and she can't stand the concept of our country being successful again. When we examine her test scores, what we will find out that she is not qualified for office, but nevertheless far more qualified than Crockett, who is a seriously low IQ individual or Ilhan Omar, who does nothing but complain about our country. Yet the failed country that she comes from doesn't have a government is drenched in crime and poverty and is rated one of the worst in the world if it's even rated at all. How dare the mouse tells us how to run the United States of America.

We're just now coming back from that radical left experiment with sleepy Joe, Kamala and the auto pen in charge. What a disaster it was. AOC should be forced to take the cognitive test that I just completed at Walter Reed Medical Center as part of my physical. As the doctor in charge said, President Trump aced it, meaning I got every answer right. Instead of her constant complaining, Alexandria should go back to her co back home to Queens where I was also brought up and straighten out her filthy, disgusting crime ridden streets and the district she represents,

which she never goes to anymore. She better start worrying about her own primary before she thinks about beating our great Palestinian Senator crying Chuck Schumer, whose career is definitely on very thin ice. She and her Democrat friends have just hit the lowest poll numbers in congressional history. So go ahead, try impeaching me again. Make my day. This is like nothing we have seen before. These are, if this were not the billionaire president of the United States, if this were a family member, if this were a loved one, if this were a coworker, you would be concerned

because it would be a sign of someone who is very, very unwell, very unwell. But it's Trump and tens of millions of Americans and everybody around Trump is pretending this stuff is normal. Um, AOC by the way, did respond in brutal fashion who said, Mr. President, don't take your anger out on me. I'm just a silly girl. Take it out on whoever convinced you to betray the American people and our constitution by illegally bombing Iran and dragging us into war. It only took you five months to break almost every promise you made.

And you know what's fascinating about this? After the break, we're going to talk about someone else who has come to the same conclusion. Trump in five months went back on a major promise when it comes to war. It is not someone on the left. It's someone who endorsed Trump and his name is Joe Rogan. Very interesting development. Trump unhinged, AOC spot on, but it's not just Democrats who are realizing that Trump's flip on war is one of his greatest betrayals.

So we'll deal with that after the break. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. And this clip, if you're just watching on YouTube now, this clip is part of a daily one hour audio podcast that I do. It's on Spotify. It's on iTunes. You can bring it with you to the gym in the car. Make sure you're getting the audio podcast. We'll take a quick break and be right back. Sheath underwear is designed with two special pouches in the front, keeps everything separate in its own compartment with extra confidence that you will feel throughout the day, keeping things separate and comfortable, no more sticking and chafing. I was skeptical about the dual pouch.

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Emotions are running high. This was not long after he sat on the White House lawn and said, fuck, they don't know what they're doing. Iran and Israel and had a complete and total meltdown. He was then asked questions and it's just getting worse and worse and worse. Donald Trump said now he doesn't want regime change in Iran. Here's what you have to understand. Trump wants whatever makes him look strong.

And so if your question is, what is his deep foreign policy belief about Iran? I'm sure he thinks that Iran, uh, Iran's leadership is radical theocrats because everybody with any, uh, a shred of common sense realizes and knows that that is the case. The question is, what does he want to pursue as president? First it was, we don't want regime change. Then it was, of course we want regime change. And now once again, after his ceasefire went sort of wacky and it's clear that nobody sees Trump as strong. Nobody sees Trump as intelligent. Nobody sees Trump as the guy to go to for negotiations. Now he's just like, I guess I don't want to really see regime change. Let's take a look at that video clip.

Do you want to see regime change in Iran? No, if there was, there was, but no, I don't want to. I'd like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change takes chaos and ideally we don't want to see so much chaos. So we'll see how it does. You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people and they got a lot of oil. They should, they should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job.

They're never going to have nuclear, but other than that, they should do a great job. So he at this point is sort of like, what's the exit that makes me look best. And as he said, regime change takes chaos. Chaos is bad for Trump. And so all of a sudden it's not really the priority. Trump was also asked on the plane, did Iran make any commitments as part of this sort of ceasefire about the enrichment of uranium and understand that if you are in this space, this is a critical question.

