The David Pakman Show - 8/27/25: GOP loses seat badly, Trump has soldiers picking up trash

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Democrat Catelin Drey defeats Republican Christopher Prosch in an Iowa Senate special election flipping a Trump district and ending the GOP supermajority -- Donald Trump deploys more than 2,200 National Guard troops from multiple states to collect trash in Washington DC as part of a beautification mission -- The White House pushes back as questions mount over Donald Trump’s health after visible bruises, swelling, and cognitive slip-ups -- Trump makes false claims about crime, autism, prescription drugs, and restaurants while Robert F Kennedy Jr rants about radioactive shrimp during a chaotic cabinet meeting -- Cabinet officials and allies, including Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem, Kelly Loeffler, and others, lavish praise on Donald Trump in an extraordinary display of flattery -- Support among young men who backed Trump in 2024 collapses as economic struggles, immigration raids, and broken promises sour his appeal -- California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly raises concerns about Trump’s mental fitness -- Trump mocks Gavin Newsom’s hand movements while Newsom fires back online -- Trump posts a series of late night Truth Social rants boasting about fundraising, crime, and attacking Seth Meyers -- Charlie Kirk tells Taylor Swift to reject feminism and submit to her fiancé, Travis Kelce, in a bizarre rant about their engagement -- On the Bonus Show: Trump signs an executive order against flag burning, Trump wants to change the Defense Department's name to the Department of War, US threatens to withhold funding from states over truck driver English proficiency rules, and much more... 💰 Kikoff helps you build your credit! Get your first month for $1 at https://getkikoff.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.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

We start today with some actually pretty good news for Democrats. If you're thinking about 2026, Republicans have suffered a stunning upset and the political implications are significant. What happened is the Democrats flipped a very red Iowa state Senate seat. Now you might say, okay, one seat in the Iowa state Senate. What difference does it make? This has no national implications. And you would be wrong if that was your belief, because here's what happened.

This seat flipping, the details of which I'll give you in a moment, ends the three-year supermajority of Republicans in the Iowa State Senate. And it really could serve as an important warning shot for 2026 when you combine it with some other elections that we've seen. So this particular election is Caitlin Dre, a Democrat from. Sioux City, Iowa, who defeated Republican Christopher Prosh in yesterday's special election for Iowa Senate District number one. This is a district that Trump carried by 11 points in 2024.

And the important sort of math of it is that Dre won by nine points. And that means it's a 20 point swing towards Democrats compared to last November. Trump won by 11, what was it, nine months ago, Trump plus 11 nine months ago, Democrat Caitlin Dre plus nine, nine months later. That's a 20 point swing. This is similar to, you know, when we think back to election night, 24, viewers of my live stream may remember that while I called nothing, right? We waited for the networks to call at about 10 after. 7 p.m. Maybe it was 20 after 7 p.m. Eastern on election day. When I saw the results from Kentucky and from Indiana, states Trump won in 2020, states Trump one in 2016. Trump was leading at 7.20 p.m. on election night, Kentucky and Indiana, by way more than he had won them in previous elections. That's when I knew it wasn't looking good for Kamala Harris because we look at trends and we look it changes. And so going from Trump plus 11 to Democrat plus nine in nine months is a real problem. It's a real

problem for Republicans. And it also, I mean, just specifically in the Iowa Senate, Republicans had a two-thirds supermajority, which basically meant that governor Kim Reynolds could confirm appointments with no democratic input. That's over. So now the governor is going to need at least one Democratic vote to get her nominees through. So the implications of this are more than like a sleepy local race. You look at the underpinnings, this sort of campaign underpinnings of this. National parties went all in. The DNC sent over 30,000 volunteers to help out in this race. There was a huge text and phone banking operation. They were hammering the Republican image is basically just this is a rubber stamp for Trump, which is what they have been. Republicans poured

in more than $160,000 in various, uh, uh, contributions, in-kind contributions for the Republican, mailers and digital ads and feeding volunteers, pizza, and all of it, and the Democrat one. So now we zoom out a little bit, not all the way. We zoom out just partially. And we see a pattern. We see a pattern where Iowa has now had four special elections in 2025. Every single Iowa special election this year has swung towards Democrats 20 or more points.

We zoom out again, you look at special election trends nationally and you see the same thing. You see Pennsylvania. You see South Carolina. Democrats are overperforming. That doesn't mean they win every race, but compared to just nine months ago, Democrats are doing far better. Why is this happening? A couple different things.

Number one, special elections in general do dry in more politically engaged people. And so, you know, you have one level of turnout for the national presidential elections. Midterm turnout is usually lower. Special election turnout is usually even lower. So there's a more activated turnout that skews towards Democrats. It may reproduce itself in the midterms of 2026. It may not. Number two, there are a lot of Trump voters that are really Trump hobbyists.

They never followed politics or even voted prior to Trump. We don't know if they will continue voting after Trump. But if Trump's not on the ballot, they don't show up. So that's another aspect to why these special elections are numbers that are resulting in numbers that are not so good for Republicans. We also have to look at the dynamics of Iowa specifically where you have farmers and working class voters that aren't doing well as a result of Donald Trump's tariffs and the labor crackdowns and the lost subsidies.

