The David Pakman Show - AOC is MAGA's worst nightmare, the White House is preparing to get investigated

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

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Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the bonus show. What you're hearing right now is a free sneak peek of our paywalled content, which our paid members get five times a week. If you want the extra coverage in your feed every day, go over to join pacman.com and join the community. Welcome to the bonus show, everybody. It's me. I'm still in Martha's Vineyard just a few more hours. But then I will be back in studio very strongly, very powerfully. We will be having a normal week of shows

next week other than the Monday holiday. But I'll spend that day doing book-related interviews and maybe even a live stream. So we've got a lot of stuff going on. I was reading a few articles this morning and there was a very, sort of a funny article in iNews.co.uk about how MAGA's worst nightmare would be a president AOC in the sense that it would be a childless female president. And it really got me to thinking a lot about not just what are going to be the sort of conflicts within the Democratic Party for the 2028 primary. but also what are going to be the lines of attack from Republicans and from the right against

various potential contenders for the Democratic primary? I had a really interesting conversation yesterday, actually, with a big, sort of like a Democrat, I guess you would say like a Democratic donor type person who knows a lot of the potential candidates. And one of the things that he was talking to me about was that when you think about, you I often look at these races as, listen, if you're polling 3%, why bother? What's the point of even getting in and running? But one of the things he was explaining to me was that the map really matters.

And for the Democratic primary, with South Carolina and Nevada going first, because they have sort of changed around the order of the primaries, South Carolina is going to play a massive role. So, for example, we think of, and I'm going to work back to AOC, one of the things we've been looking at and talking about is that Kamala Harris is still polling, not betting markets, but polling, Kamala Harris is still polling quite high. Now, a lot of people say it's basically name recognition at this point, but let's put that aside for a second. What this donor explained to me was that with South Carolina going so early, if there are non-white candidates in the race,

right? So if Kamala Harris runs, AOC, who is Hispanic, Now I don't remember whether one or both, it doesn't even really matter, right? These designations are whatever. But I think we sort of understand socioculturally who is seen as a non-white, a minority candidate. What if Raphael Warnock were to run? South Carolina first is very interesting, according to this donor I was speaking to, because number one, it boosts the chances for a strong showing for a non-white candidate earlier in the primary, which can be good.

But at the same time, he said, imagine that there's like nine people running and Kamala just doesn't pull out South Carolina. His view was that Kamala's campaign is effectively over. How can she continue if she doesn't even win South Carolina as a black woman, so to speak? And I think that some of these dynamics are potentially going to be impacting AOC in the sense of we have been seeing these. further left and DSA type victories in certain states and not in others. Overall, I think DSA candidates have won like 5% of their races. So like one out of 20 proportionally where they're they have existed. But there's two different scenarios for where the further left can probably do better. One scenario is in really red states where the Democratic primary doesn't really matter.

So like in Florida, there was a Democratic primary that went to the further left candidate, but the Republican's going to win the general in November. It's not even going to be close. So that's one scenario that doesn't really apply to presidential because it's for a national election ultimately. The other scenario where we've seen the further left and DSA candidates do better are in really, really blue districts that some argue are not really representative of the national electorate. So like there was the one in New York City, Dari Elisa, who won.

And there are some who go, oh, this does represent where the Democratic Party is going and the voters and others who say, this is a really specific place. It's sort of like the Mamdani effect. We don't really think that this is going to be relevant in, you know, Connecticut or California or whatever. I don't have an answer to that. I'm just kind of laying out the different perspectives from people. But the point I'm building to is that there are going to be some really interesting

dynamics, sequence dynamics. because of the changed Democratic primary map and South Carolina and Nevada going earlier. And some of the other folks I've spoken to who are sort of like, they're the types of folks who often pick a couple people early and start donating to them. The other thing that he was telling me was there are a lot of people potentially running who are unlikely to be anyone's only person. I'll give you an example. A lot of the people who like Pete Buttigieg, for example, they're not that likely to go,

it's Pete or nothing for me. They're probably to go, I like Pete and I like Assoff and J.B. Pritzker or whatever. But that the people who like AOC are far more likely to only like AOC. Now, that can be useful and it can also be potentially a liability, depending on whether we're talking about fundraising, electability, et cetera. But that's a dynamic that he thinks is going to play, which is that a lot of these people that might be running, you know, Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Shapiro, Westmore, Andy Bashir, et cetera, that they are likely to be one of the people that donors like, whereas AOC might

appeal to people exclusively. We will go, that is the one person. And that could generate interest behind her candidacy. So just a few thoughts, but certainly to go back to this whole a childless female president, you know that what they did to Kamala on that, they are going to double or triple down with AOC, partially because of her age and partially because of the whole freezing egg things that she publicized recently. I don't know that it'll be that effective. I don't know that many people will really care about that, but certainly something that I expect. Gas prices are expected to set a new record once again. Now, we really have to go back now to remember the full trajectory of this. We started where the war in Iran is going to be very short two to three weeks,