Now you might be someone who goes, who's anybody to tell Iran they're not allowed to have a nuclear weapon? As I've said before, that's a debate that can be had. But if we are in the environment where the bombing was to stop the enrichment and Trump claims that every enrichment facility was obliterated, but nuclear experts looked at the satellite imagery and said, it's not obvious to us that that's the case. And JD Vance even intimated they might've moved the nuclear material before the bombing. If you're in the space where the whole point is to prevent the enrichment, a logical question is as part

of the ceasefire supposed, was there any commitment made about uranium enrichment? Trump doesn't answer the question. Take a look. Did Iran make any commitments yesterday about uranium enrichment? What uranium enrichment? They're not going to have enrichment and they're not going to have a nuclear weapon and they know that they're going to get on to being a great trading nation. You know, they're very good traders and they're going to be a great trading nation and they

have a lot of oil. They're going to do well. They're not, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. Do they promise? What Iran's mind right now is nuclear weapons. So there it is. Trump's new argument is we did such damage. They want to bolster their economy.

Nuclear weapons are the last thing on their mind, which of course is ridiculous. But more importantly, Donald Trump for years has been telling us the number one thing, the most important goal, the most notable thing that Iran wants is indeed nuclear enrichment. So Trump, you know, ever the diplomat, ever the negotiator, ever the tough guy walks completely away from that altogether and leaves us to go. So what, what is, what are the terms of this supposed ceasefire that Trump supposedly was involved in? Although the truth seems to be that we're a few bricks short of a foundation here.

The topic of meeting with Zelensky at the NATO summit came up. Do you think you'll meet with Zelensky and what would you say to him? Here is Donald Trump's answer. Do you think you'll meet with Zelensky when you're there? Yeah, probably. I'll see him. Yeah. What would you say to with Zelensky when you're there? Yeah, probably. I'll see him. Yeah. What would you say to him?

Say, how you doing? Uh, tough. He's in a tough situation. Should have never been there. I mean, not, not exactly a person who is coming to the table prepared, ready, and predisposed to get us at all closer to what Donald Trump promised to do on day one of becoming president elect at the end of the day, which was to end the Russia Ukraine war. I know that this has been sidelined because of so much other insanity and it's always

what's a distraction from what, but we shouldn't forget that Donald Trump did promise to end the Russia Ukraine war within 24 hours of becoming president elect in November of 2024. He didn't do it. He then said, I will end the Russia Ukraine war within 24 hours of becoming president January 20th. He didn't do it. Then it was, I'm going to end the Russia Ukraine war within a hundred days of being sworn

in. He didn't do it. And now it's, we may be walking away. Marco Rubio said they may be walking away. Other staffers have said they may simply be walking away. And so it's easy to see a 12 second clip and go, Oh, it's Trump being Trump. He's just generically clueless and he is generically clueless, but it's more important and more relevant to making a deeper analysis of a governance strategy that these are super specific

promises of massive geopolitical importance that are just racking up and accumulating failures. Now if we zoom out a little on the NATO question, he was traveling to the NATO summit after all Trump was asked, are you still committed to the mutual defense of NATO? One of the centerpieces of NATO is article five, which is if a NATO country is attacked, other NATO members are committing, we will come to your defense. Trump's been very lukewarm on NATO. Trump lukewarm probably doesn't even cut it.

He's been hostile to NATO to a great degree and Trump's answer leaves a little bit to be desired. Take a look. Are you still committed to mutual defense? I'm committed to saving lives. I'm committed to life and safety. And I'm going to give you an exact definition when I get there. I just don't want to do it on the back of an airplane.

I hope that people realize how genuinely dangerous this is. I know I've explained that Trump can't be relied upon and that under Donald Trump, the United States seems unreliable. Hey, we're Iran. We signed a nuclear non, uh, uh, advancement deal with Obama. We're sticking to it. So we're all good. Trump comes in, cancel the deal, put in place sanctions.

Wow. The us doesn't seem like a reliable negotiating partner or a treaty partner. And similarly here, the United States has made a commitment to NATO. If every president that comes in just goes, ah, I'll honor it. I won't honor it. The United States seems unreliable. The United States loses global credibility. This stuff matters.

And Trump goes, ah, you know, I don't know that I'm going to give you an exact answer right now. I got to get a definition of what article five even says. And I'm committed to life and safety, but of course we know that he's really not. This is humiliating, but it's also extraordinarily terrifying. And if we are looking for any silver linings here, maybe the silver lining is that there are some right wing people, some Trump supporters that are maybe reconsidering a little bit. I want to talk about that next. When Donald Trump launched strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, Maga world had a choice. They could admit this is a war launched by a guy who told us no forever wars, no wars

at all. We're going to end wars. We're going to prevent wars. I'm really the anti-war candidate, right? They could have been honest and said, this is what it is. Or Maga had the opportunity to move the goalposts and that's exactly what some of them did. They said, well, this isn't really a war because Trump didn't declare it. Others said Trump didn't really have a choice.