And so they actually may simply be turning against the Republican Party. And then finally, you know, we've now had January to almost September 7 and a half, close to eight months of creeping authoritarianism. There are some red state voters, presumably, that are rethinking what Trump's one party authoritarianism would mean for them and for their lives. So if you talk to Republicans about last night's results, you know, they're kind of just downplaying it. of saying, oh, turnout patterns or Democrats effectively bought the race.

But that's really spin. The reality is that this could be significant. This is a district that Trump easily won just a few months ago. And they got clobbered. Their super majority in the Senate is gone. And if this is what 2025 looks like in red Iowa, you have to consider that there are going to be other Republican safe seats, believed safe seats. believed safe seats that could be in for a shock next year. Grocery, gas and energy prices,

as well as job losses, reduced hours. All of these things are hitting voters pretty hard. And so it's no longer an abstract policy debate. This could all be tied to the idea that Trump-era economic policies aren't good for the average person. Economists have been predicting this for a while. We've been talking about it for a while. Iowa farmers in particular are not benefiting from Donald Trump's policies. So this is really a warning shot across the bow for Republicans. It's a brutal loss for them. This doesn't mean now Democrats nationally get to do whatever they want. All it means is that in Iowa, the governor now needs at least a little bit of Democratic buy-in to get her nominees confirmed. But that's still something. That's not nothing.

And then the question is, how can we build momentum over the next 14 months? Amazing. That that's that that's all it is over the next 14 months into the midterms. Donald Trump is forcing soldiers to pick up garbage in Washington, D.C. Remember, he respects the troops. No one respects and supports the military more than Donald Trump. And what Donald Trump is now having the National Guard do is to pick up trash in Washington, D.C. This is not a euphemism. It's literally picking up trash.

Now, there's nothing wrong with picking up trash. It's an honest job that improves our communities. But it's not what the military is trained for. And so we look at the video and we see trained, uniformed, federally funded members of the military walking the streets with gloves and trash bags and in some cases trash picks And this is not a volunteer event to beautify our greenways or to clean up the bike path. This is what they are doing as part of this triumphant and courageous keeping DC safe farce. Now, according to the task force that's in charge, more than 2,200 troops are deployed in D.C. right now.

They're not doing disaster relief. They're not even really doing public safety. they've shifted their mission into what is being called beautification. Now, nearly half of them aren't even from Washington, D.C. They were pulled from Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, places that have their own problems with crime and their own problems with trash. And they've come all the way to Washington, D.C., to haul trash bags. Now, Trump is saying this is a great community restoration effort.

He's bragging about crime is down. We've already fixed it in D.C. We'll examine that in a little more depth later. But this is at its core, a photo up. The D.C. Guard even posted a video of soldiers lined up with trash bags and quotes about making D.C. beautiful again. And the question that I find myself asking is, what is the National Guard actually for? The National Guard is a long history.

And we've deployed the National Guard before during national disasters, of course, to respond after terrorist attacks, sometimes to protect communities at times of unrest. And there have been controversial uses of the National Guard before. We've talked about Eisenhower sending troops to enforce desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. We've talked about Nixon using the National Guard during anti-war protests. We've talked about the National Guard during George W. Bush's presidency, and that post-19. Katrina disaster response, but at least there, either the National Guard was trying to preserve and defend rights or there was a real emergency.

There was a constitutional obligation there for the National Guard. Right now, Trump, who says the military has no greater defender than him, is using the National Guard as a publicly funded street cleaning crew, which is a new one. which is a new one. And I think the misuse is relevant here. Every guards person that is doing this is one fewer person, one less person, available for real emergencies. And the kicker is that Trump insists that he's the best for the troops.

It's one of his applause lines. But what does it look like? And apparently for Trump respecting the troops means you take men and women trained for disaster response and for defending the country and for specialized. missions and you say you're doing sanitation right now. I want to again say picking up garbage is not beneath anybody. It's important to pick up garbage. It's honest work. The people who do it should be paid fairly. They should have good working conditions. They should have the right, the best tools we have for doing that job. But the point is that that's a job that should be done

by the people trained and hired to do it. When you give that job to the military, you're not honoring their skills, you're wasting their skills. And it is a situation where every hour spent on this stunt is an hour that you were paying for. And it's an hour that I am paying for. And it's something that we have city sanitation workers trained for. Why is it that our taxpayer money is going to service members doing it? Now, Trump has been obsessed with optics since day one. And he wanted his military parade. Back during his first term, there was the Lafayette Square clearing so he could hold up a Bible for cameras back in 2020. And now it's make DC beautiful again, rife with imported troops to clean graffiti and pick up cigarette butts. So it's the same formula

we've seen from Trump before. It's a symbolic act. You wrap it in patriotism. You hope nobody stops and says, why are soldiers doing something that there's a public works crew that could handle? And you push a sort of cosmetic victory. in the most literal sense, picking up trash. But that's not really D.C.'s problem. D.C.'s problem isn't cigarette butts by the waterfront. It's housing shortages and inequality and food insecurity and crime in areas where Trump hasn't even deployed the National Guard.

So this is just total nonsense. The real solutions, as is often the case, dealing with housing policy and these other things, it doesn't make for flashy footage or headlines or something Trump. can just show up and point to. And so Trump's using the military as a PR team sort of like as a prop. And when we start using the military that way, it's not just a waste of money. We really are potentially endangering national security by taking troops away from the skills from the activities that they were trained for.

