The David Pakman Show - A tour de force of corruption as prices spike

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Trump helps defeat Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky after Massie criticized Trump and pushed for the release of the Epstein files -- Donald Trump creates a multi-billion dollar fund for allies while his administration also limits tax investigations involving the Trumps -- JD Vance defends Donald Trump’s stock trading controversy by arguing that Trump does not personally execute the trades himself -- JD Vance repeatedly tries to reinterpret Donald Trump’s comments about ignoring the financial impact of war on Americans -- Donald Trump endorses Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn for Senate despite Paxton facing corruption scandals and fraud allegations -- A nurse and attorney raises concerns about Donald Trump’s visible swelling, dental procedures, and possible cardiovascular health issues -- Donald Trump makes confusing public remarks about religion, war, gas prices, and the ballroom while dismissing economic pain for Americans -- Donald Trump speaks at a congressional picnic and makes confusing comments about prices and the economy -- On the ⁠Bonus Show⁠: Colorado's Democratic governor faces backlash after freeing Tina Peters, Raul Castro is expected to be indicted today, Minnesota becomes the first state to ban prediction markets, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at ⁠https://pdsdebt.com/pakman⁠ 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at ⁠https://venice.ai/pakman⁠ 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at ⁠https://www.piavpn.com/DavidP⁠ 🥄 Magic Spoon: Use code PAKMAN for $5 off at ⁠https://magicspoon.com/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 (00:00) Start (01:32) Thomas Massie loses reelection after Trump split (09:06) Trump forbids IRS from investigating him, sons (19:35) Vance struggles to excuse Trump's corruption (27:23) Vance tries to clean up Trump's remarks (37:25) Trump endorses Ken Paxton in Texas (44:15) Nurse claims Trump has heart issues (50:39) Trump rambles about Iran, the ballroom (58:28) Trump speaks at congressional picnic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind every F-35 jet is a Canadian company, horizontal tails built in Winnipeg, engine sensors from Ottawa, and stealth composite panels crafted in Loonenburg to name just a few. Thanks to thousands of skilled Canadian workers, the F-35 aircraft is delivering unmatched capabilities for 20 allied nations around the world, and will generate more than $15.5 billion in industrial value for Canada. This ad is sponsored by the F-35 partner team, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and RTX. Learn more at www.f35.com slash Canada. Well, he did it. Donald Trump politically executed one of his Republican opponents and he got him out of Congress while his administration may have crossed the single most corrupt line that any

modern president has crossed. We're going to talk about the IRS and DOJ creating what critics are calling a taxpayer funded MAGA slush fund. And by the way, it also prevents the IRS from investigating Trump and his family. Meanwhile, J.D. Vance may may have accidentally, supposedly accidentally, implicated Trump in securities fraud while trying, I guess, to defend him. We're going to look at an incredible email I received from a nurse. And then Melania Trump can't believe the condition of her husband as he rants about knowing flagpoles better than anybody and waterproof lakes and a dismay.

You might be saying, David, what do you mean a display? You must mean a display. I don't know. Trump called it a display and we will discuss all of it and more. Plus, plus, where does American leverage come from in 2026? What are the, is it aircraft carriers? I'm going to argue that it is not and that in fact, we seem to be losing much of our leverage. That's all today if we can squeeze it in.

Well, Donald Trump got his revenge. You got to hand it to him. Republican Congressman Thomas Massey has been an outspoken anti-Trump Republican for a while. Donald Trump decided to try to ruin his political career as punishment. He set up, promoted, and endorsed a primary challenger to run against Thomas Massey in the fourth district in Kentucky. And indeed, last night, Thomas Massey lost his primary to Ed Galraign, Galrain 1, 55,000. to 45, not super close at the end of the day. Now, it did in addition to Trump's endorsement

take a lot of money. This was the most expensive intra-party house race in the history of American politics. And from Trump's perspective, this was an overt retribution campaign. Remember all the stuff about Biden is settling scores and going after his, you know, revenge and this is an an overt Trump retribution revenge campaign. Trump looked at Massey and he essentially said, how dare you go against me? How dare you speak out against Trumpism? I'm going to try to force you out of your job. And Trump did. And now Thomas Massey is going to be replaced at Gawraine now winning the Republican primary will go to the general in November for the Kentucky 4th district. And almost certainly is going to win because it is a very red district. Now, I think there's a broader

political story here that is this was about Massey, but it also was not about Massey or it's bigger than Massey. Maybe is the more accurate way to say it. The whole point here is for Donald Trump to demonstrate his power. It's like a public execution of a traitor. Yes, we must get rid of the traitor, but we need to scare everybody else. The point of the public execution is, great part is as a warning to everybody else. Don't you dare because look at what happened to them. So if you are a Republican and you're thinking about denouncing Trump, running for reelection in 2026 or maybe in 2028 in an anti-Trump Republican way, maybe if you are Donald Trump's

vice president right now or his secretary of state and you're thinking of, I don't know, should we invoke the 25th Amendment? We talked about Robert Reich's theory or hypothesis about that last week. And it involves J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio going, well, maybe I. The point here is scare all of them straight. Scare all of them straight by making them see Trump still has the power. Trump still is the kingmaker. There's another very important reminder as we think about what is going to happen to the Republican

party after Trump or as Trump phases out. Nothing about this whole Thomas Massey thing is about. about ideology in the sense that conservatism is irrelevant in the modern MAGA Republican Party. Why do I say that? Well, Massey is by traditional standards, Massey is one of the most conservative members of the House. But that doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Trump. You know, MAGA and Trump early on would pay lip service to the idea that they are truly the conservatives and we've got to do away with all of this liberal stuff and what matters really is. your adherence to conservative ideology. But we very quickly learned that there's very little

conservative about Magotrumpism. And in fact, it's primarily authoritarian. Massey's conservatism is libertarian conservatism. But it doesn't matter because conservatism isn't a salient currency anymore. Loyalty is the salient currency. Loyalty to Trump. Are you willing to lay down and let them walk all over you? That's what buys you survival in Donald Trump's world. Now, I want to remind you about a similar battle that did not happen. When Marjorie Taylor Green, radical, repugnant, reactionary Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, former now, when she turned on Trump, distanced from Trump, said this is not what I signed up for when I joined MAGA.

