The David Pakman Show - Global financial panic unleashed by Trump’s Iran war

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

-- On the Show -- Maura Healey, Governor of Massachusetts, joins us to discuss Donald Trump's failure to coordinate with governors ahead of military action against Iran and her efforts to limit ICE activity in the state -- Donald Trump faces rising costs, oil shocks, civilian casualties, and the rise of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader -- Donald Trump triggers a global market panic as escalating war with Iran sends oil prices surging, shuts down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz -- Donald Trump appears at a dignified transfer ceremony for fallen U.S. service members at Dover Air Force Base while wearing a baseball hat -- Karoline Leavitt refuses to rule out a military draft if the war with Iran expands, while defending higher gas prices and blaming Joe Biden for the affordability crisis -- Donald Trump struggles to answer questions about ground troops, civilian casualties, and the meaning of unconditional surrender as reporters press him about the escalating war with Iran -- Newly released Department of Justice documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation summarize FBI interviews with a woman who alleges that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor -- Pete Hegseth warns that more casualties are likely and refuses to rule out U.S. ground troops in Iran while declaring that Iranians who expect to live should be worried -- On the ⁠Bonus Show⁠: Travelers encounter long delays as the DHS shutdown continues, Cory Booker wants to make the first $75k of income tax-free, Alabama is ready to execute someone who didn't kill anyone, and much more... 🛏️ Eight Sleep: Get up to $350 OFF the Pod 5 at ⁠https://eightsleep.com/pakman⁠ 🌍 Haven Social: Check out their Kickstarter at ⁠https://davidpakman.com/havensocial⁠ 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: ⁠http://incogni.com/pakman⁠ 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at ⁠https://helixsleep.com/pakman⁠ -- Become a Member: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/membership⁠ -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: ⁠https://davidpakman.substack.com⁠ -- Get David's Books: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/echo⁠ -- TDPS Subreddit: ⁠http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow⁠ -- David on Bluesky: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/bluesky⁠ -- David on Facebook: ⁠http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow⁠ (00:00) Start(01:26) Trump faces rising Iran costs(07:55) Global market panic from Iran war(16:22) Trump at Dover ceremony(22:22) Leavitt on draft and gas prices(29:25) Trump pressed on war questions(36:32) Maura Healey Interview(54:26) DOJ Epstein documents released(1:00:24) Hegseth warns on casualties   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. The Iran war is spiraling in ways that the White House clearly did not expect. We have oil prices spiking. The strait of Hormuz is effectively shut down. Panicked global markets, gas prices going almost vertical. And there's still no strategy or exit plan. And importantly, even by Trump's standards, he may lose this war. As Iran has now announced that the son of the Ayatollah.

will take the reins of the regime. Even the short-sighted regime change they wanted appears not to be happening. Meanwhile, images from a dignified transfer of the fallen American troops from Iran have Trump wearing a baseball hat and looking extraordinarily bored. Caroline Levitt refuses to rule out a military draft if the conflict escalates. Did you consider that maybe your sons and daughters could be drafted into this insane war. And later, we're going to look at newly released documents tied to the Epstein investigation that are extremely disturbing. Plus, we will be joined by Massachusetts governor

Mora Healy, who has figured out a way to hamstring Trump's ice goons. We'll talk to her and more. What a show. We're going to talk about what's happening with the economy. And I know because I'm getting dozens, if not hundreds of emails from many of you that many people in my audience are really worried. You're worried about cost of living. You're worried about what's happening to your retirement account. We're going to get to the economic in a moment. But we first have to contend with the insane reality that Donald Trump may be about to lose this war that he started by his terms. Now, you might be saying, well, what, what do you really mean by win or lose? I'm going to explain. And in fact, there are some claims that Trump has already lost this war,

evidenced by the fact that after killing the Ayatollah, the supreme leader and pushing for regime change, let's decide who will be in power. We've toppled the regime. The news reporting is that Iran has named the son of the Ayatollah the new supreme leader, meaning that we have achieved the exact opposite of regime change. Now, we will get to that in a moment. One of the questions that has come up in this theater of war has been, what would it mean to win? Is it about nuclear facilities? Well, were they obliterated over the summer of 25 or weren't they? And what is the status of those facilities?

And okay, that's one aspect to this. We then have the consequences of what is happening. We have the questions as to is what Donald Trump did even legal because he didn't go and get authorization from Congress. We have the broader sort of philosophical question. Should the United States be engaging in regime change, et cetera, et cetera? But if we put all of that back and go back, back, back, back, back, there is the whole question of the Ayatollah was killed, 86 years old.

There was a succession plan. Is killing the Ayatollah really going to achieve regime change? Donald Trump said last week that if the son of the Ayatollah, Matabah Khomeini, was made the leader, that that would be unacceptable. And we have now learned that indeed, the new supreme leader of Iran is Matai Bahamani. We are seeing every aspect of this backfire. It's going to be good for the economy. It's been a disaster.