And today, it's picking up garbage tomorrow. It's I don't know. This is not the job of the military. And Trump is not respecting the troops by doing this. The White House is losing it over the growing conversation in the media about Donald Trump's health. They want it to stop right away. Michael Wolf has been reporting on Donald Trump for years.

He has a very interesting scoop. Insiders at the White House, you know, the Caroline Levitts and others, they are furious about the attention that the media is finally giving. And it took long enough, didn't it, to the weird bruising on Trump's hands. hands to the swollen ankles, to the cognitive slips. We are finally getting some discussion of it and the White House isn't happy. Listen to this. Michael, what are you hearing about Donald Trump's health?

I did notice the extra bruise and the photograph that the White House put off, the official photograph they put out with him and the South Korean premiere and they cut him off at the ankle so we couldn't see his ankle spilling. Well, the only thing that I'm hearing about his health is everyone is irritated that people are focusing on his health. I mean, the people around him, because, and actually this makes some sense, what they see is Donald Trump always moving ahead, a man who doesn't stop, inexhaustible. Inexhaustible. Well, he feels inexhaustible. But he doesn't. On the other hand, they acknowledge one day, he was.

will just go over. They say that? Yeah. How interesting, that's their perspective, that he will just keel over. Yeah, they have no idea. The idea that he will fade, that he will become sick, that he will be mortal in that way that we all are, they actually don't accept. He will stop at one point.

I see that. I see that, because he does have still an enormous amount of energy as we talked in our last time together. inexhaustible ability to speak. And he is that, you know, because he is from another age, I mean, when I grew up, people would say, would say, what happened? Oh, he dropped dead. And in my mind, I always had that walking along the street, boom, gone.

Well, interestingly, that didn't happen to Jeffrey Epstein. There is so much in the Gillen-Maxwell transcript. I read it cover-to-cover on a flight on the way back frantically. sort of John Stewart, like making comments all over it. But one of the things that I was most interested by, pruriently, I will say, is the fact that Gillen Maxwell, unreliable narrator, says that Jeffrey Epstein couldn't really have sex. So this is a sex story with two people who can't have sex.

Before we go there, exactly, I think we should go to the top line on this, which is what she delivered for Donald Trump. Okay. So we've discussed that part before. But so the point here is, the point here is, the white house is not happy with the discussion of Donald Trump's health. And we've seen the White House try to kind of stage manage this. We are increasingly seeing Donald Trump holding his hand in a way where you can't see the bruises or even covering the hand with his left hand, although the left hand is now bruised. We've seen the White House crop pictures to hide Trump's swollen ankles and Increasingly, people are referring to Trump as cancels colligula, which is a totally different thing

than the tangerine tyrant or the mango menace. These are other, other names. They're issuing the minimum explanation for the bruising. Oh, he shook hands all day, and that's all that happened here. And that is not really convincing to too many people. And they've even now rolled out Ronnie Jackson, the same guy who said, if Trump had a slightly better diet. He could live to 200. And Ronnie Jackson is saying Trump's health is great. We're going to talk about that later. And interestingly, even Alex Jones. You remember Alex Jones, right?

Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves as bad. That Alex Jones. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pacman. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Packman. Alex Jones now is even saying, uh, Trump's got to slow down. Or he's going to. collapse. So where we find ourselves, as we are about to breach September of 2025, is that the White House thinks they can just shout down the conversation. The White House thinks they can come out and say, oh, totally benign, chronic venous insufficiency, and he's doing so much great work, shaking hands that he got bruises. But the more that the White House insists that Trump is the

healthiest of any president. His energy surpasses any president in history. The more obvious it becomes that they're hiding something and that Donald Trump's health is a political liability that they're not going to be able to spin away. Now, on Friday, we're going to talk about reports of a growing movement in J.D. Vance's circle based around the expectation that Trump may indeed drop dead during this presidential term and how Vance would capitalize on that other than the obvious switches he gets to be president. So we're going to deal with that on Friday. There are people who have written to me and have said, you know, David, it's almost worse if Vance becomes president over Trump because Trump at least is incompetent and Trump is losing

a lot of the things he's trying to do in the courts, even if it doesn't get a lot of attention. J.D. Vance would actually get stuff done. So that's a conversation we will have Friday. We're going to take a break. Make sure you're on my substack, substack. .davidpackman.com to see the full interview with Robert Reich that we did. We're going to take a quick break and be right back. You know, no matter how fast time seems to be flying by, it is never too late to make some progress. If you're saving for a big purchase like a home or a car and you need to build credit, kickoff can help. They are the number one credit building app in the app store.

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Pacman. The link is in the description. Donald Trump held a cabinet meeting so disastrous yesterday that it stunned the entire room, the media, the people left in this country who can think critically. And most of our allies. Now, before we get into the clips, I want to remind people, this is the cabinet meeting. What do I mean by that? Other presidents would hold actual cabinet meetings not open to the press where policy is discussed. Decisions are made.

Actionable steps are outlined. And then they let in the press and just chat for a few minutes. This is the cabinet meeting with Trump. So for people saying, oh, if this is what they do publicly, I wonder what the behind the scenes of the meeting is. There is no meeting. This is the meeting. The entire meeting takes place on camera.

It has two components. Trump ranting and raving unintelligibly. We're going to look at now that we're going to look at that now. And then everybody in the room praising Trump to see who can praise him in the most brown-nosing way. We'll get to that in a moment. Donald Trump has a new idea that we are going to ignore the fact that the death penalty is outlawed in Washington, D.C.

