The David Pakman Show - Everything they warned us about is happening
Episode Date: July 23, 2026-- On the Show: -- Jessica Valenti, bestselling author and creator of the Substack newsletter Abortion, Every Day, joins us to discuss right-wing efforts to restrict reproductive access and why Democ...rats should run on abortion rights -- Measles cases reach a 35-year high with thousands hospitalized across the United States under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership -- Mitch McConnell has been out of public view for five weeks following a hospital admission for a fall, raising demands for proof of his condition -- Donald Trump delivers a speech in Marietta, Georgia, where he muses about an illegal third presidential term and stumbles over basic words -- Donald Trump claims four deceased service members supported his war with Iran while receiving their remains at Dover Air Force Base -- The David Pakman Show has surpassed Fox News and CNN in YouTube view rankings despite political attacks from Trump officials -- Rep. Tom Emmer declares that the midterms center entirely on Donald Trump while struggling to defend high inflation on Newsmax -- On the Bonus Show: Troy Jackson leads Susan Collins in a new poll, Nicaragua's president says there will be no more elections, the House proposes an AI "kill switch" bill, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🎙️ Plaud: Use code PAKMAN for 10% off at https://plaud.ai/pakman or shop at https://amzn.to/4fMahxp 💪 Get a free AG1 Travel Case + 7 free Travel Packs at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- 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 (01:17) Measles cases hit 35-year high (08:54) Mitch McConnell has been missing for 5 weeks (19:06) Trump holds a rally in Georgia (27:11) Trump says fallen soldiers supported his war (35:48) Jessica Valenti Substack Live (53:23) TDPS tops CNN and Fox News on YouTube (1:00:08) Republican says the midterms are about Trump Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Republicans are making the catastrophic mistake of admitting that the midterms are about Trump
as Trump's war drives gas prices above $4 and approval collapses.
Oil is over $100.
It's a very bad idea.
Trump then delivers one of his most incoherent speeches yet slurring.
inventing a health care plan that doesn't exist and saying to Americans crushed by high prices,
give me a break. Democrats should make it a campaign ad. We're also going to look at the administration
using dead soldiers to promote the war that got them killed. And we have the anti-vaccine politics
of RFK bringing measles to a 35 year high. Mitch McConnell missing more than five weeks. He's probably
alive.
I don't think that can be the standard for senior senators in Congress.
And finally, despite attacks from the White House and the MAGA media machine, this independent
show just outranked Fox News and CNN on YouTube.
This show, the David Pakman show, all of it and more today.
Glad you're here.
When Donald Trump ran promising numbers, the likes of which we have never seen before.
I don't think he meant record measles cases, but that is where we are today.
This is a public health emergency and it is happening again.
Measles is a disease that the United States kind of defeated more than 25 years ago.
And as I've told you over the last year or two, it is roaring back.
Kids are being hospitalized.
And it is all because Donald Trump handed public health to two of America's loudest anti-vax
cranks Trump himself and RFK Jr.
Now, what's fascinating is Trump gets all of his vaccines.
Trump's anti-vax is a political tool.
Personally, he's like, of course, I'm getting vaccinated.
And quite frankly, I don't even know that he believes this crap, but it's politically useful
to him.
We're only in July.
And the United States has already recorded almost 2,300 measles cases.
This is the highest number in 35 years.
It has now surpassed last year and it is only July.
Now, of course, more than 90% of infections are people who are unvaccinated or have unknown
vaccination status.
Utah, 90% of those hospitalized, unvaccinated, most needed IV fluids, more than 60% needed
oxygen, almost 30% got pneumonia because of measles.
This is what happens when powerful people poison trust in vaccines.
And we have seen this building because even before Donald Trump became president for the second time,
we had this sort of vaccine skeptical rhetoric of the end of Trump's first term and continued
anti-vax rhetoric that grew because President Biden simply oversaw the vaccination distribution
program of the COVID vaccines.
And so it kept building and building and you've got all of these enclaves that for one
reason or another have convinced themselves and others and parents,
that kids simply don't need to be vaccinated. And in fact, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spent decades
pushing the debunked idea that maybe vaccines cause autism. Now, should that be investigated?
Of course, if vaccines really caused autism, we would want to know. But it's been investigated.
And we're working on a deeper dive about this at some point over the next couple of weeks.
Donald Trump falsely claimed kids get 80 different vaccines and suggested parents break up the
MMR vaccine, even though number one, there's no evidence that that's safer. And number two,
you can't get those individual vaccines in the United States. I have a lot of pediatrician friends
who say parents come in and they go, listen, I want to vaccinate my kids against measles,
mumps, and rubella. But let's give them the individual vaccines like Trump suggested. And my pediatrician
friends look at the parents and go, those vaccines aren't available in the United States
because the MMR is the default. It's safe. It works. We don't have these individual vaccines.
Trump then made maybe the most famous vaccines conspiracy theorist, the Secretary of Health
and Human Services. And RFK loves presenting vaccination like a personal choice, but measles
doesn't respect the boundaries of your personal choices because an unvaccinated person
can carry measles into a pediatrician's office and expose a six-month
old baby or a kid getting chemo or someone whose immune system can't respond properly to the
vaccine. And those people never chose to assume that risk. They depend on everybody else maintaining
community immunity. One of my pediatrician friends has had four cases of measles works in a part
of the country where this antivac stuff is more common. And he's had really wacky conversations
with parents where they bring a kid in. And he, he asks, is just, you?
You're in an ER so they don't necessarily have all the medical records.
Is your kid vaccinated?
And then go, yes, absolutely.
Okay.
Hangs out for a bit.
They do some initial investigation.
My friend goes back to the parents and goes, listen, we suspect that this is measles.
You're sure your kids vaccinated?
They go, oh, not against measles.
And then now all of a sudden they've got a contact trace.