It's going to be good for America's reputation around the world as tough. The world is horrified by what Donald Trump is doing. Well, at least we will change the regime. And it seems that that is not happening. Look at what else is going on. Iran effectively closing down the strait of Hormuz. Tanker traffic, oil tanker traffic is down 80 to 90%. Oil has nearly doubled in a week.

American operations are costing about a billion dollars a day. And we have now, I believe that this is the latest number. It's getting to where it's hard to keep up with the number of American troop deaths. But I believe that there have now been seven American troops killed. We learned that a likely U.S. strike on February 28th hit a girls elementary school, killing somewhere close to but under 200 civilians. Kuwait was expected to have about 18 days of oil storage, but they started cutting production as well. You look at Iraq oil output from its southern fields is down about 70%. Qatar is warning that Gulf exporters might stop production.

altogether. And so we have this mix of disastrous military, political, and economic news, which has gone completely chaotic as American embassies are trying to evacuate, but it's becoming difficult in part because the Trump administration didn't properly arrange for the evacuation of Americans in the region. We're seeing delays. Facilities are being hit. Thousands are stranded. And meanwhile, the new supreme leader of Iran, who Trump said would be an unacceptable choice, is very extreme. And that in and of itself may prolong the conflict because the new supreme leader seems to have a significant appetite for keeping this going, for taking deaths on their end.

And potentially, and boy, do I hope this doesn't happen, potentially trying to launch attacks against the United States and its allies. The Atlanta Fed now estimates that in the first quarter of this year, GDP fell from 3% to 2.1% in four days. We are still in Q1, January, February, March. Just based on the first few days of this conflict, we may have lost a full point of GDP. Now, I'm not here to tell you which of these things you should care about more. Should you, should you care more about the economic? Should you care more about the political? Should you care more about the deaths that are taking place?

It all matters. We don't we don't have to rank it. It's just it's an all of the above. This is a disaster big picture. Stocks are down. The Fed has very little room for rate cutting because of rising oil prices, pushing inflation expectations higher. So this is quickly becoming not only a political disaster, not only an economic disaster, not only a humanitarian disaster, but it doesn't even really seem that Donald Trump is going to be able to,

quote, win this war the way that he described. Now, we're going to get in a moment primarily to the economic, but this is having a lot of flashbacks to the Iraq war of George W. Bush of 2003. Donald Rumsfeld saying, we're going to be greeted as liberators. They're going to, did he make a quote about roses? I think he did. Rumsfeld, roses, Iraq. Iraqi citizens will throw flowers and sweets at our troops.

Yeah, exactly. So we are now seeing it's going to be a few days of war. It's going to be four weeks. It's going to be five weeks. Well, it's also not completely up to us because Iran has agency and Iran could extend this as well. if after all this, by their own definition, they lose this easily winnable war. That's what we're facing right now.

Let's talk about the economy. Donald Trump has triggered a global financial panic. Look around the world. Markets are crashing. Oil just had its biggest short-term spike in 40 years. And it is happening as Donald Trump's hairbrained. war with Iran is spiraling. There is no clear plan. There is no clear exit strategy. And as I already told you, by Donald Trump's own standards, he may lose this war. Now, we look around the world.

Japan's Niki dropped about 7% in a single day. The South Korean market fell 8% extending, by the way, huge losses from last week. In the United States, we are seeing the Dow just collapse in brutal, brutal fashion. And we are seeing panic selling to some degree, certainly caused by the geopolitical chaos. We've seen the oil prices explode as the conflict is disrupting supply. Brent Crude, which again is not an adult film star. That's a type of oil. Brent Crude jumped 27% in one day to roughly $117 a barrel. This is the biggest single day increase since 1988, 1988, 1988. And meanwhile, gas is just exploding going from about 294 a gallon up to 350.

That is a roughly 20% increase in a weak, incredible, disastrous numbers. Now analysts are saying this could be the worst oil supply shock since the 70s energy crisis. A lot of it is centered around the strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world's oil supply passes through there normally. And right now shipping is essentially shut down after Iranian retaliation. And we are seeing a number of other oil producing or oil refining nations move in the direction of constraining supply, either by choice or by necessity. And this is only going to lead oil prices higher and it's going to lead gas prices higher,

which leads to everything getting more expensive because the transportation. of most of the stuff we have is based on petroleum-based fuels. Now, meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise. Earlier, I said seven service members have been killed. I actually believe that it is now eight. Not that it happened in the last five minutes, but I believe that there was late reporting about one of them. Somewhere, seven, eight, something like that.

And Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and others warning us that that number is going to go up. Investors are finding themselves asking a really basic question. How long is this war going to last? And we don't have a single idea. I know that we heard from Trump. It's going to be about four weeks. Could be about five weeks. We're already almost two weeks in.

So is it going to be four or five more from today? Because they keep saying four or five weeks. Or is it four or five from when it started? Meanwhile, a lot of foreign policy experts say this is going to be way longer than that. And even after Donald Trump has decided it's over, that doesn't mean that Iran will agree that it is over. This is a very dangerous direction. Now for the average person, this is a disaster. Imagine being a voter.