Trump started activating against her. And we were curious. We were riveted, in fact, to see is Trump's power within the Republican Party strong enough that he can endorse some rando in Marjorie Taylor Green's Republican primary and defeat Marjorie Taylor Green. And we never found out because Marjorie Taylor Green said, I'm going to leave Congress instead of running for reelection. So we were left wondering what would have happened. Now, I don't know what would have happened in that race, but the Massey one is one where Donald Trump won. And so as we asked the question, does Donald Trump still have the power to be the kingmaker?

What is going on? The answer is he may still have that power. It is critical to understand these are not ideological battles. It wasn't that Donald Trump opposed Thomas Massey because Massey was more libertarian and Trump was more authoritarian. It was a simple loyalty test. Policy is almost irrelevant. Trump would be okay with someone who disagrees with his supposed position about abortion.

would be okay with someone who disagrees with him about his position on the top tax rate, for example. But loyalty is what matters. Massey wanted the Epstein files out. Massey wanted to hear from the victims. Massey believed that Donald Trump was involved in a cover up of the Epstein stuff. And so that's it. That was it for Thomas Massey. Trump didn't want that period. Now, let's think about this going into 2026 and 2028. We have been talking about whether Trump is going to have the power to decide and choose for especially for 2028. When I sat down with Gavin Uscum, nasty guy, when I sat down with Gavin Gavgav, he was unsure whether Donald Trump would still be in a position to be in charge of the Republican Party come 2028. I've increasingly been leaning towards I don't believe

that he is going to have that power. But this result from yesterday with Thomas Massey and a couple of others recently suggests that maybe Trump will actually have that power. And that would very much change the dynamics of especially 2028. You take a seven, I think seven term incumbent Thomas Massey losing to essentially a random guy. Because Trump said, hey, how about you? We need you to win this. Let's pour money in and we can't understate, understate the importance of the money.

So it's a reminder to us. We don't know how strong or diminished, swollen or flaccid Trump will be in 2028 in terms of his power. Get your mind out of the gutter. And so it's important this November to win by as much as possible in the House, make every effort for every single Senate seat. Because imagine that Trump does have a reinvigoration of his power and is able to play Kingmaker and everybody coweres and shrivels at Trump's feet and goes, please, sir, tell me what it is you want us to do. We need to make every effort because Trump may indeed end up in that position of power come the next election. You know, there have been corrupt presidents before. There have been

in different ways. There have been shady pardons before where we looked at them and we said this seems very sketchy. We've seen political favors by presidents before, backroom deals and family members to a degree cashing in on being adjacent to power. But what we have seen, forget about the last decade of Trumpism, forget about the last year and a half of Trump's second term. Just focus in on the last 48 hours. The last 48 hours have been the most corrupt of any president. in American history. This is corruption that is happening completely out in the open. And that is a difference from what we used to see.

It's not being denied. It's being justified. Of course we did this. This is what's fair. So let me build up the entire story for you. The first piece of the story starts with this stunning agreement between Donald Trump's Justice Department and the IRS. Trump sued his own government.

essentially for $10 billion. And Donald Trump agreed to drop that lawsuit for a nearly $2 billion, $1.776 billion, anti-weaponization fund. This is a slush fund. And the fund is going to be used to compensate Donald Trump's allies and supporters who say I was unfairly investigated. I was unfairly prosecuted during the Biden years, of course. And all of you wrote, to me to all of you. Everybody I heard from who wrote to me about this said, this is a slush fund for Maga loyalists. And there are even government watchdog groups saying, yeah, this is a political slush fund. This is absolutely nuts. Our friend Congressman Jamie Raskin called it a taxpayer-funded racket for insurrectionists and Trump allies. Citizens for responsible for responsibility and ethics

called it one of the single most corrupt acts in American history. And this is on top of Trump, pardoning the January 6th rioters. And now the administration is openly talking about whether some of these people are going to get payouts from the fund. So criminals, alleged criminals, pardoned criminals will potentially now get money. They stormed the capital and they're going to get cash, as Donald Trump calls it, because they are the real victims. Okay, that we knew. But then it gets even worse. Inside of this agreement for the creation of the slush fund is another incredible provision. which is language from the Justice Department saying the government, the IRS will never pursue tax matters involving Donald Trump, his family, or his businesses.

