The David Pakman Show - Declaring victory when you’re losing is a bad idea

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

-- On the Show -- New GDP data shows the U.S. economy slows sharply to 0.7 percent growth as Donald Trump faces rising oil prices, weakening job numbers, and economic uncertainty -- Donald Trump claims the United States has already defeated Iran while missiles continue flying, the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, and global oil markets surge past $100 per barrel -- Donald Trump lashes out at reporters, dodges questions about sending troops to the Middle East, and struggles to explain his strategy as the war with Iran intensifies -- Karoline Leavitt defends Donald Trump’s policies on Fox News but pivots to culture war talking points like transgender athletes while avoiding questions about the administration’s broader agenda -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent abruptly leaves a live interview after being summoned by Donald Trump to the White House Situation Room and returns hours later visibly shaken -- Karoline Leavitt claims Donald Trump is responsibly releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve even though the move closely mirrors a similar action taken earlier by Joe Biden -- Donald Trump struggles to answer basic questions about the length of the Iran war, the meaning of unconditional surrender, and his energy price predictions as the conflict escalates -- Donald Trump tells Jake Paul the United States attacked Iran first because Iran was about to attack, while the interview veers into bizarre stories and product promotion -- On the Bonus Show: The State Department slashes the fee to renounce US citizenship to $450, Republicans plan to disrupt Congress to pass the SAVE Act, Missouri changes state law to allow pregnant women to get divorces more easily, and much more... 🧳 Ekster: Get up to 45% off + extra 20% off with code PAKMAN at https://davidpakman.com/ekster 💪 AG1 is offering you $126 in FREE gifts at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com -- 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(01:23) U.S. economy slows sharply(08:41) Trump claims Iran defeated(18:13) Trump dodges reporters’ questions(26:14) Leavitt pivots to culture war(36:32) Bessent leaves interview shaken(41:58) Leavitt defends oil reserve release(49:21) Trump struggles on war questions(56:57) Trump tells Jake Paul attack   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have new economic numbers and the growth of the American economy has collapsed to 0.7%. This is a massive slowdown. And importantly, this is before the economic damage from the Iran war even started to show up. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is now claiming the United States has completely decimated Iran and won the war. But the missiles are flying. The strait of Hormuz is incomplete in total chaos. And oil prices are at $100 a barrel. When reporters try to ask basic questions about the war, Trump melts down, Caroline Levitt

melts down, the insults fly. Reporters are called obnoxious. And Trump actually admits the most important point of all of it, which is maybe the United States shouldn't even be there at all. We will talk about it. We will also look at a bizarre moment when Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary is yanked out of an interview, rush to the situation room. And when he comes back, he's shaken up.

He's mumbling and stumbling and stuttering and stuttering and looks to be on the verge of tears. And then just wait until you see the surreal interview between the president of the United States and Jake Paul. What a show. I am genuinely sorry to have to start the show like this, but we just received devastating economic news. And I don't know that Donald Trump's presidency can really recover from this. I'm going to explain to you what's going on.

We just got the new GDP numbers, not for Q1 of 2026. We're still in Q1 of 2026. It'll be over at the end of March. We just got the 2025 fourth quarter GDP numbers. And the U.S. economy grew just 0.7% in the final quarter of 2025. Now, even the estimate wasn't that robust. The estimate was 1.4%, the expectation. And we have now determined it's 0.7%.

You will remember that Donald Trump was talking about 4 or 5% growth. Why can't we have 6 or 7? Could we have 8 or 9% growth? Some of the people around Donald Trump said. And so we have a massive, massive slowdown. And we now are facing disastrous. Q1 GDP numbers because of Trump's optional and probably illegal Iran war, which would be the second quarter in a row of really terrible GDP numbers.

Now, some of the estimates of the effect of Donald Trump's invasion of Iran on GDP are about a one full percentage point reduction. If growth was already going to be 0.7% this quarter, we don't know, but imagine that this quarter was going to be like last quarter, 0.7% growth, losing a point because of Donald Trump's Iranian invention invasion would push GDP negative in Q1 of 2026. Oil prices are out of control because of the conflict, in fact, just to be thorough, let's just see where they're at right now. We know what's going on with gas price. About $100 a barrel as of this exact moment that I am recording.

Gas prices, as you know, rapidly approaching $4 per gallon now at above $370 per gallon. So Donald Trump is a major economic problem. It's a political problem. the Federal Reserve now also has a major problem on its hands. This actually relates to Trump's obsession with, I got to get too late Powell to cut the federal funds rate. Normally, as stagflation fears grow, which they are growing right now, normally the Fed would say, hey, we have a tool for that.

We can cut the federal funds rate. But if inflation goes up because energy prices are going up, oil is up, gas is up, that increases the cost of transportation, meaning everything that gets shipped to you or to a distributor gets more expensive. If you're in that situation and the labor market starts showing signs of weakness, which it is, we lost 92,000 jobs in February. Unemployment ticked up a little bit. All of a sudden, the Fed is going to say, I don't know that that's the right thing to do here. And consumer confidence reflects this instability. Consumer confidence is falling. And And there are a few different important considerations here.

The most important, the one I care about the most is what happens now in your home. I just care about the average person. What is the effect of the weak jobs market, spiking energy prices, reduction in GDP, which can often mean that companies start laying people off or at least doing a hiring freeze or all sorts of things can happen. Can you afford your life? That's number one. This is a political show.