Everybody who was in the waiting room in the ER and might have been exposed.
It's a mess.
Now notice how backwards the anti-vaximates.
the anti-vax standard of evidence becomes a vaccine safely given to hundreds of millions of
people must answer every speculative question imaginable. And meanwhile, if it's a Facebook post
or a conspiracy video or some discredited autism claim, that alone is enough evidence that parents
should think about not vaccinating. And they magnify these extraordinarily rare vaccine
risks and they act like getting measles is no big deal. And that's where the excuse comes in.
Measles isn't really dangerous. It's been a long time since people were regularly dying of measles.
But they don't understand that the reason Americans rarely die of measles is because of the vaccine.
If you go before the vaccine in 1963, measles infected three to four million Americans a year,
hospitalized about 50,000, caused brain swelling in about a thousand a year and killed about 500 people
annually. Vaccination drove the case numbers down 99% and measles was declared gone in the United
States in the year 2000. And so they use the low death toll today to go, we don't need vaccines.
Nobody's dying of it, right? Because of the vaccine. It's like saying, we don't
We don't need seat belts because people aren't really going through windshields in car crashes.
They're not going through the windshields because of the seatbelts.
One in five unvaccinated Americans who gets measles ends up in the hospital.
That's an insane rate.
And about one in a thousand has that brain swelling that can cause permanent damage.
So this is a great example.
I was actually in Sacramento on Gavin, nasty Gavin New Scums podcast.
It's going to be out today.
And one of the things I talked about with him, which I write about in my new book as well, pay attention,
is when I meet people who say I'm not really into politics, this is a great example of how politics
is how Trump gained the power to choose RFK Jr to be in charge of American public health.
And it led to a record high number of measles cases.
Elections decide who controls policy and who is a
in charge of disease surveillance and the agencies that are responsible for containing outbreaks.
The leaders we elect reach into doctors' offices and into our kids' schools and into our bodies,
and Trump and Kennedy turned one of the biggest victories of medicine into a political target.
And now you've got frightened kids struggling to breathe. The U.S. may lose its measles elimination
status. And this is what anti-vax politics looks like when it leaves the internet. It's not just on
Facebook.
It migrates into the lungs of our kids.
So that's where we stand a new record.
Trump said he would set records.
I don't think he meant a record number of measles cases, but that's where we are today.
And we've got to deal with it.
So is Mitch McConnell alive or what?
Mitch McConnell has now been missing more than five weeks.
And we still don't really have answers as to whether he's alive.
recovering as they've said or what is going on.
We have seen Mitch McConnell in the more than five weeks that he's been hospitalized and then
allegedly in rehab.
Although again, we don't really have proof of that.
We have a claim.
We don't have proof.
And he has missed every single vote, of course.
And the public just can't get a clear independently verifiable account of Mitch McConnell's condition.
We got a picture of McConnell in a hospital.
or rehab with his wife Elaine Chow. A lot of people said that's an old picture. Others simply didn't
believe it was real. So at the risk of just kind of being blunt, is Mitch McConnell alive? Mitch,
are you still with us? Are you conscious? Are you ever going to be capable of doing your job again?
What the hell is going on? It is, uh, what is the date? July 23rd, McConnell was hospitalized June 14th.
So June 14 to July 14th is four weeks. July 21st would be five weeks. We are now into the
sixth week of a hospitalization supposedly for falling during which he lost consciousness and then
later got, I guess, while in the hospital, pneumonia. He has not been seen publicly since. All the
roll call votes he's missed. His staff won't explain what is going on, what work he's doing when he
expects to get back. And then, as you may recall, right around the one month mark after his disappearance,
McConnell's office puts out this written statement and a photograph showing what appears to be
Mitch with a newspaper sports section from that day next to his wife, Elaine Chao.
The photograph, some are saying he's not really holding the newspaper.
The newspaper is garbled.
It's AI.
I've not seen evidence proving that the picture is AI modified or years old.
There are Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who say I've spoken directly
with Mitch McConnell, Scott Jennings from CNN said I spoke directly to him.
So is he alive?
Probably.
I think probably he is technically alive right now.
But the range of possibilities between alive and will ever be capable of serving as a U.S.
Senator again are as big as the Grand Canyon.
The picture, if it's real, can't tell us.
whether he's lucid. It can't tell us whether he can communicate. It can't tell us whether statements
attributed to him are actually being dictated by him. And if we could get a 30 second video,
it would answer a lot of these questions and it would answer them quickly. And instead,
Mitch McConnell's office has allowed this to become so opaque that even some Republican lawmakers
want answers. Josh Hawley said Mitch McConnell has an obligation to tell his constituents what's
happening. Tommy Tuberville said, we need a video update. Kentucky governor, Andy Bashir says multiple
agencies have contacted him suggesting Mitch McConnell had indeed died and he has been pleading
with the office to end the speculation, put out a video, do something definitive. Now,
there may be a politically convenient, convenient reason to keep everything vague. And it's not
that Andy Bashir, the governor would get to pick Mitch McConnell's replacement. That's not
how the law works in Kentucky. Kentucky has a different setup in which a special election is required
to fill a vacant Senate seat, but it appears as though, and this is becoming a key date,
it appears as though August 3rd is the deadline, practically speaking, to organize a special
election before November. If the vacancy occurs after August 3rd, if you more than likely
there would be procedural delays that would let Republicans push the special election,
onto the same ballot as the general, or it might even complicate whether you can have a special
election.
Now, I am not claiming that Republicans are secretly hiding Mitch McConnell's death.
They might be.
I don't have evidence for that at this point in time.
But I'm looking at the situation at the 30,000 foot level.
When the senator disappears for five weeks, his staff refuses to answer basic questions,
the silence is massively consequential.
And again, some people, I guess, moved on from this after the one month anniversary picture of Mitch with Elaine Chao was published.
But a lot of people are remembering.