It is a form of financial immunity. In the memo from Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, who by the way was Trump's former personal lawyer, Section C says that look at this. Oh, dear God. The United States releases, waves, acquits, and forever discharges. Each of the plaintiffs, that means Trump, from and is hereby forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of action, appeals or requests for any relief, including injunctive relief, monetary relief, damages, examinations,

or similar or related reviews, appeals, debt relief costs, attorneys fees, expenses, and or interest, whether presently known or unknown, this is even for things that come up in the future, that as of the date of this agreement, have been or could have been asserted by defendants against any of the plaintiffs or related or affiliated individuals, including without limitation, family or others filing jointly, or parties, including trusts, parent, sister, or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries by reason of with respect to in connection with or which arise out of any matters that were raised or could have been raised in the case or the pending agency claims, lawfare and or weaponization, or any matters

currently pending or that could be pending, including tax returns filed before the effective date before defendants or other agencies or departments. That is a mouthful of gibberish, but let me put a different way. The administration that controls the IRS is now saying it will back away from any investigations involving Trump. The same president who chose the attorney general who signed this, the same president who controls the justice department that agreed to this, the same president whose businesses have faced massive scrutiny over taxes for years. Trump was banned from having a nonprofit in New York because of the impropriety that was found there. And apparently, we are now just supposed to accept this as normal. The New York Times notes that mandatory audits of

presidential tax returns are standard and one unresolved audit alone reportedly cost Donald Trump $100 million. So think about what is happening here. Trump sues the government. He's the government. His administration settles the case. He creates a billion dollar fund for his political allies. And quietly, they include this protection connected to tax enforcement for him, for his family, for his associates, for his businesses. In any other country, we would look at it and Republicans would be going, these are the corruptions of banana republics. We don't do it that way in the United States.

If it happened anywhere else, Trump would be going, look at these authoritarian kleptocrats. He wouldn't use those words. I don't know that he knows those words. But because it's happening here, people are kind of numb to the entire. thing and the the act itself is part of the problem but the desensitization the normalization to it is also part of it they are openly telling you what they're doing we're going to reward our friends and allies we're going to protect ourselves from wrongdoing we're going to use state power for personal protection and then they go it's because of weaponization we got to we need justice for the

people that were wronged by sleepy joe institutional corruption It's this. We have the most corrupt 48 hours of a president in American history. Debt has a way of distorting reality. You make the payments, you follow the rules, and you still feel like you're falling further behind. That's not a personal failure. This is how compounding interest and fees are designed to work.

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This is the most that have subscribed to the YouTube channel in a single day. I only looked back a year in at least a year and maybe longer than that. We are doing everything we can to fight against this algorithmic deprioritization of progressive content. So thank you. Keep subscribing to the YouTube channel. It's free. And I also want to say a huge thank you.

A whole bunch of people went to my website. and got memberships yesterday. I want to say thanks to Damien Forsh, Kaylee Nordrolf, Gabriel Farrow, Bert Bohm, Susan Henderson, Dre McClellan, Thomas Eisenberg, Shiloh Williams. So many people signing up yesterday at joinpackman.com. We're trying to build this thing together. We can't do it without you, quite literally. There's no corporate media structure here that keeps us afloat.

It's you. That's what it is. You can go to join packman.com. get yourself a membership, thanks to everybody who has. I received a ton of emails overnight asking me, David, sir, what happened to your hair? I mean, I'm sorry, saying, did J.D. Vance just accused Donald Trump of crimes. Did J.D. just unwittingly concede that Donald Trump is engaged in securities fraud? Let me explain and then we'll try to figure it out.

We learned from financial disclosures earlier this week that. The Donald Trump personally was acquiring shares of companies that he was pumping in public. He bought shares of Micron and then went on TV and he said, Micron is great. Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. Exactly. He said it much more eloquently that I did. He bought shares of Dell and he went on TV and he said, buy Dell computers.

They're great. was pumping and jerking stocks that he owned. Got it. J.D. Vance was confronted about this. And J.D. Vance said something interesting. Trump's not doing these trades himself. He's not sitting there on Robin Hood trading stocks. And many of you asked, if J.D. is right and he's telling the truth, is that a crime? Well, let's listen to what J.P. Mandel had to say. And then we will talk about it. You guys got to behave yourself. Thank you, Mr. Best President. The president's financial disclosures were released recently,

and they showed a lot of stock trades in companies that he has talked up at events, official events at the White House, on his true social account, sometimes even putting the stock ticker symbols in his posts and encouraging people to buy their stock. Right. Americans, according to recent polling, are increasingly describing the president as corrupt. And trading stocks... This is a hell of a question.

Thank you, sir. Trading individual stocks is something that you said that public officials should not be able to do when you ran for Senate all those years ago. And yet, the president, who arguably has access to more non-public information than your average senator, is not only buying and selling individual stocks, either through his trust. Okay. What's the question? The question, sir, is how can you and your administration argue to Americans that you're cleaning up corruption, you're preventing fraud, you're fighting the sorts of things that harm people

and people's financial situations, when the president seems to be talking up stocks that he owns selling them and enriching himself. Okay, so here, let me, let me answer your question here. That was a doozy. All right, now listen carefully to the answer. Before I answer your question, I want to just observe, there are different ways to ask a question, okay? You can just ask a question and try to get your answer, or you could do like a speech

where you say, you know, Mr. Vice President, every, you know, you're a terrible human being and so is the president, so is the entire cabinet. And then I'm like, what's your question? And then your question is, how dare you? Come on, man. Have a little bit of objectivity in the way that you ask these questions. They do not like being asked serious questions. That's the take question.

Because there were a lot of things in that speech, masquerading as a question, that didn't actually get asked, okay? Number one, the president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his like Robin Hood account, buying and selling stocks. That's absurd. He has independent wealth of advisors who manage his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business.

He's not making these stock trades himself. And your question imputes that. It sort of, it doesn't say it exactly, but a reasonable person listening to that question would assume the president is sitting around and doing that. Well, sitting around, I don't know. But the reporting and the disclosures are that these were unsolicited trades, meaning they didn't come from an intermediary or advisor. They came from Trump.