And so we also have to consider what this does for Donald Trump's party, especially given that they could lose control of the House and the Senate in the forthcoming midterm elections. Historically, when you've got a weak economy and you've got a foreign war, it's a problem. And I know that there is a sort of rally around the president kind of thing generically with foreign wars. But when that war is seen as optional, boneheaded, not in the interest of the United States, at least not right now. For most people, I don't know that it ever would be, but certainly not right now and the economy is weak. And for Donald Trump, we may not even yet know the full economic disaster

because we're not going to get those GDP numbers for some period of time. You've got a real problem. Now, consider all of the failed promises that Donald Trump has made and hasn't stuck to. He promised to lower the cost of living, but it's up. He promised to lower gas prices, but they're spiking like crazy. He promised cheaper energy, but oil is up, electricity is up. He promised inflation would be over, but inflation has remained positive. And he said it would, we would see a price level decrease, which requires deflation. We haven't seen it.

He says GDP is going to be phenomenal, but GDP's been pretty weak under Donald Trump. He said, we'll have a manufacturing boom. But the manufacturing jobs level in the United States is the lowest it's been in a very long time. He said factories would come back. of the factories they can point to as being under construction are related to things that happened while Joe Biden was president, even though Trump wants to take credit for all of that himself. Trump said that the national debt was going to come down, but it has continued to increase. He said, we're going to see middle class tax relief, but much of the benefit of the tax plan went

to corporations and really wealthy people. He said the trade deficit would be gone, but we're still running very large trade deficits. He said tariffs would strengthen American industry, but they've made everything more expensive. I'm not going to give you the full list. This is a full blown, full blown economic disaster for Donald Trump. And it is only going to get worse the longer this continues. Now, let me say one other thing about the the longer this continues. Trump keeps playing with we've basically completed the war. We're, we've won the war. It's over. We're ending it. And And meanwhile, the strikes continue. But there's another layer to that, which is it's not only Trump's war to end.

One of the biggest factors now driving oil prices up, which drives gas prices up, which will drive the price of everything up, is the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, which is not open. Trump's administration put out something like, it's open other than, you know, other than the little detail that ships might be fired on by Iran, it's essentially open. Okay, so then it's not actually open. Trump can actually end it for real this time. Even if we stop the missile strikes and the bombing, we can't make everybody else agree that this entire thing is over and it's full speed ahead.

So, long story short, serious economic problems here. And in the meantime, Trump is trying to pull the old, I think it's over, folks. Let's see the stock market go back up and gas prices go back down, but it's not working. Something bizarre just happened, truly bizarre. Donald Trump went on truth social and declared unilaterally that the United States has completely decimated Iran. We've won the war. It's his mission accomplished moment.

Except just about everything in this truth social post is completely imaginary. It is a fantasy world in which Donald Trump finds himself. Let's take a look. He said, quote, the United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both militarily, economically, and in every other way. But the countries of the world that receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. And we will help a lot. The U.S. will also coordinate with those countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly,

and well. This should have been a team effort, and now it will be. It will bring the world together toward harmony, security, and everlasting peace signed President Donald J. Trump. Think about the contradiction for a moment here. If your enemy had been completely decimated, why is the most important shipping route on the planet shut down right now? Why are tankers, being blown up in the Strait of Hormuz. Why are countries debating whether they need to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz? Because the war clearly isn't over. And because the most critical, arguably the most critical energy infrastructure element at play here is not functioning right now. While Trump is saying we've substantially completed all of our goals, which he hasn't,

and it's essentially over, which it isn't. And we have obliterated Iraq. which they haven't, we see that we have an escalating conflict in the region. U.S. and Israeli forces just keep striking and striking and striking and there's retaliatory attacks and drone attacks and there's threats of even more attacks. The fighting is in week three right now and it has spread to multiple countries and there's military installations in the region that are being flattened. None of this is what victory looks like unless I've completely lost touch with the dictionary definition of victory. Now, there's another reality check that I think is important. And I want to go back

to the Strait of Hormuz. That shipping route normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil supply. And it's completely disrupted by what's going on right now. Tankers, there's videos on social media of tankers being blown up. Shipping is slow dramatically. And you see it reflected. This is the free market they love to talk about, even though the oil market isn't really free in the sense of supply and demand, we are seeing oil prices as I'm recording at a hundred bucks a barrel and gas prices, which are now up as of this moment about 37%. I'm doing just kind of like rough math looking at the charts right now. That's not an economic environment where you go, we won, it's victory. It's all phenomenal. I did a big boy. And there's another aspect to this that completely

undercuts Trump's claim that he won and that it's over. He is now asking other countries to send warships to get the strait of Hormuz reopened. But many of those countries are not saying that they're going to do it. And several governments are saying you've got to deescalate instead. We can't go forward here just by building up even more of a military presence and doing even more belligerent stuff there. And of course, that's not victory when that's what you're finding yourself needing to do. Now, what's Iran doing?

Iran's leadership has publicly rejected negotiations. They've said they're ready to continue fighting. And this is exactly what I said on day three of this thing, which is maybe Trump's going to go out it a few days and say it's done. Maybe Trump's going to go out it four to five weeks and say he's done. Turned out it was like two and a half weeks. It's not only up to us. Once you start a war, it's not only your call when it ends.