This is almost defensive. Trump's not really starting a war. And then some people got very philosophical and they said, you know, sometimes the way to get the peace is by bombing people. But then out of nowhere, Joe Rogan just admits it. Let's take a look. I think the whole, uh, MAGA thing right now is very divided, particularly because one of the things that they voted for was no war.

Well, now it seems like we're in a war, right? So the, and it's quick. We're six months in and that's already popped off. And then people are very concerned with now what happens to our troops overseas that are in these bases that are in vulnerable positions. So that's not a leftist talking. Okay. That's not MSNBC.

That's Joe Rogan, the guy who endorsed Trump just months ago in 2024, the same guy who gave Trump a massive platform with that softball interview and helped sell the idea that Trump 2.0 was like a populist reboot and it's definitely better than Kamala Harris. So to a degree, this isn't about going, Oh, Rogan is right on everything now. When Rogan says this, it matters because it is, it exposes the Magus split that Trump's second term has unleashed. And Rogan's part of a pretty small group that is doing something from the pro Trump perspective that very few are willing to do, which is admit that what Trump is doing is the opposite of what he's promised.

It's not tangentially different. It's not a five degree course correction. It's the opposite. And since Donald Trump bombed Iran's nuclear facilities and started floating regime change, although now it's not regime change, all of that, you know, all that stuff, MAGA has kind of splintered into two primary responses. Camp one is saying, like I said, it's not really a war targeted operation. It's a mission. It's a mission.

It's a message. You call it anything, but what it actually is. Camp two says he had to do it. It was Biden's fault. Biden was weak and it's Iran's fault. And you know, the concept of peace is squishy and the only way to get back to diplomacy and peace is by bombing Iran. But then there's this third group and the third group, it's very small.

It's inconvenient, but it's growing. And Rogan being part of that group is a good thing. And these are the people who say, wait a second. He said he wouldn't do this and he did it. It's that simple. That's where Rogan is right now. And of course Bernie Sanders is sitting there sitting across from him and he's nodding because Bernie knows that's exactly what it is. And Bernie knows, let Rogan tell it to his own audience because he's going to be much

more effective in communicating that to them than Bernie possibly could be just because of who the audience is. Not that Bernie's not a good communicator. So this isn't new. The same excuses were made under Bush. It's not a war. It's a liberation. We're not occupying.

We're stabilizing. And the same people who used to call that deep state propaganda are now cheering it on if it's presented in all caps on truth social. Trump used to say stuff like we wasted trillions in the Middle East, never should have been there. And now he's the one who has been lighting it up and tweeting. Now is the time for peace. So it's like Iraq 2.0, but with worse grammar and a lot more social media platforms.

And we shouldn't forget that Trump branded himself as the anti-war guy. He told his base, I won't start wars. I'll get us out of wars. I'm the anti-war choice. That was the promise. It was clear. And he's ordering strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. He's he threatened that there were many targets left.

He's talked openly about make Iran great again, like he wants to be John Bolton all of a sudden. So you don't need to be a pacifist to call this a complete reversal. I'm glad Rogan did it. Most MAGA influencers are still pretending this isn't a problem, save a few. And Fox News is calling it strong leadership. Tulsi Gabbard, you know, who knows where Tulsi Gabbard is at this point in time. But when Joe Rogan, one of the guys that helped get Donald Trump elected says this simply isn't what they voted for.

There is a moment of clarity aspect to it. If Trump gets away with breaking this central promise and can hold his base, he can do anything. This was going to be the line. No new wars. The thing that made Trump different from the bushes and from the Clintons and what Hillary was going to do and what Kamala was going to do is that he wasn't going to do any of this stuff. Any of this war stuff that's gone.

Now he's calling it the 12 day war. He says it's a ceasefire. It's over. It's all good, but that doesn't change the fact of what he did. And MAGA is mostly too afraid to call it what it is. Rogan did it. Bernie nods. We'll see what sort of reaction we see from the Rogan base, but it's very interesting. You know, for weeks now, discussions have focused on Trump's big, beautiful bill and

its potential Medicaid cuts. However, a far more dangerous overlooked provision in the bill exists at ground dot news slash Pacman. You'll discover what MAGA lawmakers quietly included, a provision that could block federal judges from enforcing court orders unless a bond is posted. And if this passes, it could render Trump above the law. This is a critical detail. It's largely unknown and it really exemplifies this flood the zone strategy of the Trump