Now, that doesn't literally mean that Trump is sitting at his computer. Trump, I don't think knows how to use a computer. That's a different story. So I researched this. I spoke to a securities lawyer because a lot of you said is, would there be securities fraud here if what J.D. Vance is saying is true. By itself, the idea that someone else is making these trades for Trump would not be a securities crime, at least based on what we know. What J.D. Vance appears to be trying to do here is to defend Trump by putting distance between

Trump's pumping of these stocks and Trump's ownership of the shares. He's going, Trump's not sitting there day trading. Other people manage the trades. Therefore, there can't it's unfair to accuse Trump of corruption on that basis. Now, under securities law and ethics rules, the key issue is not who clicked the buy button. That's it. That's over simplifying it. So as usual, JD is trying to a dispel a notion that's not really the core of the argument. Were the trades directed by Trump while Trump possessed non-public information? That's question number one. Were the trades made when Donald Trump had the ability to make public statements to manipulate

markets? And I think the answer is obviously yes, Trump going on Fox News and going by Micron, by Dell, absolutely. Was government power used in a way that financially benefited Trump? Well, literally, yes, Trump owned shares of companies that as president of the United States, he was visiting with the CEOs or the factories, Thermo Fisher, whatever. whatever, and pumping. If Trump publicly promotes a company or an industry while benefiting financially from

his holdings, then that is a major conflict of interest concern. Now, is it a crime? Is it securities fraud? A lot of that comes down to what you can prove. Now, J.D. Vance's defense, which some are calling actually implicative of a crime, J.D. Vance's defense is interesting because he doesn't say there was no. improper trading. He doesn't say Trump had no knowledge that he owned those shares when he was pumping those

companies. He doesn't say there was no financial benefit to Trump. He doesn't say the trades with whoever made the trades for Trump was coordinating with Trump's pumping. He just goes, Trump wasn't the one on Robin Hood or e-trade or whatever. Now even if something isn't criminal, there can still be conflict of interest, which there is, the appearance of corruption, which of course there is, self-deal. concerns, which obviously there are, and abuse of office arguments, which of course Donald Trump is abusing his office. Historically, presidents try to avoid these concerns by actually having

blind trusts. There's no, not only would Trump not be directing, hey, get me shares of Micron, get me shares of Dell. Trump wouldn't even know whether his advisors are making those purchases. The advisors would be deciding independently. Trump famously did not divest from his business interests. There are ethics controversies and Trump is still directing investments himself. So J.D. Vance, I don't know that J.D. Vance accidentally exposed criminality by Trump, but he certainly is not dispelling the notion of overt corruption, self-dealing. And it's in a sense, insider trading. Trump has inside information. He is the one who knows I'm going to pump these companies. So it's almost worse than inside information. Crime, not sure, improper, unethical,

abuse of power, 100%. All right, this next story is not getting the attention it deserves. J.D. Vance is becoming a problem for Donald Trump. J.D. Vance is becoming an irritant like that mosquito that you're trying to slap and blow up, but it just, it won't leave you alone. It's buzzing around endlessly. And what's happening is that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are increasingly at odds over something that Donald Trump said. And it is quickly building into a real problem for both of them. Now, let me set the stage. Sometimes I'm never like, do I go chronologically or I'm going to go chronologically here. This started a few days ago. Donald Trump was asked, what about how the Iran war is hurting Americans financially? And Trump said, I don't think about that.

I don't consider that. Here is that initial video of Donald Trump saying this. motivating you to make a deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters is that I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing you could not let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Okay.

So that's Trump's initial answer there. So they went to J.D. Vance and J.D. Vance said that's a misrepresentation of what Trump said. The initial thing is Trump says it. And J.D. goes, it's the media's problem. You all are misrepresenting. And can I ask you, Mr. Vice President, when approaching the war with Iran, do you agree with the president's position that Americans' financial situations should not be a consideration in that decision-making process? Well, I don't think the president said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the president said. But look, I agree with the president that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We're obviously- All right. It's a misrepresentation. So this

created the opportunity to go back to Donald Trump. And then when they went back to Trump, Brett Bayer did, Trump ended up saying it was an absolutely perfect statement. He doubles down on it. And he goes, I absolutely said that. So I make it again. You can imagine how. And let me back up a little because we kind of stepped on Trump saying it was. That's right. That's a perfect saying. So I make it again. But you can imagine how many people stop the sound like at. I don't think about America's financial situation. So what's your. response to that frame. It's very simple. When people hear me say it, everybody agrees. Short-term pain. It's going to be short-term pain. All right. So they go back to Trump and Trump doubles down.

So then Caitlin Collins goes back to JD Vance and goes, listen, Trump said this thing. You denied he said it. They went back to Trump. Trump doubled down and said, I absolutely said it. What does J.D. Vance do? He attacks Caitlin Collins. Hmm. Where is? have we seen that strategy before? But just a follow up on the war, you last week denied that the president said he was not taking American financial situations into consideration when he's making decisions on the Iran war. He was asked about that again. He stood by it, called any perfect statement and said he would make it again.

Do you believe that Americans financial situations should be taken into consideration when you're making decisions as administration about the war? See, Caitlin, what you did is you misrepresented the question that I was asked. Right. The problem is Caitlin. It's not that Trump and J.D. Vance are not on the same page because what Trump is saying is a disaster to say, I don't worry about the economics of it. The problem is Caitlin. And you misrepresented the answer that I gave. What I said is that a question that was asked where the president allegedly, he allegedly said that he didn't care about Americans financial situations. He never said that. What he said is that when he, it was totally taken out of context.