So there's a very simple picture. And they are trying to confuse and distort and use all sorts of. different phraseology to make you think otherwise. Missiles are flying. Shipping routes are under threat. Oil markets are in turmoil and tankers are being blown up in the strait of Hormuz. And meanwhile, Trump goes, please send warships to the region. So this is a, it's a political playbook we've seen before.

Declare victory too early. Bush did it in Iraq. Project strength. Bush did it by showing up, you know, wearing the fighter pilot's helmet. on an aircraft carrier or Trump, I guess, just thinks he's constantly projecting strength no matter what he does. And then hope that nobody takes too close a look to realize that you're just blowing smoke. We see the facts on the ground.

We know what's going on. The war is going on. And the global economic fallout is a disaster. So we're going to see if we can do a little something. And I think you'll kind of like this. We are going to start dealing with Trump's gas. Now I should clarify that I'm not talking. talking about what you think I might be talking about when I say we're going to finally deal

with Trump's gas. Next week, we are going to do an all week membership drive where the discounted price of a membership on my website, which is the primary means of support we have, will be whatever a gallon of regular gasoline costs under Trump. Okay. Normally our memberships are seven bucks a month. Whatever gas prices are on Monday the 23rd, that's the first day of this thing, that's the discounted price we will offer memberships for. If it were today, it would be $3.70.70. That's like a 50% discount. So you'll be able to pick whatever you think will be happening with gas prices next week.

If on Monday you think it'll be lower by Thursday, you can wait. And maybe the membership price will be lower Thursday. All you need to do to be notified of this discount is get on my mailing list, which you can do at substack. Davidpackman.com. I love anything that will solve small daily annoyances in a simple way. And that's why I love my gear from Xter, our sponsor. The wallet pro by Xter is slim, clean, and practical.

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You can see it in the pallor of his skin. Donald Trump is desperate. He is struggling. He doesn't like being pressed for answers on substantive issues. A reporter on Air Force One just hours ago asked Trump a really good question. Why are you sending 5,000 Marines and sailors to the Middle East? And this is an important question. If we're putting more of the sons and daughters of America in harm's way for a mission that

don't really understand and it's not clear Donald Trump himself understands it, we should have a crystal clear sense of at least as far as why Trump thinks it's worth doing. What does Trump say? He tells the reporter, you're a very obnoxious person. You're a very obnoxious person. You're a very obnoxious person. person. Why is it inappropriate? Why is it obnoxious? It's only obnoxious to be asked for a justification for sending troops places if you don't feel that you have a particularly good answer to the question

of why you're doing it. And that is exactly where we find ourselves today. We are, of course, losing service members. Service members have died because of Donald Trump's decision to go into this optional war in Iran as bad as the Thai Ayatollah was and the Ayatollah was bad. That doesn't mean the United States should go in and it doesn't mean the United States should go in now and it doesn't mean that Donald Trump went in legally. And so Trump has asked any comment on the service members who have been killed Trump ignores the question. Do you have comments on the six service members? What do you want to see in a deal because what are you said?

Did you notice that? Do you have a comment on the six service members who passed? Trump ignores it. Go ahead. Who else? Who else here? The troops deserve better. And we were told that there is no candidate and eventually no president that cares more about

the troops than Donald Trump, that values and reveres and upholds the service of the troops and their sacrifice. And he would never send them into harm's way. Oh, yeah, all of that stuff was just BS. And we knew that it was BS. Number one, because Donald Trump sort of understands the importance of serving in the military as being something that other people do, suckers and losers, as he famously referred to service members.

He didn't want to go to Vietnam, have felt no patriotic duty, apparently, and got a note about his bones spurs. So we know, oh, I always wanted a purple heart. These are not the comments and actions of someone who truly understands the sacrifice that is implicit in military service. And so now Trump has no comment on the service members who passed. He doesn't care. Trump was asked about his increasingly sort of divergent comments last week saying, we're nowhere near sending ground troops to the Middle East. And then, oh, but he interrupted and he said, why would you ask me a question like that?

Trump visibly angry at journalism taking place. I don't know where near sending ground trips to the Middle East. I don't talk to people like you about that. I mean, why would I tell you I'm sending or not sending? I don't talk about the military strategy. What would talk about? I mean, who would answer a question like that? I don't talk to people like you about that.

But of course, this is a different question. Last week when Trump was asked about troops in the Middle East, he said, well, listen, I wouldn't tell you exactly what I'm going to do, but we're nowhere close to sending troops to the Middle East. Now, 5,000 have been deployed. And Trump has asked not about the specifics, but about what happened to change it. Yeah, we know you're not going to tell us in advance exactly what you're going to do. Fine.

I understand that. That makes sense for a lot of different reasons. But what happened to go from? we are nowhere close four days ago to doing it, especially since I thought we won the war. I thought we completed all of the objectives. I thought it was over. I thought Iran was dead in the water. And the Strait of Hormuzzo turns out none of that stuff is true.

And then we get to what is really a growing issue, the Strait of Hormuz. And Trump now says, I'm demanding that countries come in and help. They should be helping us. that might have been something to think about before this sort of decision. That might have been something to think about earlier. And again, we have widespread reporting that Donald Trump is surprised by what's going on in the straight of Hormuz. Caroline Levin denies it.