And we are simply going to start executing people who commit murder in D.C. Anybody murder something in the capital? If you murder something in the capital, if you murder that Nando's chicken, I stopped in there last time I was in D.C. We will, we will put you to death. Capital punishment. Capital capital punishment. If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to be seeking the death penalty. Now, is that legal? No. But Donald Trump wants to federalize everything. And so he says, we're just going to do it. An authoritarian being an authoritarian. We're going to get back to

RFK Jr. in the next segment. But Donald Trump has a new opinion about autism. That's really what it is. He says something like maybe a drug is causing autism. Fascinating how quickly Trump has adopted Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s opinions about this. So there has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something. And I know you're looking very strongly in different things. And I hope you can come out with that as soon as well. So one in 10,000, and now it's one in 31 or 34 or 12, if it's a boy. Can you imagine that?

One in 12. That's for a boy. be prepared for september 5 it's not even be prepared for september to see a declaration from the trump administration vaccines cause autism we're banning them or we're banning some now r fk junior uh sorry not r fk junior donald trump started his dictator talk once again and he once again is saying there are people who want a dictator and he doesn't even hesitate it but then he goes on television says oh trump is a dictator he's a and a lot of people have so so the line is that i'm a dictator but i stop crime so a lot of people say you know if that's the case i'd rather have a dictator

but i'm not a dictator i just know how to stop crime there you go trump would gladly be a dictator but he's not but he will be on day one but people want it but he isn't but he's doing it. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. then ranted about radioactive shrimp, not a topic we're used to hearing about. And by the way, they have scaled back food inspections in the United States. I'll say one other thing about fishing. We are now the South Asian nations are now dumping shrimp on our country. The shrimp is heavily contaminated. We just stopped a shipment that was contaminated with Seesium 157, which is radioactive, they're farming these shrimps, and they use bacteriocides and antibiotics and all kinds of chemicals, and the shrimp are so contaminated, the European nations won't

take them, so they're dumping them all here, and they're putting out a business. We have the most sustainable, highly regulated fishery in the world. What our fishermen do is a good thing, and all the trawlers in the Gulf and Alaska are being shut down because we're getting shrimp done. here. So we have now increased FDA inspections of shrimp to make sure that Americans are not eating contaminant buying and eating contaminated shrimp. You know, it's funny because here he says we're doing a good thing by increasing FDA inspections. But overall, the problem is that food safety is more at risk in the United States under Trump. Because overall, even if it's true

that RFK has increased the evaluation of radioactive shrimp, overall, we're doing fewer food. inspections and food is less carefully screened. So if RFK believes that more inspection is good, why have they reduced it overall? Now he did address autism briefly and we're going to get back to Trump in a moment. He is already saying we're on to something. We think we've figured out what it is that is causing autism and we're going to deal with it next month. The autism, if I could, just I don't want to go too long because we have a lot of people,

but the autism is such a tremendous horror show what's happening in our country, and some other countries, but mostly our country. How are you doing on that? We are doing very well. We will have announcements as promised in September. We're finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism. Clearly, almost certainly.

And we're going to be able to address those in September. It's such a big day. I'm looking for. There you go. What do you think those interventions are that RFK will courageously declare are the cause of autism in the United States? The mathematical challenges continue. Donald Trump insisting he will cut prescription drug prices 1,500%. That can be done is favorite nations, Bobby.

And we're not talking about a 25% cut. We're talking about a 1,500% cut because people go to Europe to buy drugs and they come back with drugs, prescription drugs, normal not, I don't mean the bad, bad drugs. I mean prescription drug. There you go. So if you have something that costs $100 and you cut the price 50%, well, now it costs $50. If you have something that's $100 and you cut the price 100%, now it costs zero. If you have something that's $100 and you cut the price 1,500 percent, how exactly does that

work? I don't know. I don't know. And you know what? I don't think Trump knows either. And then finally, Donald Trump claiming that D.C. restaurants are doing so well thanks to his make D.C. safe again thing. The reality as we've covered is that D.C. dining is in the toilet.

Badly. But, and I bet you see a big difference in the streets right now. And this is only 12 days, but people are telling me they're going out to dinner now. They haven't, I told the story of my friend, but I have a lot of friends that are going out to dinner all the time now in D.C. and they weren't doing it 12 days ago. They would never even think one of my friends went out five times. It was four times the last time I told. Now it's five times.

He said, I love going out to dinner and restaurants are starting to open again. The truth, of course, is that restaurant reservations were down 30 percent. and a completely brutal and unnecessary assault on the D.C. economy is taking place right now. So that's Trump at his cabinet meeting, but what about the cabinet secretaries? I have a question for you. Who do you think sucked up the most to Donald Trump during yesterday's cabinet meeting? I submit to you some candidates. And it is really something to see people like Tulsi Gabbard, Kelly Leffler,

Scott Besson, Christy Noam, Lee Zeldin, they are competing. Who can suck up to Donald Trump the most and the best? Here is Tulsi. And they could never make America great again, but we are doing that. Congratulations. You found some interesting things, Tulsi. She's becoming a bigger and bigger star every day. She found a lot of good things.