We don't know that that really proves anything and are demanding more than a picture and a statement written in Mitch McConnell's name.
Now, there's a bigger problem than Mitch McConnell here.
We've talked about it before.
And it's actually kind of two problems.
One, members of Congress are allowed to vanish for weeks or months while remaining in office.
collecting salaries, leaving millions of people without functional representation, and that is something
most Americans don't have at their jobs.
And there is no meaningful process to determine is this individual medically capable of serving?
Will he ever be able to come back?
Mitch McConnell's 84, repeated falls, multiple hospitalizations, public freezing episodes like that,
and other health problems.
He's already retiring when his term ends.
If he is recovering and capable of serving out these last few months, show us, put out a video,
answer some questions, give us a real timeline.
If he can't do the job, just resign.
Resign when voters can still have a say, democracy, right, over what happens next.
Probably alive simply cannot be an acceptable standard for serving in the United States Senate.
Now, I want to mention one other thing.
There's a lot of people out there who have no clue that this is going on, no clue whatsoever.
And one of the things I write about extensively in my new book is that due to these algorithmic
echo chambers and filter bubbles in which we live, there are people living in completely different
realities where they are simply not even fed articles or content covering the fact that Mitch
McConnell has been missing for five weeks and may or may not be a lot.
That is an algorithmic problem.
That is a digital platform problem.
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I received a dozen emails in the last few hours asking me, David, did Donald Trump have a stroke
on live television? He went and gave a speech. He's soaking wet and swollen like a beach ball,
glitched so terribly that it stunned people in the audience.
For some reason, Donald Trump decided to go give a campaign-style speech in Marietta, Georgia.
Trump opening by musing about running for what would be an illegal third term.
This counts for comedy in the right wing, I guess.
Well, thank you very much, everybody.
It's a special place.
And I am here to announce my candidacy.
I am here to announce my cannessy.
Incredibly glitchy speech making people wonder, is this guy okay?
Cracked down on Marxist proxy.
Oh, these prosecutors are so bad.
Crack down on Marxiope.
Prosecutors are bad.
What is wrong with this guy?
Something is very, very wrong.
Cracked down on Marxist proxy all with these prosecutors are so bad.
They're so evil.
At another point, concerns that maybe Trump had been drugged with sedatives.
I saw what was happening.
What a, what a disgusting thing took place.
But we then, as you know, we won Venezuela, which is now working with us to produce.
We won Venezuela and I think we're going to win Cuba as well.
Now, an incomparable moment where a guy dressed in a Trump-like suit, you can see him in this
video over Trump's right shoulder.
He was mimicking Trump's accordion hands.
I don't know how this guy got in.
Eventually, he was identified and I believe removed.
But look at this guy mocking Trump.
It's maybe one of the actual funniest things I've seen at Trump right.
Oh, this skirmish.
This is with this skirmish we have with the Islamic Republic.
of Iran and I call it that because let me tell you they're getting hit so hard and they want to
make a deal. And I can't tell if the people around that guy are starting to realize, hey, I think
this is an antagonist. I don't really know, but an interesting moment nonetheless, Trump then
getting into the substance and a lot of the substance included promoting stocks that he quietly
bought but didn't tell anybody about. Donald Trump again telling telling the audience, go buy Dell computers.
And as many of you may remember due to a report that we did a couple weeks ago, Dell is one of the stocks that Trump bought millions of dollars of and since has been encouraging random audiences to buy Dell computers.
Better than that. But people are loving it. And you know what I say? Go out and buy a Dell computer. Okay. Because as far as I'm concerned, that's great stuff. And I read on all of these things, I do think Trump just knows a lot. If I want to know what's the.
best car to buy, I think of Trump. If I want to know what's the best computer to buy, I think
of Trump. I actually am taking his recommendations as to I want one of those clicky keyboards.
And I don't know if I want the red switches or the green switches or what, but Trump is really
the guy for electronics recommendations. As you can imagine. Of course not. He bought the damn stock
and he's trying to pump it up. Now, what about healthcare? I know some of you have been waiting
with bated breath since July of 2020, when Donald Trump courageously announced we are two weeks
away from signing a new health care bill into law. And here is Trump telling us it's imminent
and we have a name for it. It's called the Great Healthcare Plan.
We'll pass the Great Healthcare Plan. It's called our Great Healthcare Plan. That's the name
of it to stop all payments to big insurance companies. And no more insurance.
companies. What? Give the money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care,
which will be much better and you will save a lot of money. Yes, negotiating by yourself to buy
yourself health care will get you a much better deal, I'm sure, said no one who understands
markets and negotiating power ever. In a moment really made to just be a campaign ad, Donald Trump
said Democrats made up the word affordability.
They said they used the word first time I heard it.
It was a word, you know, made up by the Democrats.
Affordability.
They said, affordability.
I said, I've been here one day.
Don't worry, I'll take care of it.
And we're taking care of it.
And notice that while the audience is essentially made up of clowns that clap like seals at anything
Trump says, even their reaction is muted here.
Because they know, wait a second, Democrats made up this whole issue of accountability.
No, they didn't.
This is a real issue.
By the way, everything's gotten more expensive for us since you became president, even though
you promised it would all get cheaper.
This is a phenomenal campaign ad.
And there should even be zoom-ins.
I mean, look at the guy here over Trump's right shoulder in the dark two-tone shirt behind
the blonde woman.
That's the look of a guy who's going, I don't, why are we laughing about affordability?
a real issue. And then Donald Trump, in fact, makes it even worse going, they're yelling at me
about high prices. Give me a break, Trump said to them.
I walk into office. I have a press conference first or second day. And they're screaming
at me, what are you going to know about high prices? Right? What are you going to do?
I said, I just got here. What are we talking about? Tell me. Eggs, eggs have gone up four times,
four times. I said, I just got here. Give me a break.