What he said is that when he is negotiating with the Iranians, he's focused on the national security objectives that he's trying to achieve. Of course, the president has a mandate to be focused on a number of things. And I guarantee you every single day, I have conversations with him about it. Every single day, he's worried about his fellow Americans. He wants them to be prosperous. He wants them to thrive. He wants them to have good jobs. That's why we've done the things and taken the steps that we've taken in order to create record job growth, in order to create record wage growth, in order to induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country. That's because he cares about that stuff. What he also said is that when he's talking to the Iranians, he's talking to the

Iranians about questions, of course, of national security. All right. I think you get it. J.D., you know, it's rich to hear J.D. again, say Caitlin Collins is the one misrepresenting his answers. J.D.'s entire answer was already a misrepresentation of Donald Trump's answer. Trump said it himself, What is happening to the average American's financial situation is not relevant to his decisions about Iran. J.D. is playing semantic games by going, Trump said he, Trump never said he doesn't care. Well, what we said is Trump says he doesn't consider Americans financial situation. It's essentially the same thing.

Now, this is the problem with authoritarian governments. Eventually, nobody knows what the truth is supposed to be. Nobody knows what there's they're constantly cleaning up for the leader in real time. So at first when J.D. Vance was asked, what do you think about Trump saying this? His instinct is to go, I got to I got to run cover. He definitely didn't say it. And then Trump doubles down. So now JD is stuck in the worst job, which is explaining what Trump really meant.

We can't deny that he said it anymore. So you've got to go to what he really meant. And it was good. And Caitlin Collins and CNN and the media are actually the problem. The issue is that nobody in the administration can control Trump anymore. Vance thought that being vice president would be an easy way to inherit this entire political movement and sail into being president of the United States. He's doing hostage negotiation press conferences where he's having to deny, deflect, and

recharacterize. And the deeper tension that I see is that JD has a political instinct to try to sound populist and working class, not authoritarian. But Trump contradicts that and puts JD in these positions of either you go along with the authoritarian thing Trump said or you have to contradict Trump or disagree with Trump. And that's a really complicated place for JD to be. I don't feel bad for the guy. He chose it himself. But there is something just darkly funny about the vice president arguing against direct video evidence of Trump speaking on. camera because JD has the sense. This isn't a compliment, but JD has the sense to recognize

that going along with that stuff, maybe Trump can get away with it because as Trump has said, he can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know the thing. J.D. is not in that position. J.D. doesn't have the charisma of Trump based on falsehoods as it may be. J.D. doesn't have the charisma of Trump to get away with saying this stuff. So he has to go, oh, it's out of context. It's not really what he meant, blah, blah, blah. Not a great position to be in. And our hope, of course, is that it destroys any chance that J.D. Vance has of ultimately becoming the president of the United States because that would be terrifying.

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Donald Trump and Maga, they really hate criminals, right? Like they've told this for a while that they've told us for a while that that's an important priority. It's a principle of theirs. They're against crime. We must eradicate it. And there's nothing more important than ending crime. The scourge against everyday Americans.

Got it. But hold on a second. Trump's a criminal. was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records. And hold on a second. Now Trump has endorsed the guy accused of multiple crimes. I'm talking about the Texas Senate race. Recall that in the Texas Senate Republican primary, nobody got to 50%.

So there's a runoff this coming Tuesday, May 26th. And when neither the incumbent John Cornyn nor the challenger Ken Paxton got 50%, the runoff was scheduled. This happened months ago. And Trump said, I'm going to endorse someone very soon. I'm either going to endorse John Cornyn or Ken Paxton. But I knew that this was a farce. The primary was March 3rd. And I told you, Trump is going to wait. Trump's going to wait because he wants to be sure that he endorses the winner. He won't take a chance on endorsing the morally right candidate as he sees it because Trump wants to rack up wins. So he needs to wait to see

see who's likely to actually win. And case in point, for weeks after the March 3rd primary, the markets had it pretty tight. If you look at the betting markets for, or this is the wrong one, here's the Republican Senate nominee. For a while, it was up and down. It wasn't really clear who was more likely to win for several weeks after that primary. But over time, Ken Paxton's chances of winning went up. Then they went down for a bit.

But then they went up again. they went down again. And then they've been up since the end of March. And now suddenly, days before the primary, Donald Trump is ready to endorse. And he has endorsed Ken Paxton. Now, he published a wall of text about this. I'm not going to torture you by reading the entire thing. But the summary is, it's all about Trump. It's all about Trump's grievances. And he posted, quote, the highly respected attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, an America first patriot and someone who who has been extremely loyal to me, that's the most important part, is running for the U.S. Senate to represent a place I love in one big, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I know Ken well. He's a winner. He wants to get rid of the filibuster. He supports the Save America Act. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, make America great again. He's a true warrior. I'm paraphrasing because the specifics don't really matter and it would take forever to read this stuff. He's a maga warrior.

He's delivered Texas. He will continue to fight into Senate. So long story short, Trump is endorsing Paxton. He mentions Cornyn's a good man. I worked with him, but he wasn't supportive of me when times were tough. And despite having a really successful economy, blah, blah, blah, blah, John was laid in backing me, et cetera, et cetera. And then he goes on to say, Ken has gone through a lot.