Go ahead. Thank you, sir. As we approached Labor Day weekend here, Yeah, this is just such a great opportunity really to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people. He's just such a champion. And I know we'll hear as we go around the table here, how your focus singularly on putting the well-being and interests of the American people first is that common thread that we're seeing in your policies being implemented across your administration. And he is just such a champion, such a champion for the average person. And Tulsi kind of gives up the game.

Tulsi goes, we're going to hear from other people sucking up to you as well. Kelly Leffler says, so keep track, remember, we're trying to figure out who wins the suck up contest here, which is a classic and authoritarian governments, who can suck up to the dear leader the best. Here's Kelly Leffler. She's giving an attempt. Administrator. Thank you, Mr. President.

Well, everyone knows there's no stronger advocate for hardworking American families And you. There is no stronger advocate than Donald Trump. So there's Kelly Leffler. Then we get to Christy Noem. And Christy Noem thanks Trump merely for the opportunity to work for him. This is, this is vomitous. I hope people aren't eating right now.

Christy? Mr. President, first of all, thank you for the opportunity and work for you. And you committed when you ran for president to make America safe again. And today the average family and individual that lives in this country is safer than they've been in years. Thank you, sir, for allowing me to work for you. And then Christine Ome, a little more substantively, saying, sir, you're doing such a great job on crime.

Make sure we know who's coming into this country. You've arrested and brought to justice hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens of criminals that have perpetuated violence against American people. Sir, you've had 1.6 million people voluntarily go home to their home countries, sir, that we're here in this country illegally. Because of your strong message and you enforcing the law, they decided to go home on their own so that they could come back the right way someday. What a miracle. What a miracle that Donald Trump was able to achieve. Not to be outdone. Lee Zeldon then finds other ways to praise Trump. Lee Zeldon is the administrator

of the EPA, which is sort of ironic because they're supposed to protect the environment, something which does not seem to be a priority for Donald Trump. Led by Stephen Miller. They had been amazing to work with. I was just in Iowa with Administrator Leffler, made announcement with Secretary Rollins to reverse the deratement on diesel exhaust fluid systems. Wow. Mr. President, you said you wanted water flowing faster, working with the Secretary of Energy.

We've done our part to do that, to get gas cans flowing faster, to stop that annoying start, feature in vehicles. See, people out there might say, well, why are you focused on all of these little things? If it's little to you, it doesn't mean that it's not a very big deal for millions of other Americans. What a victory by Donald Trump. They are getting gas cans flowing faster. Now, then it became Robert F. Kennedy Jr's turn. Now, there's a little problem here. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did some kind of fitness challenge. And the problem, of course, is Donald Trump couldn't do a single pushup and Donald Trump couldn't do a single pullup. And what our FK says is Trump is exempt from that and he'll explain why. And then finally, most importantly, the Pete and Bobby

challenge. I want to give an update, Pete God, or I got five minutes of 48. It's 100 pushups, 50 pull-ups and you try to do it within 10 minutes. I got five. minutes and 48 seconds beat beat me i'm still bitter at that five minutes 25 the cabinet leader is scott turner you're my day you beat you're at your arm that's you got five minutes and 15 seconds i'm waiting for reports from the rest of the cabinet the only exemptions currently existing is if you can hit a 50 at bed minister which president trump did with with bry So he's the only one exempt in this room. That's right.

Trump is exempt from the fitness challenge because he was able to cheat his way to a 50 at his own golf club, which RFK misstates as bed minister rather than bedminster. So that's pretty full on. But then I saw Scott Besson and Scott Besson praised Trump like a parent would praise a three year old. Listen to this. Sir, as we've said very often, economic security is national security and our country has never been so secure thanks to you you have

brought us back from the edge you have the overwhelming mandate from the American people you're restoring confidence in government a topic that is on the front of everyone's mind the Federal Reserve the Federal Reserve Independence comes from a political arrangement between itself and the American public having the public's trust is the only thing that gives it credibility. And you, sir, are restoring trust to government. And you can tell Scott Besson really means it because he's reading it off of a piece of paper. I've got to tell you. Bessent seems miserable to me. Miserable. I sat next to Scott Bessent

at a dinner in D.C. recently. And I don't mean I was at the same table. What I mean is I was this was at Haleo in D.C. I was sitting at the next table over from Besson. And Bessent was at a table with a bunch of guys. He said nothing the whole dinner and just sat there looking miserable, slowly eating his food, looked as miserable as I've ever seen anyone. I think of all these people, Bessent is not a true believer. I think he thinks this is all nonsense, but he's bought in and loyalty is expected and loyalty he's going to give.

And then finally, finally, and maybe this is the winner of the suck up to Trump contest. Steve Whitkoff says, when is Trump finally going to get that Nobel Peace Prize? And there's only one thing I wish for that that noble committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the noble piece, this Nobel award was ever talked about to receive that reward. Wow. Beyond your success is game changing out in the world today. And I hope everybody one day wakes up and realizes that.

Only when people wake up and smell the coffee, will Trump finally get what he deserves more than anyone else, the Nobel Peace Prize. I think that's the winner. I think Whitkoff wins the suckup to Trump contest with Christy Noem, a close second. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment here. Email info at David Pakman.com. Or better yet, leave a comment on my substack at substack.

dot david packman dot com all right so we all know alexa listens to us recommends products based on our conversations meta retargets us based on our browsing and engagement history have you wondered what chat gpt and claude are up to with your conversations we feed so much of our information to these a i chat bots thoughts dreams sensitive questions business ideas they take the information tie it to your and they can sell that to third parties and governments. ChatGPT has the former director of the NSA on their board right now. That doesn't feel awesome. It took us a long time to truly understand what social media companies were doing with our data.