I won't know why people were asking Trump on day one. What are you going to do about affordability?
Because Trump promised on day one we're going to bring prices down. He made a lot of day one promises,
none of which came true. And so Trump goes, why are they asking me on day one about affordability?
Because you promised to deal with affordability on day one. You even promise. At one point,
Trump even suggested that merely when he becomes president-elect, prices would start to decline,
because everyone would know he's coming in and he's going to get tough with whoever and all of this crap.
Trump, as is often the case, in a battle with his tongue and the teleprompter, listen to this one.
These people say we're going to raise your taxes. I've never heard it before. It's a new phenomena.
It's a phenomena. It's a nasty phenomena. At another point when Trump's brain struggled to fire,
Trump referring to John Asaph, not as Pee We Herman, but as Pinky Herman.
Who the F is Pinky Herman?
Is that the bathroom attendant at Mar-a-Lago?
Every single time, they're afraid of the communists.
You look at it.
Now, I was, I fought ourselves before, as you know, and we won.
We had a great success against this guy.
He reminds me of Pinky Herman.
Do you ever see Pinky Herman?
Has anyone ever heard of Pinky Herman?
Binky, Binky Herman.
This is not a guy who can do this.
This is not a guy capable of turning ideas in his brain into coherent language.
And the most remarkable thing is that even these clap like a seal crowds, when Trump dismisses
the affordability concerns, they don't look happy and they shouldn't be because they fell for
it and now Trump is screwing them.
Donald Trump was on his way to receive the bodies of four American soldiers killed in his
war with Iran yesterday.
And even in that moment, Donald Trump turned their deaths into propaganda for himself.
Here's a good supercut from our friend Aaron Rupar of Trump answering questions before this
dignified transfer ceremony.
And Donald Trump propagandizes the dead service member and goes, service members.
says no, no, no, they like this war. They knew Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Take a look at this.
Some of you are going with us to honor our heroes and they are indeed great heroes, actually.
They said and they all of them said very strongly, we can't let, you cannot let Iran have a nuclear
weapon. They won't have a nuclear weapon. So we're going to honor them.
No, they're doing that. That'll be released.
You know what?
There was a war on target in barracks.
I don't know. Well, they're going to pay a big price.
They're getting, they're getting, they're being decimated.
Is that report inaccurate?
Yeah, please.
Well, Americans aren't against this war.
How do you ask.
Well, Americans aren't against the war.
The, a poll just came out.
Americans don't want to have gasoline prices, but they're not against the war.
That just came out loud and clear.
in a poll. Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. You want Iran to have a nuclear weapon? You think
it's good? Go ahead. All I'm going to say is we love you. We love your child. And that's what they are
to them. They're their children. There's no games, no nothing that's there. All right. There are
two lies here. And the first one is just, just disgusting. Trump says of the dead soldiers, all of them
said very strongly, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. How could Trump possibly know that?
Did Trump speak to the deceased service members about Iran's nuclear program and all four independently delivered the exact same line conveniently matching Trump's justification for the war just before they died?
Has Trump's White House provided any evidence for this claim at all?
Of course they haven't.
Trump took four people who can no longer speak for themselves and placed his own political talking point into their mouths and it is vile in disguise.
And he turned these deceased service members essentially into characters in a story that's designed
to absolve Trump of responsibility for the war he chose to go into, which killed them.
And that is grotesque because these soldiers volunteered to serve their country, but that doesn't
mean they endorsed every military decision made by Donald Trump.
And it doesn't mean they supported this particular war.
And it certainly doesn't give Donald Trump the right to.
announce what they supposedly believed after they were killed. Now, these dignified transfers
are supposed to center the fallen and their grieving families. And Trump used the trip to advertise
his war and basically claim, even the soldiers I got killed agreed that I was right to do this.
Think of how depraved that is. Now, then there's the second lie, which is comparatively minor, but
it's still a doozy, which is Trump goes, oh, a poll just came out. Americans are not against
this war. They don't want high, high gas prices, but they're not against the war. I was not
able to find that poll. What I did find are polls that say the opposite. The Washington Post-Ipsos
poll finds 68% of Americans say this is not a war worth fighting. 28% say, yes, it is worth fighting
this war. Even support within Trump's own MAGA base has been falling as the death toll and
economic cost grow. Gas prices are again above four bucks a gallon.
18 American service members have now been killed.
More than 500 have been reportedly injured.
And Trump doesn't cite a specific poll because he made it up on the spot.
Listen to how he separates the war, by the way, from its consequences.
Americans supposedly support the war.
They just don't like high gas prices produced by it.
But you really can't separate those things.
The casualties are part of the war.
The injuries are part of the war.
The grieving families are part of the war.
the war. The gas prices and tens of billions of dollars spent and the escalation, it's all part
of the decision that Trump made. The promise was, I'm the peace president. Killary was going to start
four wars. Biden was going to start four wars. Kamala was going to start four wars. He bragged under
me, there will be no new wars. Now Americans are dying in a war. Most of the country is against.
And Trump's answer is to speak on behalf of the dead and fabricate polling that tells him the war is
popular and he is popular. We should be careful.
about remote diagnosis of people. I'm not diagnosing Trump with anything, but these comments sound
sociopathic. Four flag-draped transfer cases arriving at Dover. Four families about to experience
the worst moment of their lives. And Donald Trump goes, the dead soldiers told me they love the war.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting how anyone can defend this crap. I don't know.
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live on Instagram. Hey, everybody. I'm going to be speaking today with Jessica Valenti, who is a
bestselling author and also the creator of the substack newsletter abortion every day.
So good to talk to you. I've been looking forward to this.
Me too. Me too. Thanks for having me on.
So, I mean, I think first, just a kind of level set, like we've seen the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
We've seen efforts to ban abortion at the state level.
Has the number of abortions in the country gone up or down since this happened?