administration. Now, this is why ground news is essential. It really is the best way to uncover buried information by showing you not just the story, but its origins across the political spectrum. You can see bias ratings, credibility scores, coverage timelines and their browser extension also will flag potential bias when you're on a news site sort of guiding you to more reliable sources for fact checking. will visit ground dot news slash Pacman. Scan the QR code or use the code Pacman in the app to start. have for on your information to then target you using incognito can cut way down on the spam calls and the messages that you get. Try it risk free for 30 days and get 60% off an annual plan when you go to incognito.com

slash Pacman. That's I n c o g n i dot com slash Pacman for 60% off. The link is in the podcast notes. I want to discuss with you some of Robert F Kennedy jr.'s testimony yesterday. The point of looking at this is not simply about, oh, look at how wacky Donald Trump's secretary of health and human services is. That's true. That makes for a perfectly interesting and fine segment, but we all know that what is critical to understand is that there are people who are in completely over their heads and

also have completely abandoned the very principles they told us matter to them. Those are the two themes to keep in mind. And yes, it's wacky, of course, but let's get into it. And I think you'll see. Remember when we were warned by the MAGA right wing that the left Democrats, the Marxists, the whatever want to microchip us. They want to microchip for tracking purposes. The people of the United States. And you had the religious people saying, this is the mark of the beast. You had the libertarians

saying that this is government overreach. You had the conspiracy theorists saying, this is the strategy of the left in order to something. I don't even really know what. And the mechanisms were they want you wearing a microchip. You know, the, these things where you put a microchip in your, in your arm to then tap to pay. That's how they're going to trick you into it, or they're going to trick you into it by having you get a COVID shot that then puts the microchip inside of your arm. And we very calmly explained to them, why would anyone even need to do that?

We all are willingly carrying it around in the form of our mobile devices. Put aside for a second that there's no evidence for it or that Bill Gates wants to do it or whatever. But we explained to them, your phone has your location. It has your communications. It has a search results, uh, searches that, uh, expose your inner thoughts and vulnerabilities and insecurities. Why would you need to do any of that?

Well cut to yesterday, secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy jr. Said that in his dream vision, within just a few years, everyone will have an even more invasive version of a proverbial microchip. It will be a wearable fitness device. Things like fit bits, fitness watches, the aura ring, which goes on your finger, whatever. Okay. Check out what he said and then we're going to talk about it. ... diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives.

We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda of making America healthy again and we are going to... My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Following up. So wait a second. We're going to put, because Bobby Kennedy jr. likes the idea, we're going to put our

sleep data, our heart rate data, our movement data, how sedentary we are, we're going to put all of that in the cloud for big tech and government to, to access it. That's kind of weird because these were the very same people warning us against that when it was being done secretly. We were told by Bill Gates and Joe Biden and big pharma and Obama and Democrats. It was bad then. But when it's Donald Trump's director of health and human services actually saying it, we're supposed to say, cool, that sounds really good.

When this could be used by government to track us, it could be used by health insurance companies to try to deny us care or raise rates and say, you don't get 10,000 steps a day. You don't even get 4,000 steps a day. You're riskier. You're only getting five hours of sleep a night. You're riskier. We're not going to ensure you all of these things. Now they would be okay with because it was bullshit to begin with.

That's really what's at the core of this. And by the way, wearable, you know, what about every American being able to afford their prescription drugs or not having to choose between their prescriptions and groceries or childcare one week or every American has a primary care doctor, nevermind is able to go and get an appointment or afford the copay. Just have what about those as goals? But the dream of Robert F Kennedy jr. is that we will all have wearable fitness devices. Now I don't have a problem with these devices.

I wear one. Okay. I want to know how many active minutes did I get a week? I'm trying to get 150 moderate to high intensity minutes of exercise every single week, the device gives me that information. I want to make sure I'm getting 10,000 steps a day. The device gives me that information. It's not against the devices.

I think the devices are useful, but absent basic, you know, dealing with the social determinants of health are our community safe. What about air pollution? Like Dr. Zach Rubin told us last week. What about simply are you able to get unprocessed foods in your community? Do you understand what that means? All of these things. And Bobby Kennedy jr. has a dream.

He wants people to have a wearable device. All right. And this wasn't it for a RFK junior. Let's go to the next moment from this. You almost have to admire the honesty here to a degree. Congressman Raul Ruiz, uh, asks Robert F. Kennedy jr. Trump's secretary of health and human services a very simple question that remember that report that was riddled with inaccuracies.

You almost have to admire the honesty here to a degree. Congressman Raul Ruiz, uh, asks Robert F Kennedy jr. Trump's secretary of health and human services a very simple question that remember that report that was riddled with inaccuracies. It was riddled with citations to studies that don't exist. And Caroline Levitt said, Oh, these are merely like typos. These are formatting errors. Congressman Raul Ruiz asked, asked RFK a very simple question. Did you read the report and fact check its sources before you published it?