She says it's a fake news story. But it very much seems as though Trump is surprised by it. You know, Trump means something different, but he has sort of stumbled upon a great truth there. He goes, you know, you could make the case that maybe we should. shouldn't be there at all. Now, what Trump means is you could make the case it shouldn't even be our responsibility to protect the straight of Hormuz. That's what Trump means. He's like, we have plenty of oil. It's really for other people that were even there. Except that's not really

true, is it? Because 20% of the world's oil goes through the strait of Hormuz and it still affects Americans when oil prices spike because of what's going on there. Now, it seems as though Trump may be making money from that oil spike after taking control of Venezuela's oil. But that's a different story we covered on Friday. But there's a bigger sense in which Trump is right when he says maybe we shouldn't be there at all. Maybe we shouldn't be there at all at all like this entire idea was a bad one. And of course, that's true. And Trump was completely unprepared for what ultimately took place. A moment of strange truth, I guess you could say, you could certainly make the case that we should not be there at all. A couple more. This is this is really disturbing. Trump, uh, uh,

including that we may be going into Cuba soon. Soon we will be making a decision. We might do what we have to do in Cuba. Why not another war from the winner of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize? Thank you very much. What do you want to do? You're talking to Cuba. What do you want to hear from them? Well, I'm going to I am wholly Cuba. It's a validation. Cuba also wants to make a deal. And I think we will pretty soon either make a deal or do whatever we have to do.

We will either make a deal or do whatever we have to do. The peace president, Tulsi told us, the Magas said, this is the guy who will keep us out of wars. Killery will go to war. Biden will go to war. Kamala will go to war. But this guy seems to be one of the biggest war. mongers in a long time if he thinks it will benefit him, even if he has miscalculated that. And what does this lead to?

This leads to Caroline Levitt having to try to clean it all up. Caroline Levitt was on Fox News just hours ago. And she thought that this would be an easy one. She thought that she would show up and get easy questions and give answers that makes some semblance of sense. She was right about one part. She did get easy questions. They treat her with kid, kid gloves on Fox News.

But she is, of course, going completely cuckoo, trying to defend the indefensible of the Trump administration. And what does she now pull out? We've got to get the SAVE Act passed. The SAVE Act is becoming the new infrastructure week. Remember, during Donald Trump's first term, constantly as bad news rain down upon the administration like blows from a boxer, they would go, oh, it's infrastructure week at the White House. And we would all laugh and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, infrastructure week.

Well, now it's the Save Act. Gas prices are through the roof. Oil prices are spiking. American service members are dying in an optional war. The world is saying, we're not going to come to now help you after you made this hairbrain decision. So what does Caroline Levitt say? She brings up the issues everybody's thinking about.

Transgender mutilations and men in women's sports. Really important issues for the average family. As they sit there going, wow, our gas prices are up 35 percent, electricity's up 12 percent, and it's only going higher. But what about men and women's sports? Caroline, can you give us an update on the Save America Act? It seems like the majority leader, Senator John Thune, is going to bring it up for a vote. This has to be a red line in the sand for the GOP, right?

That's what we're hearing, and it's what we're hoping. The president has made it very clear. He wants that bill on his desk here at the White House as soon as possible. It is five of the most common sense proposals that any party has ever put forward in the American people overwhelmingly support this bill. Voter ID, proof of citizenship to vote. No mail in ballots, which we know create tremendous amount of fraud in our electoral system. Cannot transgender mutilate our young children. We need a ban on those procedures in surgeries.

And then, of course, no men in women's sports. Folks, I don't know how else to say it. That's not an issue. Men and women's sports is not an issue. I don't give a damn about that as a political issue. David, you don't care about trans people? No, no, I care about treating everybody kindly and dignity and respect and non-discrimination as it pertains to the trans community.

What I'm saying is men and women's sports is not a real issue. Just consider the numbers. About 0.6% of adults identify as trans. It's a little bit higher among youth as they sort of explore and consider questions of identity. Of the 0.6% that are trans, a small fraction of people are playing organized sports. There is about 8 million US high school students total that play sports each year. You look at investigations in different states and you find single digit numbers of trans athletes. There are states that have zero trans athletes.

There are states that have two. But then you go further. Most of the trans athletes playing in the league associated with their gender identity rather than their birth genitalia, it's mostly trans boys. What I mean is it's humans born biologically female who are competing in boys sports. They don't care about that. They don't care about, quote, women in men's sports. They only care about men and women's sports.

You've got 0.6, a small subsection are actually in athletics. Most of them are trans boys or trans men where nobody cares about that. So when you isolate trans girls competing in girls sports, in a lot of states, it's zero, one, two, or three people total in the entire state. Over 520,000 college athletes in the NCAA system. And according to NCAA investigations, fewer than 100 trans athletes total. And only a subset of those are trans women. A lot of them are trans men.

And so you keep hearing about Leah Thomas. Oh, Leah Thomas in swimming. The reason you keep hearing about Leah Thomas is because there are so damn few examples of this that they can even point to. That's how rare it is, which is why you keep hearing about Riley Gaines and Leah Thomas. All right. So it's not an issue. It's simply not an issue.