I mean, like, sort of what's the landscape here?
Yeah, it's pretty incredible, actually.
You know, conservatives spent 50 years preparing for the end of row, preparing for this moment,
billions of dollars, all sorts of political capital, passing bills,
and the abortion rate has not gone down even a smitten.
It's gone up a bit.
So I think it is fair to say that these laws have just been an incredible failure.
If anything, the only thing that has gone up has been maternal mortality,
infant mortality in states that have bans.
And so I don't know that anyone could credibly argue
that these laws have done anything nominally pro-life.
So what's happening in terms of is this shifting procedures from certain states to other states?
Or like, what are the dynamics of this going up slightly?
I mean, the anti-abortion movement is really, really pissed off.
And this is why you see them going after abortion pills.
Because the primary reason that the abortion rate is not going down is because women in banned states are able to have pills shipped to
them from providers in pro-choice states and essentially sidestep those bans. And so Republicans
are furious that women are able to sidestep those bans, that they are not being punished in the way
that Republican lawmakers would like to see them punished. And so you see Republicans, the conservative
movement, really going all in on abortion medication, trying to get abortion medication,
you know, banned entirely, but most importantly to them, they're trying to make it illegal to ship
abortion medication. And so you're seeing this huge effort on the state level to call abortion
medication a controlled substance to enforce further restrictions and laws about shipping abortion
medication. And they have a case that they are hoping will convince the Supreme Court to step in
and make it illegal to ship abortion medication. But so far, they have not had much luck,
which is amazing. And I think it really speaks to the power.
of the abortion rights movement, that they were really prepared for this moment.
They were prepared for how to prescribe and dispense this medication to make sure that the people
who needed care to could get it. And so I think when it's all said and done, they're just
really mad. They're just really pissed off that this hasn't turned out the way that they would
like it to. And they're really mad that the Trump administration is not doing more to help
them, though they've done plenty.
There were a lot of articles shortly after the repeal of Roe v. Wade about,
let me see how I can say this.
There were motivated individuals to look at charging people, for example, for crossing state
lines for a surgical abortion, or if you helped someone who, for example, needed a ride
saying that you were an accessory to something which, while not a crime,
in the state you went to, and if they were minors, that could be an aggravating factor.
Has anything come of that in terms of actual criminal charges in any significant way?
I don't think that anyone has been criminally charged as far as I know, but they are working
really hard to institute a chilling effect, right? And like, that's a big part, a big point of these
laws. If someone thinks that it is a legal or criminal for them to drive their friend across
state lines, then conservatives have done their job, right? Like, the idea is to attack community,
attack our ability to support each other. And I've been covering a lot of this at my newsletter.
That fear really does lead to people being denied care, either denying themselves care,
or sometimes you have local agencies that are confused about the law that make it more difficult
for people to travel. I talked to
an attorney
for one woman in an anti-abortion state
who she found out her 14-year-old
daughter was pregnant. They decided that they
wanted to get her an abortion. They were going to
drive her out of state. Someone
tipped off child protective services.
Child protective services came into
the home, took the teenage daughter out of
the home, kept her out of the home
until that appointment date had
passed and threatened the mother with murder charges
if she were to bring her child out of state
even though it's completely legal.
Right. And so something doesn't even have to be illegal in order for those policies and those fears and that sort of enforcement to have a really terrible impact.
What about the providers? Because one of the things that made a lot of news in the three to six months after the repeal, there were a couple different things. One was OBGYNs leaving certain states and going to others for legal concerns as to what?
what the repercussions to them may be of providing the care that they believe is medically
appropriate. We also heard stories of problems in ERs where there is a pregnant woman who then
has another condition or reason that they're in the ER and how that might relate to the pregnancy.
And talk to us a little bit about that medical landscape. Yeah. I mean, it is really bleak.
We are seeing OBGYNs leave anti-abortion states. One of the best examples of that is Idaho. Idaho has
lost about a third of its OBGYNs and I think half of its maternal fetal medicine specialists.
And that has this domino effect that is not just about abortion, but is about all care, right?
If you lose a third of your OBGYNs, then you have maternity wards at hospital shuddering.
When you have maternity wards at hospital shuddering, all of a sudden a woman in Idaho needs
to drive an hour and a half in order to get to a hospital where she can give birth.
That's going to drive up the maternal mortality rate.
Right.
Republicans know that. And so in Idaho, they originally disbanded their maternal mortality committee.
And we're seeing that sort of action across anti-abortion states where they're disbanding
maternal mortality committees. They're stacking them with anti-abortion activists. They really don't
want Americans to know just how bad the consequences have been since the end of row. And as you said,
we're seeing situations in hospitals, not only in emergency situations, but people who have cancer,
who need chemotherapy, and they find out that they're pregnant,
and they're not going to be able to get chemotherapy in their home state,
and they need to leave, right?
That is traumatic and horrific.
It doesn't need to be a maternal mortality situation.
It doesn't need to be someone dying in order for those consequences
to be really serious and horrific.
Do you think that the repeal of Roe v. Wade and some of these other legal attempts
that now the anti-abortion right is sort of,
of tied up with have supplanted sort of like the violent incidents at family planning clinics
or targeting of specific doctors that we saw over the preceding 10, 15, 20 years?
Or is that still taking place? I'm not hearing about it if it is. Yeah, you're not hearing about
it, but it is on the rise, unfortunately. Oh, is that right? Yeah, they have been really emboldened,
if anything. They feel like the government is on their side. And that's in part because the
government is on their side. One of the first things that Trump did when he reentered the White
House was pardon nearly two dozen violent anti-abortion extremists who had been convicted of violating
the FACE Act, which is the federal law that protects abortion clinics. He pardoned them.
Then a couple of days later, I think it was. J.D. Vance spoke at the March for Life, and he made very,
very clear in his speech. He said, you will never have the government go after you ever again.
they really have paved the way for anti-abortion violence,
and the anti-abortion movement sees that.