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most intimate thoughts to a corporation or the government, go to venice.a.a. slash Pacman and use code Pacman to get 20% off their pro plan. The link is in the description. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason, no probable cause needed, all while Republicans try to twist things so that you think this is all great for America. This should be the biggest story in the U.S. right now, but it's almost impossible to keep up with the millions of moves that Trump is making every single day. That's why ground news exists.

Ground news is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin before it takes control of our opinions. Ground news is the smarter, more reliable way to stay informed when MAGA is banking. on us getting distracted. I'm partnering up with Ground News to give you 40% off the same vantage plan that I use. So you'll pay only five bucks a month for all of their premium features. Just go to ground.news slash Pacman or use the code Pacman in the app when you sign up. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. Young voters who decided to vote for Trump in November of 2024 are regretting it. You know, you hear these stories over and over again.

Someone voted for Trump and they cheered when he talked about law and order and border security and then ice showed up and took away their spouse or took away their son-in-law or their best friend or someone they've worked with or gone fishing with for 20 years and they go I didn't think Trump Trump meant them. I thought they meant some other people off in some distant land but of course as we've clarified yes Trump meant them it's like a wolf walking into your backyard and you don't worry because you're like, it's only going to eat other people's sheep, not mine. And then the next morning, you find that it's ripped your sheep to shreds. Okay. It's not just older voters and immigrant voters that are having second thoughts. This is starting to happen with the group that Donald Trump kind of shockingly grabbed more

support from, which is young voters and in particular young men who supported Trump. who supported Trump in 2024 at a level that we have never seen before. Now, in 2020, Biden won 18 to 29 year olds by 24 points. Biden plus 29, a 24 among young voters in 2020. In 2024, Harris barely won that group with a four point margin. So that means Trump went plus 20 relative to 2020 among young voters. That's a massive, massive swing. And that swing was almost entirely because of young men specifically.

56% of young men voted Biden in 2020, 56% of young men voted Trump in 2024. And what Trump offered them, and we've talked about this in our segments about what's going on with young men and Democrats before. Trump sold them this unapologetic traditional masculinity. Don't apologize. Be the traditional caricature of an alpha male. And he went on the Manosphere podcast, he elevated people like Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk and says, I'm going to ban trans Americans from the military. We're going to gut DEI.

We're not going to do any of this sissy boy stuff. And for a lot of young men, they saw voting Trump kind of like a cultural statement. We're going to make men great again. We're not going to be embarrassed about being men anymore. Well, they got Trump elected and the sort of shine is wearing off. There's a new Pew poll which shows that Trump's approval among under 35 voters who backed him has gone from 92% in February to 69% now. So understand that you might say, David, that's a great number.

This is if we start with young men who voted Trump, right? So we start with all of them. 100% of this group voted Trump. By February, only 92% of those young men, Trump voters still supported Trump. Now, only 69% of the young Trump voters still support Donald Trump. This is the biggest drop in support for Trump among any age group in his base. And what's happening is that these guys, these young guys are getting hit really hard by the economy, manufacturing job losses, construction job losses.

These are industries that employ more men than women. We see gains in health care jobs, which are dominated by women. Unemployment is rising among young men in their early 20s. Even those with college degrees, we still have inflation. And when your rent check comes due, you just can't spin that when you're, everything was going to be cheaper. Remember, nothing's cheaper. Groceries aren't cheaper.

Gas isn't cheaper. Student loan payments are still coming due. And so nearly half of men under 30 now say, oh, no, the economy is very clearly getting worse. We then have the Epstein fiasco. And I do think it's worth mentioning because I think it's relevant here. For years, Trump world was hyping. Trump's going to be the guy that will expose the client list. It's going to take down Democrats.

We're going to expose these pedophiles. They said, these are a lot of the same influencers who helped bring young men into Trump's camp Joe Rogan and Andrew Shultz and others who are now saying there's a cover up. Trump's clearly hiding something. What happened to the Epstein files? Are we ever going to see them? And so this is the same pattern as the immigration rates. People cheer the tough talk.

It hits them. And all of a sudden, they go, I thought Trump was going to use his power against other people. I didn't think I or my family or I didn't think I was going to live with higher prices. I didn't think I would have fewer job prospects or deal with broken promises. And so now some of the voices that sold young men, Trump, are saying, you might have been played. This isn't going as well as we thought. So the Republican bet for 2026 is that young men stay loyal. This is just a bump in the road.

This is no big deal. What we have to remember to do is welcome them back and say, hey, you know what? We're not going to shame you for now saying, I think I was led astray. We're going to say, it's awesome that you have the wherewithal. and 30,000 foot view to recognize that, come back in. But we have to have something to offer them. And unfortunately, we have very few Democrats to point to where we can say, look at this great thing, right?

Someone might have, they might be driving a jalopy. But if you don't have a better alternative to show them, you know, look at this reliable Toyota Camry that you can get. We've got to have something to show them that is going to be a reasonable alternative. So we're going to talk about that later, but Trump is losing support from this key group. Governor Gavin Newsom dropped a Trump dementia bomb yesterday. I love to see this because Newsom is up for a fight. Newsom's fighting Trump on redistricting.