It's been unfair, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. Me, me, me. Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. So long story short, the most important. thing is that Trump has decided. Paxton is likely going to win. And he has decided that Paxton is the one who's been loyal to him and Cornyn has not. Now, what is remarkable is that Donald Trump doesn't care that Ken Paxton is a horrible,

terrible, just absolutely atrocious person. Remember that Ken Paxton is so horrible that he was impeached by his own party for corruption. Think about how rare that is, especially the Republican Party impeaching one of their own for corruption. Give me a break. Paxton paid $300,000 to settle his felony fraud charges. Hmm. He has had multiple extramarital affairs. Now, so is Trump. And they claim to care about that because they are pro family and all that crap, but they don't really care about that. Paxton was sued for firing whistleblowers. That's horrible. He is currently under investigation for mortgage fraud. The same type of

of mortgage fraud investigation that Trump falsely accused Adam Schiff of, which he said, we got to get away from Schiff. Everybody should abandon Schiff because of the mortgage fraud investigation, which Trump created. But with Paxton, he doesn't care. And Paxton allegedly stole a $1,000 pen from another lawyer. So just a terrible person. They say they care about crime. They say they care about law and order, but they are criminals endorsing alleged criminals. And what really matters that Ken Paxton is likely to win. Trump loves running up the score with people who are going to win anyway. And Trump also only cares about loyalty. They are truly pathetic people. Now, let me give you the potentially good news. If we look at the numbers for who is ultimately

going to win the general election for the Texas Senate, it's. It's going to be James Tala Rico on the Democratic side against whoever wins the Republican primary. It increasingly looks like it'll be Ken Paxton. For months and months and months, this was like an 80-20 race with an 80% chance of the Republican winning. But starting at the beginning of this year, we have seen the Republican odds on the Kalshi betting markets shrink, shrink, shrink and shrivel all the way down to slightly better than 50 50. Right now, the betting markets have this as a 54% chance that the Republican wins and a 46%

chance that the Democrat James Tala Rico wins. This is a race we can actually get involved in. This is a race where our phone banking or donations or publicity involvement can actually make a difference. And imagine how delightful it would be after all of the drama, on the Republican side and Trump going, I might endorse soon, but I'm not. Who's going to win? I'm going to wait endorsing Paxton. Paxton will probably win the primary. Imagine if after all of that, we send Republicans packing and put a Democrat in the Senate representing Texas for the first time. And I don't remember how long it's been. I looked it up months ago. We're talking about decades, okay? That would be amazing. And it's actually within reach. So keep that in mind as Donald Trump

plays all these stupid games with the primary. A nurse wrote to me and is blowing the whistle on Donald Trump's health. A medical professional who is looking at what we know wrote to me and said, David, here is what I believe is going on. Let's take a look at this email. David, I am a 32-year registered nurse and a 21-year attorney. I have noticed an under-discussed issue, namely a crucial connection between dental health and cardiac well-being, particularly in preparation for advanced cardiac procedures. Dental issues are commonly addressed prior to such procedures. Applying this, Trump's frequent dental interventions combined with observed symptoms such as cognitive shifts, peripheral swelling and unexplained bruising that could also result from advanced cardiac testing

alongside documented lifestyle risk factors raise the hypothesis of significant cardiac pathology such conditions the nurse writes could also directly impact cognitive function via reduced cerebral perfusion through for example carotid occlusions thank you for your valuable work. Let's discuss this. The nurse's point is completely legitimate medically. I forwarded this to some other doctors I know, including in cardiology. And everybody said, yeah, listen, the framework is true here. Serious cardiac procedures often do involve dental clearance because if you get an oral infection, it can create complications for heart valves and for implanted devices. This is common. This is true.

And maybe that's the explanation for Trump's three dental visits this year with no real explanation as to why. Now, of course, it's speculative. We're connecting it to Trump specifically. We don't have evidence that Trump is about to undergo a cardiac procedure. The strongest version of this is not like, hey, here's the secret diagnosis speculation. I think the strongest angle for us to discuss is that there are visible signs people notice. You look at Trump's age. You look at his lifestyle. You look at his obesity. And then you go, there's no transparency here.

Three dental visits in Florida. Why there's a full dental setup at the White House? Why would they need to do that? You look and you see visible ankle swelling. Okay. That's really interesting. Bilateral lower extremity edema. Ancles the size of tree trunks, right?

Bilateral lower extremity edema can have a cardiovascular cause when you're 80. It could be heart failure. Certain blood pressure medications can cause it. Obesity can cause it. Kidney issues, lymphatic issues. And also it's the one that the White House has acknowledged, which is chronic venous insufficiency, can cause the tree trunk beach ball ankles. That's true. The carotid artery point from the nurse's email, that's also real in the abstract, reduced cerebral profusion can affect cognitive.

It can relate to vascular disease, which can contribute to confusion. It can contribute to slowed thinking or problems finding words, reduce vocabulary, all things that we observe with Donald Trump. What we can say with certainty is we see signs with Trump. We see physical signs. We see cognitive signs. There are unanswered questions because there's a lack of transparency. And the White House has an incentive to cover up as much as they can.

That's as far as we know. And the rest is speculation. Now, let me ask another question. Is being president as we approach the middle of the 21st century compatible with advanced aging? It's a question that should be asked. Modern presidents are expected to be sort of CEOs, entertainers, military commanders, campaigners into their late 70s and just a few days from now into their 80s. At the same time, authoritarian style politics depend on projecting vigor and dominance.