They recognize that.
At the same time, Republicans are trying to repeal the Face Act entirely.
They're trying to do away with any clinic protections.
It's hard to see what that could possibly be about
other than enabling political violence
and enabling violence against abortion providers, patients, escorts, volunteers.
Where is HHS on this?
Because I've, for example, I've covered a lot about what's going on with measles.
We've talked about some of the Maha stuff.
We had Dr. Jessica Nurek on last week or the week before to talk about some of the nutrition aspects of what's taking place.
What's your sense of where HHS has been on this?
They are doing something very, very sneaky.
They have changed.
The Trump administration has changed the guidelines around a lot of the federal programs
for reproductive health.
So Title X, for example,
which is the nation's family planning program,
provides contraception access
for low-income Americans.
They change the guidelines
to focus instead on natural family planning
and on people essentially building their families
and having babies.
So moving away from contraception,
which is what the program is basically entirely about.
We saw the same thing with the teen pregnancy prevention program.
Not only did the Trump administration cut
$65 million.
in teen pregnancy prevention programs,
they also released a new set of guidelines
that does not mention contraception
unless it's to say kids should be taught
that contraception is not all that good for you.
And instead, they want young teenage girls
taught period tracking,
which is notoriously ineffective.
And so they really are using HHS.
They're using guidance.
They're using these federal programs
who quantify a really conservative
pro-birth rate effort, rather than focusing on what people really need with their reproductive
health. And because not that many Americans are out there reading the Title X guidance or the
notice of funding opportunities for the teen pregnancy prevention program, it has largely gone unnoticed.
That's part of the reason that I do the work that I do, trying to pick those pieces out and
trying to find those documents that, unfortunately, are just not being covered in and make sure.
outlets. Yeah, the discussions around contraception are interesting in a sort of dystopian sense,
where I've seen that now there's an attempt to kind of reclassify the so-called morning
after pill as well as IUDs as abortions, abortion causing procedures or medications or whatever.
Has that it from a legally relevant standpoint successfully been done in any state so far,
where these things are being reclassified
and are subject to abortion law?
Not that they're subject to abortion law,
but we have seen bills
where there will be a bipartisan effort
to try to increase access to contraception,
but Republicans will refuse to include IUDs in that, right?
Because they're saying that it's an abortive patient.
I think the most significant thing that's happened
that again, like really did not get any coverage
is that the Trump administration did in, like,
an official capacity, classify UD's hormonal birth control pills, hormonal implants as abortifacient birth control.
And that happened when, I'm sure some of your viewers have seen this, the Trump administration wanted to incinerate a multimillion dollar stockpile of birth control that was marked for women abroad.
And the reason that they gave was that they said, well, it's not really birth control.
It's a board of facie birth control.
You're talking about the most common forms of birth control and the Trump administration saying in an official capacity, both USAID and the State Department, saying, no, no, no, those are abortions.
That is incredibly, incredibly significant. It goes to show where their head is at, the way that they are trying to pave the road, lay the groundwork to make this argument that certain forms of birth control are actually abortions, because it gives them this ability when a reporter,
asks them, well, are you against birth control?
They can say, no, of course not.
I'm just against abortion.
It's the rhetorical equivalent of crossing their fingers behind their back,
because when they say abortion, they also mean IUDs, and they mean the pill.
Is there any, when we talk about the pill and IUDs, both prevent implantation of an egg, right?
I mean, I guess my question is, if we want to open ourselves to the possibility that there is some medical difference between the two, is there?
or is this something where they found it easier to go initially after IUDs than the hormonal pill?
I think they found it easier to go after emergency contraception.
And IUDs, there's a certain form of copper IUD that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg
rather than prevent fertilization, right?
And so that is sort of their sticking point.
Okay.
It all prevents pregnancy at the end of the day, right?
It all prevents pregnancy.
to them it's not, but I think that they would like to make it about those little distinct differences.
It's not about that to them.
They are anti-birth control.
They will use whatever rhetorical tools they have.
They will use whatever little definitions they can to try to make that makes sense to American people
because voters don't support banning birth control.
And so anything that they can do to try to make it sound logical, to try to make it sound reasonable, they will do.
At the end of the day, they do not want women to have action.
to birth control. They don't even want women going to college, right? Like you are talking about a
movement when you're looking at like the Heritage Foundation and the kinds of documents that they're
putting out. They want young women push back into the home, unable to leave unhappy marriages
with no fault divorce. They want us not to be going to school, not to be going to work.
Controlling our reproductive lives and ensuring that we are forever pregnant is a really
terrific way to trap women in the domestic sphere, and they know that.
Last thing I want to ask you about, there's a bunch of issues where I don't think Trump personally believes what has become the policy of his administration. So, for example, just to go through them quickly, a big part of Donald Trump as president is he's the Christian guy. But I don't believe Trump is religious at all. And he sort of found this identity when he was 68 years old in order to become a political figure. Trump's administration is very friendly with anti-vax ideas that's connected to the
high number of measles cases, but Trump gets all of his vaccines. And I think Trump sees this
anti-vax thing as something that's politically interesting, but he doesn't believe in it. He gets all
his vaccines and probably all his family does. Do you believe that, not that it matters when
it comes to policy, but do you think it's not the same way when it comes to abortion?
Because Trump was always pro-choice. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump in any of his, you know,
various, you know, situations with different women over the years has been involved in situations,
like the morning after pill, et cetera, what is your sense of Trump personally, but maybe more importantly,
does it even matter? Because what seems to matter to me is the policy of the administration.
Right. I think that's exactly right. I honestly don't think he cares about it at all in terms of
how it impacts women. I don't think he has any strong personal beliefs on this. I think that
he doesn't like losing. And I think he knows that abortion is a losing issue for Republicans.
and I think that that is why you have not seen the administration make very big public explicit moves, right?