And the American people actually don't care about it. It's a tiny subset of maga cultists who claim to care about it. They probably are completely unaffected. by it personally. All right, finally, Caroline Levitt weighing in on what's happening in the straight of Hormuz. And she goes, yes, the president is talking with our allies. What she means is Trump is desperate and he doesn't actually have a plan. So yes, the president is speaking with our allies in Europe and also many of our partners in the Gulf and Arab world to encourage them to step up to do more to open the straight of her moose. And our NATO allies especially need to

step up. Look, President Trump has been very, very frank with our friends in NATO for a very long time. He got them to increase their defense spending up to 5 percent. And now he's calling on them to do the right thing. Because again, the United States of America is leading the way, not just to support and protect our American assets and bases in the Middle East, but also to defend Europe in the Middle East and the rest of the world from the- Let me explain what's going on here, okay? First of all, just to get it out of the way, when Caroline says the president to speaking with allies to encourage them to do more in the strait of Hormuz. What she means is Trump was indeed completely shocked at what's going on.

He didn't plan for this. He didn't account for it. He didn't have any kind of plan B or plan C. And now he's panicking. But that's not even the big story. You know, for the last many years, Donald Trump has been increasingly skeptical of NATO. And when he has been asked, will the US come to the shared defense of a NATO country if the NATO country is attacked?

Trump has been far from a definitive yes. He's been like, well, they got to pay their fair share. I don't know, this, that, the other thing. Caroline arguing that based on NATO membership, other countries have to help us is not what Article 5 in NATO says. Article 5 in NATO applies to the shared defense of a NATO country. The United States was not attacked in the way governed by NATO. Trump decided to go to war with Iran.

That decision has unleashed chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump now wants to be. wants help trying to secure that so that oil can pass it safely so that oil prices will come down and gas prices will come down. There's nothing in NATO about if a member does a really stupid invasion of another country, you then have to join the war. That is not what NATO says. So they're desperate. They're panicking.

They don't know what the hell to do. And later in the show, we'll talk about the broader reaching implications of this. A lot of people put on music while they work, assuming it helps them concentrate, but in practice, familiar songs, lyrics, or constantly changing tracks often will take attention away from what you're working on rather than supporting attention. And that's where Brain FM comes in. Our sponsor, Brain FM, is a music app designed to support focus, relaxation, or sleep with music created by human musicians working alongside neuroscientists instead of generic, Playlists, Brain FM offers task-specific modes like deep work, creative, and motivation, depending on what you're trying to do. What makes Brain FM different is the science behind it, because it's the only music app funded

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at the store guessing anymore. It's also why cats.com named smalls the best. overall cat food and Forbes agreed. Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time gets 60% off your first order plus free shipping at smalls.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. I'm going to show you one of the strangest things I've ever seen in all of my time covering American politics. Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was being interviewed. He was in the middle of an interview that was being recorded and it was about the economy. It was about the war in Iran. Suddenly, an aide walks out and interrupts the interview and very ominously says Trump wants

to see him right away. In the middle of the interview, Bessent gets up and quickly leaves. Someone comes over, rips the mic off of him, and he rushes to go meet with Donald Trump. He was gone nearly two hours. This is already notable. But when Bessent came back, he was visibly shaken up. He was stuttering and blubbering like a fool. He appeared to almost break down in tears at one point in time.

And everything he was saying was the opposite of what his body language and behavior projected. Take a look at this. I have never seen anything like this. I listened to you on the- The president wants you. Sorry. Sorry. Oh.

Okay. Okay. Okay. problem at all. This is the interruption. See you shortly, Mr. Secretary. You have to say. So now he's back.

It's been almost two hours. It's a first, I'm sure, a last as well, that an interviewer has been pulled away to go to the situation room. How is the president? Was he stressed? No, the president is in great spirits. The Iranian mission is proceeding well ahead. of schedule and you know i have to tell you well that i've a teenage teenager who's considering

military service and i could give this team my highest compliment from president trump to the head of the joint chiefs to the secretary of war i would they say that i would trust my child's life in their hands yeah his voice is shaking he's distracted He's blubbering and stumbling and he looks like he is almost in tears. Whereas behind before that interruption, he seemed kind of relaxing conversation. It was like a completely different person that came back. Guarded like someone had just told him something extremely serious behind closed doors. Now Besson had been talking about the economic consequences of the Iran war.

What's going on with the global oil markets? The possibility that the U.S. Navy might end up having. to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz out of desperation to try to stabilize energy prices, which are completely off the chart. That, as I've mentioned, that route carries about 20% of global oil supply, which means a disruption there does exactly what we are seeing, which is send oil and gas prices sky high. And we are seeing this effect economies all over the world already. Oil prices, 100 bucks roughly right now.

stocks have collapsed. Gas prices are up over 33%. So when the president pulls the Treasury secretary out of an interview to bring him into the situation room and then he comes back shaken, that is not like a routine phone call that you get and you go, oh, yeah, I'll return that later. Whatever was happening in the White House was extremely urgent, at least as far as Trump was concerned. Now, in Trump's, not in Trump's defense, but to sort of account for Trump's temperament, sometimes Trump decides he needs to see someone right now. And it's because Trump is flipping out. He's having a catch up on the wall sort of moment.