Trump is not projecting vigor and dominance anymore if he ever did. So what we have is a situation where we have a set of expectations and those are incompatible with any visible frailty or visible aging. And that now is becoming a central issue. It was an issue during Trump's first term. It was an issue for Joe Biden. It's an issue for Donald Trump right now. Aside from the lack of medical transparency for Trump specifically, there is this question of whether the expectations of what a modern president is supposed to be is supposed to do how they're supposed to look and act is even compatible with the reality of people in their late 70s or even 80s. It's a question. I'm curious

to hear what you think about it. What do you think of the email from the nerd? If you're a medical professional, I would love for you to weigh in on her observations as well. Most scammers rely on information that's already public. Your name, address, phone number, family connections. A lot of that is online and available to be scraped and abused. Our sponsor Incogni reduces the risk by removing you from the internet wherever that personal data appears. It works across many types of websites, not just one category.

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waterproof water? Well, I haven't either. But a visibly confused Donald Trump showed up at the construction site of the White House ballroom, the much vaunted White House ballroom, and reminded every last American that he doesn't give a rat's ass about you. We are going to go through the epitome of the out of touch billionaire. How on earth did this guy convince tens of millions of Americans that he understands their plight and he cares about it. And he's in touch with the struggles that they are facing daily. Well, we did fail a national IQ test. That's true. Here is Trump on high gas prices, doubling down. This is peanuts, he says. And this is peanuts. And I appreciate everybody putting

up with it for a little while. It won't be much longer. But you could have, and frankly, there is so much oil out there. One of the things that is happening is these big ships are coming up to Texas. Louisiana and Alaska and they're loading up. But I don't even think about that. What I think about is you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. There you go. It's peanuts, he says. A lot of people can't afford peanuts anymore. That's a real problem. Peanuts have gotten so expensive along with gas prices. When you are pumping your gas at 458 a gallon for regular, someone told me they paid 770 for premium. Beautiful sweet premium. Just remember when you're pumping your gas. Trump did it. And he said that it's worth it because of what he's doing in Iran.

He's not considering how it affects you. Think about that. This should be a campaign at. This should be on repeat. I don't consider Americans financial situation. This is peanuts. It's going to be only a little bit longer. It's worth it. Trump says it's worth it for you to suffer. He's not suffering. You are. Trump then starts talking about waterproof. water. Now, if we want to be more charitable, was Trump saying that the reflecting pool will be waterproof? Well, it already was, I guess, in that it doesn't leak water. What does it mean for it to be waterproof? Waterproof water, folks, the president of the United Shesh. I'm doing a job on the Reflecting Lake for a fraction of what they paid. Now, I've upgraded it

very soon. I got so into it. I've upgraded it. I've upgraded. It's like you wouldn't believe I'm doing it all. Beautiful upgrades. All the walkways outside, I'm doing it properly. But it's a much bigger job. But you see it's happening now. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be waterproof.

It's going to be reflecting again. I took over a dirty, filthy thing that wasn't open and it was disgusting. It was dirty and filthy and it was disgusting. He doesn't want to be president. He wants to do real estate stuff. You can tell that he is only after. actually engaged emotionally, passionately with this kind of crap. And you know what? That's fine.

He just shouldn't be the president of the United States. Now he talks about the great deal. It was a $7 million no bid contract that was given out. And then it turns out it's actually going to be $13 million. And so like with everything he does, the price tag is going up. Now there is another extremely relevant characteristic about Donald Trump that I think is important just to mention. And it comes out here.

And it comes out if you look at how he's remodeled the Oval Office and other things. And if you just look at what his penthouses look like, money cannot buy class. Donald Trump's instincts are extraordinarily gaudy and lowbrow. And it's weird in a way because Donald Trump is really kind of like an old money guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth in Queens and Manhattan. But he's just obsessed with gold leaf and gold paint and gold pieces and all of this stuff. And when you see how Trump is just improving the reflecting pool, which I guess now he's confusedly calling a reflecting lake, he says he's doing the walkways and the entire thing.

It's all horribly crass. And it's a reminder that money can buy you a lot of things, but it can't buy you class. And the Trump family is one of the biggest embodiments of that. Trump talking about religion and how important religion is. And as religion goes up, crime goes down or does it? I don't know that that's a peer reviewed statement from Donald Trump. Well, I think that it was great. Well, I think that it was great.

Thousands of people showed up and it was a beautiful everything. beautiful day. I did scripture. You think it's easy to read scripture. It's not easy to read scripture. This is Trump defending that he had a lot of trouble reading his two-minute statement for the rededicate 250 event, which it was it was so tough for him to read it. It had to be cut together from multiple takes. He's like reading scripture is tough. That's why I struggled so visibly. A whole different ballgame. That's not like reading a speech. We will build the wall. This is a whole different deal. But I did it proudly. And I guess it was broadcast.

We had tremendous trust. I think religion is very important for a country. I think having this country was was built largely on religion. If you look, it was built. And when you have strong religion, you have less crime. It's just the fact, you know, whatever it may be. It's like, gee, I want to go to heaven. So I'm not going to do this or that.

Who knows? Yeah. Listen, prisons are filled with religious people. This is painfully dumb. But importantly, Trump has committed a lot of crimes after becoming religious. It's very funny because Trump supposedly found religion. I know he tries to tell us he's been religious his whole life. He has.

Trump found religion when he got into politics at age 68. And since doing so, he was convicted of 34 felonies. So clearly the religion, the supposed religiosity is not, is, is not a good vaccine. against committing crimes, that's for sure. Trump talking about the war in Iran. And he goes, I don't know, people say it's not popular, but I think it's very popular that war in Iran. The first day.