They're not calling for a national abortion ban.
They haven't enforced the Comstock Act, which would criminalize shipping abortion pills across state lines.
He knows that it's a losing issue.
I do not think he cares at all about it, though.
But as you said, his administration is stacked with Heritage Foundation employees, very, very anti-abortion, you know, lifelong anti-abortion.
maniacs, really, like real, real extremists.
And that's who is in the federal government right now.
And that is what matters, because that's who is at the helm of that anti-abortion policy,
of that policy that impacts women.
We've been speaking with Jessica Valenti.
Check out Jessica's substack abortion every day on substack.
We'll also link to it.
Jessica, really great talking to you.
Appreciate your time and your insights.
Thank you.
Have a good one.
Talk to you again.
Bye.
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We just beat Fox News and CNN.
What on earth am I talking about? Well, I'll tell you. I want to show you something that it's almost
difficult for me to believe. In the latest ranking of YouTube accounts by views, the David
Pacman show is number 26. Fox News is number 30 and CNN is number 38. We are beating Fox and
CNN thanks to you. This data is from Cluvio, which tracks
YouTube channels and other platforms. This independent show, which we built from nothing, nothing,
is now generating more YouTube views than two of the largest corporate news organizations in the
US, which have billions of dollars behind them. Billions with a big capital B. Why capital? I don't know.
Trump puts capitals on random words. Why don't I? Now, to be completely precise, this is,
specifically on YouTube. And this is over a particular period. I'm of course not suggesting
that my entire operation is larger than Fox News or CNN, TV, websites, all of that. Again,
they have billions. They are massive corporations. We are just a little independent show. But
that's what makes this incredible. Fox was built with the backing of Rupert Murdox News Corporation
media empire. CNN was built by a super rich guy and is now owned by.
by one of the largest media conglomerates on Earth.
They have massive studios.
They have corporate infrastructure, international bureaus, gigantic promotional budgets.
Effectively speaking, they have unlimited resources.
We built this with no media conglomerate manufacturing an audience.
We don't, a lot of people don't understand.
When Fox and CNN decide to get on YouTube, they can put the full weight of their entire platform
into driving people to their YouTube channel.
And still, without a billionaire underwriting years of losses and all of that, we have defeated
them on YouTube because individual people watched and subscribed and shared clips and directly
supported the show and look at what that has produced.
So this to me is an inspirational story of without any of that, just me sitting here doing the
content, my team getting it packaged and distributed and folks like you in the audience saying,
I'm going to watch it. Maybe I'll share it. We are not just on the same list as Fox and CNN. We are above Fox News. We are
above CNN. We jumped 16 positions in this ranking. And I don't think it is, it's worth mentioning.
This is happening while we're under attack by people in power at a level we have never experienced before.
The Trump White House put me on his media offenders list. Don Jr. and Caroline Levitt are retweeting
attacks against me. Someone in the Trump administration reportedly tried to interfere with the
distribution of my previous book. We expect that with my new book pay attention, they're going to do the
same thing. And so you've got this broader MAGA movement producing lies, smears, and propaganda
designed to discredit me and other critics of Trump and to discredit you. They've got the White House,
They've got Fox News.
They have billionaire funded media networks and some of the largest accounts on every major
social platform.
And we moved up 16 slots above Fox and above CNN.
Now, there is a really important message about independent media here.
The attacks can work if people assume someone else will keep these shows alive.
What do I mean by that?
outlets like this one don't have a big corporation that can absorb losses or rescue us when
algorithms change or when advertisers get nervous or powerful officials start applying pressure.
The only protection I have is from you.
It's from the audience.
Every shared video, YouTube subscription, substack subscriber, direct membership on my website.
Every one of those is like a brick
in the moat protect no that's the rock moats are it's okay it's a brick in the wall
not in the moat that analogy didn't make sense a metaphor it is a brick in the wall that
protects us so that when powerful people try to silence independent voices we can just keep covering
the stories that we believe need to get covered we don't need to soften our critiques we don't
need to abandon our critiques. So this victory really belongs to you. There just is no version of the
David Pacman show ranking above Fox and CNN without millions of you deciding, hey, this is worth
watching and supporting. So I want to take a moment to appreciate this and to thank everybody. We are
building an independent show without corporate billions or millions. And the most powerful political
forces in the country are trying to marginalize it. They're trying to intimidate you out of here.
They're trying to intimidate me out of doing this and we beat them. If you want to make sure we
keep climbing and that the attacks only make us stronger, subscribe on YouTube, share a clip,
subscribe to my substack, get a membership at join packman.com and really importantly,
because we know where their focus increasingly is, pre-order the book pay attention. I had a phenomenal
conversation with Governor Gavin Newsom in California two days ago about this book. And he seemed
to understand the ways in which the digital platforms and algorithms reinforce these right-wing
ideas. And we are fighting an uphill battle, pushing a big boulder up the hill. So please consider
pre-ordering the book at David Pakman.com slash attention. And again, if you want to get this
specific copy, this is the first copy ever printed. It's on my show.
I will dedicate this specific copy and send it to someone.
Any pre-order of the book qualifies, audio book, Kindle, whatever, just send a screenshot to info
at David Pakman.com and say, David, put me in that raffle, but thank you to everyone.
It's an insane milestone.
And I'm humbled and we did it because of you.
Republican Congressman Tom Emmer just accidentally explained.
why his party is in big, big trouble.
Republicans need the midterms to be about anything other than Trump.
They need it to be about how Democrats are terrible and all of that.
But they don't need, they don't want, they can't afford for these midterms to be about
Donald Trump.
And Tom Emmer went on TV and decided to make Trump the centerpiece of the campaign.
Tom Emmer says he's optimistic about the midterms because voters know it's.
about Trump. Well, Trump's approval is 30%. Listen to this. This could be disaster for Republicans.