And it's not really because something is that urgent. But when Besson comes back, he tries to downplay it. Trump's in good spirits, but he can barely string together a sentence. One other thing there. I tried to research this and I didn't really find anything. Let me just try one more time. There's a moment where Scott Besson says, I have a teenage, a teenager. And a couple of you wrote to me about that and said, is it possible that this has to do with

some kind of gender thing? Like instead of saying a teenage son, he said teenager. And what he was uncomfortable about was that his son is maybe a gender non-binary and he didn't want. I was not able to find a single shred of that. I noticed the weirdness from Besson around my teenage, a teenager, but I don't really have any strict factual basis on which I could say that that's what this is really all about. So cabinet secretary yanked off of TV, two hours of some kind of emergency involving the Treasury secretary, and then a visibly rattled return to the camera, at minimum, all hypothesizing, theorizing, conjecture and speculation aside, it is absolute and

total chaos at the White House. That we know absolutely certainly. Caroline Levitt resurfaced and was exposed as a clueless sycophant. This is kind of weird by Fox News host Lara Trump, Donald Trump's own. daughter-in-law, Caroline collapsing again. And I am starting to wonder if Caroline isn't getting to the end here. Here is Caroline Levitt indicating that Trump unleashing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve right now is good.

It's logical. It's morally right. But when Joe Biden released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it was for political reasons. It was because there was an election coming up. There's a little problem with this, as Donald Trump would like to say, which is that the facts completely contradicted. Let's first listen to what Caroline Levitt had to say. And then of course, as you mentioned, the release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, which this president takes very seriously and is doing responsibly, unlike the last administration who abused the SPR for political reasons to try to artificially

lower gas prices ahead of an election. That was despicable. This president takes it very seriously. We will refill the SPR as soon as this operation is over. And then, of course, you know, I'm going to delve into the full scope of why this is total crap. But there's something important here. Caroline Levitt says, Joe Biden used the strategic petroleum reserve to try to artificially lower prices.

But that's not what Trump is doing. In a sense, it's always an artificial price lowering if you open up the strategic petroleum reserve. We can discuss the timing. We can debate the political motivations. But it's always artificial in the sense that you have a calculated decision based on an amount of oil that is retained off market and you're dumping it into the market to lower the price. It's always artificial in that sense. Or it's not, but it's not sometimes. Yes, sometimes no. Now, Robert Graham on Twitter had a phenomenal debunk of this claim. Robert Graham posted quote, in March of 2020, In response to the Ukraine war causing oil prices to spike above $100 a barrel, Biden released

180 million barrels over six months. This was eight months before the midterms. In March of 2026, in response to the Iran war causing oil prices to spike above a hundred a barrel, Trump is releasing 172 million barrels over five months. This is also, by the way, emphasis mine on also. This is also eight months before the midterm. In both cases, Biden and Trump released around the same amount of oil roughly eight months before a midterm election.

But there is a key difference, which is that Biden did it in response to Putin's aggression and the United States was fighting on the side of the attacked country Ukraine. And it wasn't a war we started and it wasn't an optional war for the United States. on the other hand is the aggressor. Biden's actions didn't cause the spike in oil prices. Trump's decision to go into Iran did cause that spike. And in our case today, Trump and the United States are the aggressor rather than trying to help a country defend its borders.

Caroline can't do it anymore, guys. She simply can't do it. Couple other clips here is Caroline Levitt saying it's not true that Trump was surprised by what happened in the strait of Hormuz. He wasn't unprepared. Of course, Trump was very obviously unprepared. He even has said it and acknowledged it. And it's really not clear that the United States can even win this war, according to Donald Trump's own standards of victory. And we've been working 24-7 here at the White House to make sure the American people understand how much of a tremendous success this operation has been over the past two weeks. And it is abhorrent some of the stories that are

are coming from the mainstream media. And these reporters run these anonymous sources as gospel truth without checking with the people who are actually in the room. And I'm speaking about a CNN story, alleging that the administration was ill-prepared for the closure of the Strait of Vermeuse. That is unequivocally false.

Let me be clear. The Pentagon has been accounting for this in their planning of this operation since the very beginning. And the administration is taking tangible steps to address it. CNN issued a correction, On that story, after I called them and spent nearly an hour on the phone, rebutting it, ABC News

using unverified, non-credible tips from anonymous tipsters to scare people in California that Iran was allegedly plotting to attack the coast of California with drones, again, based on unverified intelligence. They left that word unverified out of their story purposely, and we forced them to issue a correction. All right. So there is Caroline Levitt, and of course, all of the evidence is that Trump was in. indeed unprepared for and surprised by what happened in the Strait of Hormuz. And by Trump's own definitions, hey, regime change.

Well, the same family is still in charge. It's not really regime change. We're going to take out their nuclear capabilities. Doesn't really seem as though they necessarily had them and or if they did. It certainly doesn't seem as though they've been taken out. But of course, we have no transparency. Lie after lie after lie. Finally.

And by the way, this is on Lara Trump's show, which I guess is a pre-recorded show. There do seem to be some cuts here. These do seem to be chopped together answers from Caroline Leavitt. At least that's my perception of it. That's just my opinion. Caroline Leavitt says, remember, we have a long-term plan here. And when she tells us the long-term plan, I've got to be honest, I don't think we're going to be able to do it.

But ultimately, your audience must remember this is for the long-term gain of wiping out the threat of a Iranian terrorist regime from obtaining and using a nuclear bomb against the United States of America and our allies. Well, Caroline, you guys are doing amazing work there at the White House. We are so appreciative of all you do. We're so proud, Caroline, of how you defend every lie of the presidents with two lies of your own as we both sit here, by the way, with our big cross necklaces to show how moral and Christian we are and blah-la-la-la-la-la-la.