Newsom's fighting Trump on social media. But Newsom is also doing something which I asked him about, not in our last interview, but in our previous one. Why is corporate and legacy media so scared to talk to talk about not only Donald Trump's physical, but also his mental health? And Gavin Newsom is now dumping this into the forefront. Donald Trump played a or there was a video of Donald Trump rather in which he isn't making any sense. So I'm going to play that video for you first. And then I'm going to show you what Gavin Newsom's reaction was.

Here is Trump during his cabinet meeting yesterday talking about Gavin New Scum. But I think that's actually just an excuse. I actually think these people are sick. There's something wrong. So we said hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day into the Pacific Ocean. They turn a valve and the valve heads out and we turned the valve back. I actually had to do it using force. We turned the valve back and now they have water, but not as much as they should have.

because they should, and I'm telling Gavin Newscom, by this conversation right now, turn the rest of the water on. So Donald Trump has repeated this many, many times. And Gavin Newsom taking that on, Gavin Newsom taking that video of Trump and asking Twitter's AI GROC, do people with dementia repeat false things over and over again, to which GROC replies, yes, people with dementia can repeat false statements or beliefs, a behavior often linked to memory impairments and cognitive changes. This can manifest as confabulation where they create or repeat false memories to fill gaps in recollection, or perseveration, where they fixate on a particular

idea or statement. Is this the most important thing for Gavin Newsom to be doing? No. Is it important in some sense that there is clearly something going on with Trump? Trump continues to turn his ire on Newsom. And Newsom is saying it plainly, something's wrong with this guy's cognition. At a time when he, meaning Gavin Newsom, is getting more attention than ever for how he's going after Donald Trump, yeah, I think there absolutely is something to that. And I like to see it. And more evidence that Trump is getting very triggered by this is what Donald Trump is.

what Donald Trump said about Gavin Newsome later in this cabinet meeting, which we're going to talk about next. One of the things, if I were Donald Trump, I would not be talking about, would be my or anyone else's hands. And here is Donald Trump during yesterday's cabinet meeting saying that Newsom has something going on with his hands. Listen to this. Can't handle it.

You have an incompetent governor there. You have an incompetent governor in California. In California, Gavin, he's in, I know very well, he's incompetent. He's a nice guy, looks good. Hi, everybody. How you doing? He's got some strange hand action going. I don't know what the hell's his problem.

It's a little weird, to be honest, a little something shaky going on there. You know, this is funny because Trump's got a problem with his hands. They're covered in bruises. And Gavin Newsome seizing on this after Trump went after him by putting out a tweet. You really want to have the conversation about hands. So here's my takeaway. And I know that my audience is sort of a little split on what Gavin Newsom is up to. There are certain issues that legacy in corporate media, you know, no matter how much we

in independent media shout about some of this stuff, there are still a large swath of the population that doesn't watch independent news media. And they just watch corporate media. Corporate media is essentially silent on these issues. Corporate media dances around the stuff going on with Trump's body, they dance around the stuff going on with Trump's brain. I've got to hand it to Gavin Newsom. At least he's putting this stuff out into the public.

And so I don't think this is going to end Trump's presidency. I don't think this is the be all end all of political resistance or whatever the case may be. But Newsom is willing to say this stuff. And we know that it is getting to Donald Trump. We know that Trump's White House inner circle is furious and irritated. to put it lightly, about what is taking place with regard to increasing coverage about Trump's physical and mental health. So keep at it.

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Donald Trump suffered a complete meltdown at one in the morning, two in the morning last night. This is not normal. Sarah Matthews, former Deputy White House Press Secretary was recently on this show. I asked her was the belief that when this happens, Trump is up all night tweeting held in your office when you worked for Trump? She said, yes. When he did this stuff, we believed he was up all night. Take a look at this insanity and remember that this is the president of the United States. Donald Trump posting to truth social.

I am pleased to report that I have raised since the great presidential election of 2024 in various forms and political entities in excess of $1.5 billion. Make America great again, President DJT. Trump still doesn't understand that when you put tariffs on other countries, the tariffs are paid by Americans. He has raised money in the way that you can raise taxes. He put an import tax on American companies and he's collecting it from American companies. Republicans were supposed to be against that, but Trump is bragging about it. Trump then talking about a crime bill, quote, Speaker Mike Johnson and leader John Thune are working with me and other Republicans

on a comprehensive crime bill. It's what our country need. And now, More to follow. Make America great again. Now there's a new crime bill that he wants to do. We've never heard a thing about it. He then goes to talk about what he's doing in D.C. crime numbers are way down in D.C. Amazing progress being made. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. You know, every detail of this is humiliatingly dishonest. We saw the Trump administration brag. that D.C. went 13 days without a murder since Donald Trump deployed troops, except just a few months back, D.C. went 16 days without a murder. It's not really representative of anything that Donald Trump is doing. There's also broader questions as to, can you really reduce crime in this way? Or are you just kind of relocating it? And if Trump is president of the United States, is it really a victory to relocate crime from one city to another? I don't know. It doesn't really. seem like it to me. Trump then attacking mail-in voting at nearly 2 a.m. posting, quote, ban mail-in

voting, President Donald J. Trump. And then at two in the morning, he's just up all night with this stuff. You think foreign leaders respect what Trump is doing? I don't think so. Trump posting, quote, there is a sick rumor going around that fake news NBC, extended the contract of one of the least talented late-night television hosts out there, Seth Myers. He has no ratings, talent, or intelligence, and the personality of an insecure child. So why would fake news NBC extend this dope's contract? I don't know, but I'll definitely be finding out.