There's a Harris poll on voter enthusiasm that came out within the last two weeks. Very interesting.
Usually you have an enthusiasm gap right now, and it doesn't close until sometime in September
October. This, they broke out mega Republicans. And they have Republicans and Democrats. They
They didn't break out socialist, communist,
Marxist, anarchists, just Democrats,
and then they had independence.
Guess what?
The MAGA Republicans,
eight to nine out of ten of them
are planning on voting in the midterms.
Those, by the way, are the MAGA Republicans,
the Trump voters that we've been told for two years
aren't going to show up without President Trump on the ballot.
Then you look at Republicans and Democrats,
and seven to eight, eight out of ten of each,
are planning on voting already here,
July, they're saying they're going to be voting in the midterms. I just want you guys to think about
that for a second. There is a ton of enthusiasm out there. And it's not necessarily because
they love Republicans and they hate Democrats. You know what it's about? It's about President
Trump and his America first policies. You know, Tom, there may be some enthusiasm out there,
but have you checked whether this is actually enthusiasm on your side? Because Trump's approval is 30 in
in many polls and large majorities disapprove of his performance.
Nearly half of Americans now describe the economy as being in poor condition.
Republicans are terrified that Trump's unpopular war with Iran and gas prices above four bucks
a gallon and the affordability crisis will crush them in November.
And Tom Emmer has the bright idea to go on TV and say, don't worry, everybody, this election
is fundamentally about Donald Trump.
It sounds like a confession because Republicans have a structural.
problem. Trump's not on the ballot. He doesn't have to worry about ever running again,
but every single vulnerable Republican in Congress has spent years allowing Trump and kind of
making Trump the center of the Republican Party. And every scandal he has, they defend him. They
vote for his agenda. They celebrate the tariffs. They support the war. They insist he is the one who
can fix the economy. And now they want voters to treat the midterms as a series of completely
unrelated local elections and emmer has sort of thrown dynamite on the escape hatch. If voters are
unhappy with Trump, the only way to punish him is vote against these Republicans. And
Emmer is saying a vote for a Republican is a vote for Trump. Well, then I guess that's not what I
want to do. Please proceed Congressman if that's the approach. Emmer then in another moment of this
interview made what I think is a huge mistake, which is he tried to sell the Trump economy to the
audience. Even Newsmax said, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Check this out.
Southern border. It's about an economy that is starting to work for everyone. You look at real
wages are growing faster than inflation. You look at the lower rungs of the prosperity ladder
in this country. They are actually catching up for the first time in years. Their spending is up
about 6% right now. They are feeling better about the economy. And if their perception is,
They're in a better place than they were under Joe Biden, and they see a bright future.
Guess what, guys?
We're going to hold the House.
We're going to hold the Senate, and we're going to finish out Trump's term in style.
And, Congressman, I do have to point out, though, that there still are many Americans on both sides of the aisle who are feeling financial pressure, financial strain on various levels, whether it be because of the war in Iran or maybe inflation not going down as quickly as we have.
had hoped. What is your message to them? Because we keep telling them to be patient and they may feel
that they just don't have patience left. Well, Katrina, I guess I'm pushing back on that by telling
you that while there are people and there always will that are going to be struggling, what they're
staying compared to what is happening is not matching. And what you're going to see, I believe,
is by early September, those two things, the perception of their economic reality and their,
literally the economic reality are going to be intersecting.
The economy, nobody's talking about 99 cent eggs.
And you're correct, by the way, when you talk about, for instance, gas prices.
So he just starts going into this hemming and high if sands and butts.
You know the Republican economic message is in big trouble when newsmax won't let you get
away with the economy is starting to work for everybody.
That's the kind of sentence that politicians love to manufacture in a conference room.
the economy is starting to work for everyone.
And then they just repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until people don't, don't pay attention
to their own bank account.
And they just believe you.
But that didn't work for Biden.
It didn't work for Harris.
Inflation was still 3.5% in June after being 3.8 in May.
Energy prices were up 16% over the last year.
Gas up 27%.
One in five Americans says the economy is good or excellent.
In Pennsylvania, which is often sort of a bellwether on the economy, 44% of voters say, I'm
worse off than I was a year ago. It's just Republicans empowered. It's only Republicans. Those people
can't pay their grocery bills, but they're hearing Tom Emmer's talking points about the economy.
And so the trap Republicans have created themselves is that they spent the whole Biden presidency
insisting every price increase. That's the president's fault. Trump said it will be immediate relief
when I get into power. And now prices are higher than they were when Trump took over.
over, gas is again, again up over $4 a gallon.
And Republicans want voters to appreciate how complex these economic trends are because
prosperity is coming very soon.
Emmer connected two things.
Republicans have to keep separate.
Trump and the economy that people are actually experiencing.
If the midterms are about Trump, which Emmer says they are, and if voters judge Trump by
whether their lives become more affordable. Emmer may be right that there's tremendous enthusiasm,
but it may be enthusiasm to vote out every single one of these clowns. Now, let me issue one other
reminder. Your Republican elected official almost certainly agrees with 100% or 98% of what Donald
Trump has done and has rubber stamped everything Trump wanted when it came through the House or Senate.
So for the people who are sort of like, yeah, Trump's not my thing, but I like my congressperson.
I like my senator, who happens to be a Republican.
Your congressperson or senator has been part of rubber stamping and not putting any obstacles
in front of Trump for doing all of the stuff you claim not to like.
Remember that when you vote in November.
On the bonus show today, we have new polling in Maine involving Graham Platner's replacement.
The president of Nicaragua says,
no more elections. And House AIs, the House's AI kill switch bill has been unveiled after a very
alarming hack involving open AI. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show.
Sign up at join packman.com. You'll get instant access to the bonus show and more. I think
you'll love it. I'll see you then.