I used to think Caroline Levitt was just firing on all cylinders as a paid propagandist. Obviously, she lied all the time since the beginning and that she was extraordinarily well suited for the job. She's getting worse at it. And I don't know if it's that the scope of the lies she's being put in a position to tell or increasingly untenable. I don't know what it is. But I wouldn't be surprised if she can't do this too much longer.

The David Packman Show is an audience supported program. And the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. I don't think I have ever seen Donald Trump look this bad and sound this incoherent. This is what we call downer Trump, the sad, depressed Trump. He's sweaty. He's glistening.

He's yellow. He's orange. Everything seems ill-fitting. And he's not making any sense. Donald Trump was asked, how long do you think this war is going to last? How long is it likely to last? And Trump can't tell us. How long now do you think the war is likely to last?

I can't tell you that. I mean, I have my own idea. But what good this is it? Donald Trump has already said many times that the war is essentially over. But then when he has asked, how long is it going to last? He goes, I really can't tell you. I've got an idea, but I can't tell you. So are the 10 times you said it's over the truth?

Or are all of the times you've said you don't know or can't tell us when it will be over the truth? Well, it's probably both would be the answer that Donald Trump loves to give. The question of is the military being used morally here? Is the military used respectfully and appropriately? There's this principle sending the sons and daughters of the United States into harm's way should really be the last resort. Do any of us believe that this was the last resort?

There were no other options. Do nothing given that you had just obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities in June wasn't an option. There were no other options other than doing this, which has now led to nearly 10 military deaths. And we don't even really know the full number by the way of the injuries because they even Caroline Levitt said, yeah, you know, it's kind of in the ballpark. I don't really know. And Trump goes, the military is being used for the sake of peace. Does anybody believe that Donald Trump's actions in Iran are going to make peace more likely. And I hate to go back to this, but it's important to understand how we got here.

Forget for a moment about the June of 2025 bombing of Iran. Go back to Trump ripping up the Iran nuclear deal. I don't pretend that the Iran nuclear deal was perfect. But it appeared based on all the evidence we had that after it was signed by Barack Obama, Iran was sticking to the substance and the requirements of the deal. There was this brief moment where I remember Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to argue Iran has violated the terms of the nuclear deal. Wasn't convincing.

Did not convince me at all. It sounded like the case of, you know, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. It just did not seem believable. And what triggered going in this direction, arguably the biggest anti-peace action was Donald Trump ripping up that deal. At which point I said, if I were Iran, I'm going to. I'd go back to working on nuclear. Why wouldn't I?

I don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I oppose theocratic extremist regimes. I think the regime of Iran now for decades has been the most destructive force in that country with regard to its impact on the average Iranian person, especially the young Iranian people who are relatively progressive and that's not what they want. Trump is the one who's to blame. And now he goes, well, I'm sending your sons and daughters into harm's way for peace. Seems like this is going to be the opposite of peace.

predicting totally delusional gas and oil are going to come down, you know, blah. It's just sort of like, yeah, tell it to me again, dude. I just don't believe you. Well, I think you get. As soon as that's over, going to come tumbling down along with everything else. I think it's going to see a very big decrease in the price of gasoline gas, anything having to do with energy as soon as this is ended. But we had to end the nuclear threat in the Middle East and throughout the world.

We are rapidly getting to a point. What where Trump, sorry about that. We're quickly approaching a point. And I've been saying this now for three weeks. We're quickly approaching a point where Trump going, okay, we're done. Is not going to get things back to the way they were. We, I believe are now in an environment where Iran and potentially other Gulf states are going to continue either. retaliating against the United States and or deliberately messing with the global oil market,

even after Trump goes, okay, okay, we're done now. Trump's standard, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Trump's standard is he wants unconditional surrender. He was asked, what does that mean? And his explanation is not, it's not great. It's not great. Now, remember that on the one hand, Trump is saying he's not exactly sure how you would define unconditional surrender. On the other hand, he's saying, we've gotten all the targets. But just two days prior, Trump said, we're actually deliberately leaving the biggest targets in case we have to go back. So which is it? Did you get all the targets or are you leaving the targets for later? Who the hell knows? It's it's mad libs. Pick your own adventure. Every single day, he's giving you every side of

every issue and finally Donald Trump continues to be unable to say mutilation saying that under his watch there will be no transgender mutilization of our children and a completely swollen and soaking wet sweaty Trump still struggling to say mutilation and I think this is getting to be one of those things like when Trump continues saying, oh, they're from insane asylums. And nobody goes, sir, those people are seeking asylum. They're not from insane asylums. And it's gotten to be too late for him to stop. Oh, we're going to drop the price 1,300%.

Sir, you really can't drop a price more than 100%. It's been, it's like when you have met someone 30 times and you forgot their name, but it would be embarrassing to bring it up because you've met him 30 times. And so you go, hi, how are you? Good to see you. Same sort of thing. The people around Trump do not want to bring it up. And if you think that this was embarrassing, I have two words for you.