and then gas prices will blip up and then they're going to come down very quickly. And while it is true, as we talked about on yesterday's show, that when the prospects for peace seem to improve, gas prices come down a little bit and then Trump's bombing again and gas prices go up a little bit, we are in a significantly elevated and escalated environment. The other aspect to this is diesel prices. And I've been reading some reports that arguing that diesel prices may significantly hurt Republicans in red states where transportation with diesel powered trucks is a big part of the employment. And I think that that's going to be interesting to see. But one of the things that is happening in the discussion of gas prices is that it's basically a conversation that is

converting to a new, a new baseline, so to speak. For a long time, including when Biden was president, Trump loved talking about gas was 187 when I left. It wasn't true, but it didn't matter. The point was Trump established this really low baseline from which he can then criticize what is happening under Joe Biden. At this point, the baseline has really gone up. And you no longer hear Trump talking about gas is going to come back under $2 a gallon because I think Trump understands that that is unlikely to happen during his presidency. I ran some numbers and talked to one energy guy and said, what would it take for gas prices to come down below $250 even or $2 a gallon in this environment? And he basically said, I just don't see it unless we have a massive economic collapse. This is just one opinion.

But what he said is that if oil prices were to kind of restabilize at a lower rate, it is really really unlikely that the national gas prices, gas price average for a gallon of gas would go below like 320 or 325. And that intuitively seems kind of right to me. So one of the things that you're going to start to see is the Trump administration, if we ever get beyond this war and gas prices do come down, they will start talking about a decline from the peak. Now, I don't remember where we ultimately peaked. I feel like it was around 455 a gallon or something like that. So if they do get back down to 350, for example. They will go, well, it's a dollar off four. That's like 21% or something like that. They'll go, hey, gas prices have come down almost 25%. And then we'll go, yeah,

but that's from an artificially or not art. That's from an optional peak generated by Donald Trump starting this optional war. What happened to 250 a gallon? What happened to 187 a gallon? That is going to be gone from the conversation. So that's, that's a prediction that I'm making. And And by the way, we are now, as summer is ending, we would be in a situation to expect gas prices to come down. And they are staying above $4 a gallon. So even that may not happen. And that's going to be a big problem.

There's a Politico article about White House staffers preparing to be investigated if indeed Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. And there are reports that Trump himself, Trump's. family and Trump officials are preparing for fighting years of investigations. They are figuring out which lawyers will represent them. They are dread this is interesting. They are drafting up expanded definitions of executive privilege to try to protect Trump from any of this shrapnel. They are briefing political appointees. They're starting to think about what materials would we be providing if Democrats win and inevitably will come for us with these investigations.

And so unlike in 2019, when, you know, it was a very inexperienced and chaotic White House, they prepared slowly. And they were sort of surprised by the way a lot of the oversight and the problems for Trump went down. This time they seem to know, like, this is coming. We need to be prepared for it. and we are going to need to lawyer up. Now, as I've said before, I think it's important to level set and to set expectations. And one of the things about that includes we are extremely unlikely

to see anybody that we would be satisfied by seeing in prison in prison. It's very unlikely. I don't, Trump's not going to prison, Barron's not going to prison, Melania, you know, Stephen Miller. I just, if they committed crimes for which prison is an appropriate, punishment, they should go to prison. I just don't believe that we are going to see that. And so we need to set expectations for ourselves. And the best possible outcome, I believe, is that there will be two years if Democrats take the House of this administration just being mired in investigations and problems that make it really difficult for them to get any horrible policy done and hopefully take attention away from waging pointless wars or

hurting American people, et cetera. Now, if there are criminal referrals and there are prosecutions of lower level staffers, whatever. Great, right? I mean, like my view is not go lock people up. It's investigate. Do what needs to be done. Figure out what it is that went down. And if there's evidence of wrongdoing prosecuted and if people are convicted, then then you assign a punishment and maybe that's prison. But the most useful thing to the American people, I believe, is going to be just mucking things up so that Trump can't get a damn thing done and he is just beating off and beating back these investigations. If you disagree, if you think the goal must be to put someone like a Trump in prison, let me know. But also let me know

if you think that that's likely because I just do not see it. And I know that every time I say it, some people write in, they go, David, you're kind of like admitting defeat. I'm going to have no role in whether ultimately someone like a Trump is in prison. I just don't see it. And so I think we need to level set, understand what we're going for and make sure that Democrats are empowered to do over. oversight, hold them accountable to the extent that the House is able to and stop the agenda of destructive policy. That would be the biggest win. And at the tail end of it, weaken Trump enough so that he has no power to choose his successor.

Those seem like realistic goals to me. Let me know what you think. We've got a new show and a new bonus show coming up tomorrow. That wraps up today's free look at one of our bonus shows. You just got a taste of the exclusive content we put out five days a week for our supporters. If you want the full daily experience, take two minutes to sign up at join packman.com. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21-com. in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Going on vacation? We're here for it.

With kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that, Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flights delayed, your phone's at 2% and your dinner is whatever is open. Yeah, here for that too. Enterprise, we're here for it.