And Robert F Kennedy jr. Says, I did not fact check. I did not fact check it. All right. Well, at least he's being honest. Let's take a look at the video. Then I want to talk about this. Kennedy, you're listed as the chair of the commission. Did you read the report and fact check its sources prior to publication? All of the factual...

Did you read the reports and did you yourself fact check them, sir? I did not fact check them. You did not fact check them. Why then, as has been widely reported... All of the foundational assertions... Excuse me, sir, I'm speaking. Why then did the report include a citation to sources that don't even exist? How does that happen under your leadership, sir?

All of the foundational assertions that report are accurate. They did not exist How can they be accurate if they did not exist some of the citations, you know, in fact my understanding of the citation once a report once the report was updated more authors and researchers came forward report was updated, more authors and researchers came forward stating that their research was misconstrued. This is quite unbelievable, sir. In fact, I was a pre-med at UCLA. They have a great pre-med program. If somebody turned this in as an undergrad to their professor at UCLA, they would have received an F, sir, an F for the misinterpretation The falsehoods the denials and also citing references that don't even exist that lying and dishonest sir My concern here the citation my correct here is that you and this administration are?

undertaking vast changes to our federal public health system and using purported facts and gold standard evidence that you claim to have as justifications for your decisions, actions, and frankly, your decimation of our nation's public health infrastructure. Yet what you are relying upon isn't real. It isn't data driven. And it isn't based in fact, science or reality. Sir, it's wrong. As the secretary of one of the most consequential departments within our federal government, mischaracterizing data is not just some typos in a report that

gets put on a shelf. Instead, your words and your words of your department carry significant weight. Do you agree? Citation and report were wrong. That was a mistake. They were corrected within 24 hours. Yeah, but there were wrongs still even after that. And there are wrongs still today. There were no erroneous factual assertions. So do you believe that your words carry significant weight? There were no erroneous factual assertions. Do you believe your words carry significant weight? There were no erroneous, do you believe your words carry significant weight?

Do you believe that the secretary of the department of health and human services plays an important role in upholding scientific integrity? Yes. Okay so then in fact what is most striking about this is that you've also threatened to bar governmental scientists and researchers from All right. So it's not, I had a team review it. It's I didn't fact check. This wasn't a typo. This was an official report that was published claiming among other things that there are all sorts of different, uh, conspiracies going on that we need to be worried about all sorts of different things, citing reports, some of which didn't even exist.

And Congressman Ruiz pressed him on that issue. How does it happen? And what RFK sort of leaned on was that the foundational assertions in the report are accurate. Now, it's really important to understand that that is not a standard that would fly anywhere that there is a robust and rigorous standard for when we make claims. You know, you could look at academia, but maybe you think academia has been corrupted. So you could look at book publishing or you could look at medical studies or you could

look at, if you put together a report to citations that are imaginary, you're not allowed to just go the conclusions, the underlying assertions. They're still accurate. Even if the citations we included don't exist, you would not be able to get away with that anywhere. I would argue that on anything that RFK jr is involved in as secretary of health and human services, at least the same rigorous and robust standards should exist because we're dealing with people's lives here.

We're dealing with health and we're dealing with life and death. So this is what happens when the conspiracy brain fully melts. When the only criteria for truth is I like the feel of it. I like the vibe. And when accuracy becomes detached from whether something actually happened or whether the source even exists, then we are in a fundamental battle over what even counts as truth. And we know that we are. I've written this, uh, I wrote about this in my book.

I have an entire chapter called what are facts, not what are the facts, but what are facts, what sorts of statements even are statements of fact to Maga world. And it is extraordinarily disturbing to see that this is where we have landed and this is the person who was supposedly going to come and make America healthy again as part of Trump's maha thing. And so far what we're getting is stuff like maybe kids don't need as many vaccines. We're going to get rid of food dyes. Maybe even though we don't actually have anything legally binding other than just the equivalent

of saying, could you please get rid of the food dyes? And we have reports to site with citations to studies that don't exist now being brushed under the rug as the foundational assertions are still things that we stand by. If this is the direction things are going and it is, we're in real, real trouble. Very nice job there by Congressman Ruiz at trying to expose that the emperor has no clothes here with regard to what the, uh, department of health and human services is doing under the stewardship or lack thereof of Robert F Kennedy jr. We have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. You can get instant access to the bonus show by becoming a member at join pacman.com. a very that

on the show.