That note, sorry, that's not one of them. The two words are Jake Paul. I don't know what made anyone around Donald Trump think that it was a good idea to sit down with boxer, influencer, podcaster. Jake Paul. But Jake Paul actually made a couple of attempts to ask some real questions. And I'm not saying this jokingly or pejoratively. I think Jake Paul has a brain injury or like I guess you'd call it CTE from boxing. I don't know just from hearing him talk. He is able to actually ask some questions that really do deserve answers from Donald Trump, including what exactly

was your thinking with this whole Iran thing? And even in this completely sycophantic, you know, bouquet throwing interview, Trump still can't really explain what the hell are we doing in Iran. With Iran, we knew we had to do something because they were going to be attacking us. If we didn't attack them, they were going to attack us. And we did it first. And by going first, we wiped out thousands of missiles that would have been shot. And you know, you can shoot them down, but you need a lot of, a lot of very expensive weaponry

to shoot them down. We wiped out thousands and thousands of missiles by going early. Even after three weeks of this and even in the friendliest of friendly venues, Trump has still not been able to workshop a better answer as to why and why now. And you know, I think the answer is he thinks his answer is plenty good. I thought that they were going to come after us. I thought that they would be attacking us. I had a feeling, maybe based on fact.

The topic of Trump getting shot comes up. And weirdly, it seems to. sort of seem as though Trump and Jake Paul are kind of making equivalent when Trump was shot and when Jake Paul gets punched during boxing matches. It was bloody as hell. So when I checked, I put my hand up, I said, you know, I brought it down and it was loaded up. So I said, that's either the biggest mosquito bite in history or I just got shot.

And it was not a pleasant experience. Yeah, my, like, adrenaline was pumping. I'm sure your adrenaline was pumping. Like, when my jaw was broken, I just couldn't really feel it that much. Oh, so you knew that you had a broken. No, no, my brother told me. I was talking to him, and my teeth were, like, in the center of my mouth. And he was like, yo, I think your jaw is broken.

And then I, like, grabbed it and realized. But when he was hitting you, you didn't feel the... It was the last punch. It was the last punch? Yeah, the very last punch of the fight that did it. So that's what I like went to the floor was like, whoa. Was that hard to recover from? Yeah.

A real, a real meeting of the minds. Now, I think the most interesting moment of this entire interview was when Jake Paul asks Trump one of these questions that it's an easy question, but you do have to have some kind of answer that shows you're not just an egomaniacal self-centered lunatic. Jake Paul asks Trump, if you could be reincarnated as anyone at any time and experience someone else's life, who would you come back as? And Trump goes, oh, me right now. He would be reincarnated as Donald Trump at nearly 80 years old in 2026.

This is one of those things where you can go, well, you know, Abraham Lincoln, Abraham or Jesus Christ himself or what anything other than saying you would be reincarnated as yourself right now, which is quite literally the only way in which is not reincarnation. Listen to this is how impossible it is for Trump to just think about these questions. If you could come back in history and reincarnate and, like, be able to experience someone else's life, who would you come back in history as? That's a very interesting question. That's a very interesting question. Ah!

Ah! Ah! Ladies and gentlemen. All right. So here's Trump's answer. Maybe Donald Trump. Right now. I think...

You could write. rank in infinity answers to that question. The only way to really not answer it is to go, I would be reincarnated as myself right now. God, you just can't do it. A couple more of these. Jake Paul talks to Trump about being in a fight himself. And Trump tells an interesting story. Have you ever been in a fight?

I heard a rumor about you like helping Kobe one time at a game. Is that a true story? We go, right? That was a... Is this a true story? Well, it wasn't a fight. I was breaking up a fight. Okay, okay.

Which sometimes is more dangerous than being in a fight, right? But now, I like Kobe. Kobe was having a hard time with somebody and it worked out fine. But, but, yeah, I broke it up. Probably not a smart thing to do. Anyway, I looked this up, and apparently this relates to an incident that involved former New York Knicks player Charles Oakley. And there was some kind of incident, like an elevator or something like that.

Very, very interesting. All right, just a couple moments, final moments from this. Trump and Jake Paul compliment the physical appearance of each other's wives. He's a legend. I was so proud of it. It was the greatest thing I've ever witnessed in person. Well. And to be a part of it.

She's a great, great person, beautiful. You're not allowed to say beautiful. It's the end of your political career. But you know what? She's beautiful as well. Yeah, she's doing great. She's doing a good job. Look at us complimenting.

Yeah. Melania is doing a good job. What is her job? I don't know. It's nice. Nice when you can do that. Exactly. I just want to congratulate you. Great job. Thank you, man. You're a young guy, but you have done some incredible job. Thank you. And so different. He's a legend. So right. There it is. So make what you will of the interview truly bizarre. And nothing is complete without a little bit of a grift. Trump suggests to MAGA that they buy Jake Paul's deodorant line. Thank you, man.

Go buy it. Go buy it, MAGA. Go buy it, MAGA. Trump says as he holds up a stick of deodorant. There it is, folks. Good interview, bad interview. I know that Donald Trump used these, you know, Nelk boys, et cetera interviews, sort of successfully leading up to the 2024 election, but I don't know that this is exactly the thing to be doing,

especially as we are in the situation we are in in Iran. Let me know what you think. Next week, we will be unleashing Trump. gas promo where we will do a membership drive, where the memberships will be discounted down to the cost of a gallon of regular gasoline under Donald Trump. It's going to be at least and potentially more than a 50% discount. All you need to do to be notified of Trump's gas promo is get on my substack newsletter at substack.

. . . . .com. We've got a phenomenal bonus show today. we will talk about this is so weird. Missouri lawmakers have passed a bill removing legal barriers for pregnant women to get divorced. Now you might be saying, wait a second, there was a barrier to a woman getting a divorce while pregnant in Missouri? Yes, there was. And there is a bill passed to stop that.

Dear God, what is going on in this country. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join hackman.com.