And of course, those are thinly veiled threats, Trump taking responsibility for getting Stephen Colbert's show ended. this is an authoritarian nightmare. If you ask me, where do I want presidents focused? I want them focused on creating jobs, on getting an economy functioning that works better for the bulk of the country. I want them dealing with lack of access to health care. And do I want them picking and choosing who gets to have a late night show and strong arming

either with lawsuits or social media threats, networks about you might lose. your license or I might sue you this way or go after. No, that's what authoritarian's do. That's what insecure people do. That's what incompetent people do. And there are people in Trump's corner, for lack of a better term, who love it. They think he's finally going after these woke late night shows. Really? Does that get anybody food if they can't afford it? Does that get anybody a job if they don't have one? Is that getting anybody health care if they don't? Come on. And there are people praising this. And one of the main people praising this stuff is named Charlie Kirk and you've got to see what he said. This is not really a show about pop culture. I couldn't care less about Taylor Swift getting

engaged to Travis Kelsey, who is he, does he still even play football? I don't know. I guess it's maybe his brother who retired. Like, as you can tell, I couldn't care less about this crap. But Charlie Kirk's reaction to the engagement of Taylor Swift was very interesting to see. Because Kirk expresses a sort of social conservatism rooted in the Bible and rooted in sort of 1950s ideology that you would think no one would give a damn about in 2025. But there is a growing movement, including online. Some of these people, because I, this is touchy, I'm just going to say it, you know, there are in cells, men who are involuntarily celibate.

they would like to be dating they would like to be romantically entangled they would like to be sexually active but they are not uh desirable in many ways okay this is tough stuff but we've got to call it for what it is um some of these men because they are unable to live the lifestyle they want that involves women giving them the time of day they have found this sort of you know biblical values, no sex before marriage type stuff, appealing because it makes them feel like they're not failing because they're losers. They're failing at all. They're choosing because it's the biblical thing.

Now, I don't say this pejoratively in the sense of I've said the Democratic Party has failed young men. And I've enumerated the ways and I've talked about what should be done. But the scary part is that what Kirk is selling has become so appealing to them. Take a listen to this. But maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't have children. I say this non-sarcastically. I say this as a husband and a father. Having children change. changes you. Getting married changes you. And I hope that America's biggest pop star marrying the pharmaceutical spokesperson ends up conservatizing them. Taylor Swift might

de-radicalize herself. She might come back down to reality. I want them to have lots of children. It teaches you something about yourself. Deep down, I think Taylor Swift actually was raised as a conservative that has gotten kind of cut up in this metropolitan liberal stuff and she doesn't quite have an attachment to the conservative backbone that she was raised in, but this might reattach her in the best possible way. And I'm not saying this sarcastically. I've seen this happen time and time again. When people start to get married and have children, it starts to change your politics. It starts to clarify your worldview. And for Taylor Swift, who obviously is very popular and incredibly supported,

Taylor Swift might go from a cat lady to a J.D. Vance supporter. And I think we should celebrate that. I think that Taylor Swift having two or three children, she should have more children than she has houses. That is my challenge, Taylor Swift. And I'm not being sarcastic. I think that if she, if she ends up having children, she'll stop this kind of liberal endorsing Joe Biden,

nonsense. And we want, we want Taylor Swift on team America. So this goes on. Now, anecdotally, and also at a statistical level, I was not able to find any evidence that when people get married or people have kids, they become more conservative and they vote more for Republicans. In fact, I think that there is a sort of self-selection bias here. If you already lean right and live in a certain part of the country, it's plausible that you get married and have kids. And all of a sudden, you sort of recede into a more extreme version of like the security mom. We've got to get these immigrants out. And that's if you're already predisposed in that way. At the same time, on the other hand, speaking personally and for other people I know, when you get married and have

kids, you start to think about what sort of a world do I want my kids to grow up in? If you have girls. You start thinking about do I want a world for these girls who will eventually be women that looks the way people like Trump and Charlie Kirk want it to look where mostly older white men decide what they can do with their bodies and so on. No, you don't. And so a lot of people who already lean left go more in that direction when they find themselves in that scenario. So there's a bit of a self-selection bias here and an availability bias of what do you see around you. But at the big picture level, I was not able to find any evidence of what Charlie Kirk says here that people become more conservative, especially socially, once they get married and have kids. But if that's, if all you've got is a hammer, everything ends up looking like a nail.

Now, on the bonus show today, we're going to talk about Donald Trump's flag burning order, which appears to be completely illegal, by the way. We are going to talk about the possibility of changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which has been suggested. And finally, English proficiency requirements for truck driver licenses, we've seen and heard them breach or broach this before. They are at it again. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss it. Sign up at join packman.com.

Make sure you're getting my daily substack newsletter for free at substack. David Pakman.com. And of course, make sure you're getting the daily audio podcast. completely free. I've got nothing to sell you but a good time here. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple Podcasts. It's really anywhere you want. I'll see you on the bonus show.