How much a positive time? I'm not doing this politically. I'm just, everyone tells me it's unpopular, but I think it's very popular. When you, when they hear that it's having to do with nuclear the first day. He, listen, don't believe the. polls don't believe the Americans, American after American after American who goes, we don't like this. This is not good. We don't like what it did to prices. We don't like what it's doing to energy. We don't like what it's doing to our reputation. Trump goes, no, it's popular, guys. It's, it's

popular. And it is another example of Trump. When we say, hey, Trump is trying to tell others not to believe what they see and what they hear. It seems like Trump has deluded himself. into not even believing what he is seeing and what he is hearing. At his own peril, we've got to make them suffer at the ballot box in November. Check out Melania Trump when first of all, Trump tries to kiss her on the lips. But more importantly and more politically substantively, when she seems to realize this guy's brain isn't working right. Donald Trump addressed like Evida on a balcony.

Donald Trump addressed the congressional picnic. They had egg salad and tuna salad. Anyway, Trump kicking off the speech from the balcony. And a very awkward failed attempt to kiss Melania on the lips ends up sort of kissing her cheek. She doesn't like him. This is maybe the fakest first family relationship we've seen in a long time. Whoa. What a great job.

What a great job. I have to follow that. I hate it. I never like following our great first lady because it makes me look not so good. It makes me look not so good. All right. So then Trump gets into it. Now listen very carefully.

So two things. Look at Melania seemingly stunned by Trump's incoherence. But listen to the factual claim that Trump makes. here. And then we'll fact check it. Numbers. We had inflation was at 1.6% for the last three months just prior to the war. And now you're going to see numbers like that again. We inherited high prices and we got the prices down. That is very much not true. Now, let's just focus in on Trump's claim about inflation. We have the numbers and it was never 1.6% inflation. You'll notice this can in October because Trump was like, we don't want to report inflation numbers because they're going

very much in the wrong direction. As you can see, leading up to October, 2.3, 2.4, 2.7, 2.93. End the testing. If we don't test for COVID. There will be no COVID. If we don't report inflation, there will be no inflation. So we have this chasm or chasm. It's both in October. And then 2.7, 2.7, 2.4, 2.4, 3.3.8. There is no 1.6 there. It's just made up. And that's it. It's completely fabricated. Donald Trump glitching and making Melania go, whoa, what just happened?

And Trump says we will have an unbelievable display on July 4th. Nothing like a good dismay on America's 250. Has he revealed what the display will be is my question. And then on July 4th, we're. We have an unbelievable display. And don't forget, we have a thing called the Olympics coming up. I got the Olympics during my first term, and then I got FIFA during my first term. And I said, oh, I won't be able to see it because it happened now.

But then strange things happened with an election, and I didn't get to serve the four years that I was supposed to serve. I don't want to say it. I don't want to be controversial. The election was rigged. And we came back and we did something very special and I ended up getting the Olympics and getting FIFA and we got to 52. I want to take credit for 250 years, but that I'm not going to get away with. But we're going to have an amazing period of time.

And then on. And the display is going to be fascinating. I know that one of the most important issues to everyday Americans is the issue of flagpoles. What are they made of? How big are they? How long? How wide? How deep into the ground must they be buried? What kind of metal do we use? And Donald Trump is telling us to rest assured. He knows a lot about flagpoles. I'm standing here and I'm looking at a great American flag and it's hard to believe. But I put that in two months ago. That I put one on the other side. You know, this is actually in theory, this would be, I consider them both. We have two fronts.

I've never figured out nobody else has either since, if you think about it, 1792, nobody's figured out which is the front and which is the back of the White House. So when I'm speaking here, I say the front. And when I speak over there, I say the front. It actually has two fronts and I put two flags up. You guys following this crap? It's a great pole and it's a beautiful flag. And it's amazing that it wasn't up before.

We have another flag slightly smaller on the top of the White House. but it's a little bit on the smaller side, but everybody loves that poll. It's a beauty and it represents so much. And I want to thank the company that put it up. The best, I think they make the best. It's hard to believe I have so many different developments all over the world. I always like putting the flag up and I know a lot about flag polls and that's the best flagpole there is, okay? Trump knows a lot about flag and he knows a lot about poll and then together he knows a lot about flagpole. And then finally, to every American worried about the economy, to every American concerned about prices and jobs and all of it, Donald Trump has some very reassuring words,

which is it's actually really good. You just can't tell. Stop them. They have nuclear on their mind and we're not going to let them have a nuclear weapon and we've done a hell of a job and we're, I think we're going to be finished with that very quickly and they won't have a nuclear weapon and hopefully we're going to get it done in a very nice manner factory construction as you heard today also is up housing starts are up and consumer spending is up all things that we have an economy people aren't seeing it yet when we inherited when we started we had the highest inflation in the history of our country yeah people aren't seeing it but the economy is awesome what i would see

Suggest is don't take my word for it. Go to the grocery store. Go to any gas station. Look at the inflation rate. Look at the jobs numbers. And just decide for yourself. Don't go, well, David says one thing and Trump says another thing. No, no, no. I showed you what Trump said. Fact check it. And I think you will come out on the side of the facts. On the bonus show for today, Governor Jared Polis of Colorado is getting pounded for freeing Trump acolyte Tina Peters. Raul Castro of Cuba is expected to be indicted today. This has been in the works reportedly for three decades. And Minnesota has banned prediction markets. All of that and more on today's bonus show. Get free. I'm sorry, get instant access to the bonus show. Free is a different

part. Get instant access to the bonus show at join packman.com. And if you'd like to request a free membership, you can submit your email address at Davidpackman.com.com. slash free membership. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back tomorrow.