Maybe you voted for Trump. Maybe you didn't. Doesn't matter. You're a voter in Arkansas or you're a voter in Michigan. You're a voter in Tennessee. You are working class. You have a job, but cost of living increases are really hampering your buying power. You're worried about can you afford helping your kids pay for some college?

Can you afford groceries? What about gasoline? What about your car? What's going on with credit availability? And then you look around and you go, well, Trump said he was going to help people like me. He spouted populist rhetoric like it was just being projectile vomited out of his mouth about how I am the person he cares about the most. My family is his top priority.

He's going to be the affordability president. He's going to be the fertilization president. Oh, by the way, how nausea, how vomitous. And then now all of a sudden, he says, oh, well, how about we start a war with Iran? And how about we see gas prices spike 20% in a week? Do you still believe that this guy gives a damn about your situation? And of course, high oil prices translate to high gas prices. High gas prices translate to high everything prices.

And so your costs are going up. And then if you're fortunate enough to have some kind of retirement account, maybe it's an employer 401k, an IRA, a 403B, something. You see that over the last 10 days, it has absolutely collapsed. So this is a growing political conundrum, humanitarian conundrum, foreign policy quagmire. But for average people, this is a massive. economic fiasco and it is going global and my expectation now let let me know in the comments what you think my expectation is that trump is going to end up he's already panicking reports of

widespread screaming at the white house about gas prices last week my guess is that trump will end up trying to figure out some way to back out of as much of this as he can while claiming that he won the war and desperately trying to rescue a collapsing economy. I don't think it'll be real, but he's going to claim we won and now we're going to get everything fixed back up because they are getting desperate at the White House. Let me know what you think. Remember that we are pushing to 4 million YouTube subscribers. Get us one closer by hitting the subscribe button.

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You can support Haven's Kickstarter at David Pakman.com slash Haven Social. The link is in the description. Donald Trump could not be bothered to take off the baseball. hat. He got him killed and he shows up wearing a cap. Dear God, let me explain what is going on here. We now have images in video from the recent, they call it a dignified transfer. As some of you know, seven, maybe eight American service members so far have been killed because of Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran. Trump and Pete Hackseth and others say that more are going to be killed in the future. Donald Trump showed up at the dignified transfer.

of those American service members as their remains arrived back in the United States. And he was wearing a baseball hat. A whole bunch of images in video show Trump wearing this stupid looking huge white baseball hat. Now, this took place at Dover Air Force Base. This is where the remains were returned to the United States. And this is not me waxing poetic about tradition for the sake of tradition. Believe me, that that is not really a concern for me. These, these transfers are among the most solemn traditions in the military, where these flag-draped coffins are carried off of typically aircraft by military personnel. Families are there to watch.

Officials are there. And there is a basic protocol about respect and the gravity of the situation. And so it's not about a baseball hat per se. It's that when you see Donald Trump, after the decision to send these troops into the government, you to harm's way over a war that is crashing the economy and which I don't even really know that Trump can win by his own definition. And then you see him standing there in a baseball hat rather than taking the hat off. And this has quickly become a point of criticism.

Now there are a lot of veterans, commentators, military observers who pointed out, listen, this is it's it just is protocol that you take your hat off as a sign of responsibility. respect at such things. It's military culture. It's civilian culture. Even, you know, sometimes I remember in school when we had to do the Pledge of Allegiance, which by the way, it's a whole other thing. Even just kids were told you got to take your hat off and Trump is there wearing the stupid

hat. Now what this is about bigger picture is that Donald Trump has claimed for a decade that no one respects the military more than him. No one supports the military more than him. And yet time after time, we have all these controversies that expose that Trump really doesn't give a damn about the troops other than can I use them as political pawns to prop myself up and help my help myself. This includes when he has disputes with military leadership and when the generals don't agree

with Trump, he demeans them. And he says he knows more than the generals. This includes the suckers and losers comment that Trump's former national security advisor confirmed Trump said, referring to members of the armed services as suckers and losers. This includes using veterans as political props at everything from state of the union addresses to other sorts of ceremonies. And so you could say, oh, well, the hat criticism in isolation is trivial or it's not really substantive. But when you look at all of the ways in which Donald Trump seems to care about the troops only in so far as it's politically useful, but even in the smallest ways,

he can't be bothered to just show some modicum of respect to the people you got killed, I would argue that it does ultimately center on one question. Why does he at every opportunity indicate that he doesn't really give a damn about the troops. Now, Fox News, I don't know if this was accidental or on purpose. Fox News in reporting about the dignified transfer used video from a different dignified transfer where Donald Trump was not wearing a hat. So I'm going to play this now. This is from yesterday. It was a report about the recent dignified transfer, but they used different video so people wouldn't see Trump on the Fox News audience wearing the stupid hat. As the fighting continues,

The president pausing for a moment Saturday afternoon to offer a final salute to the six U.S. service members killed in an attack in Kuwait admitting. And there you see Trump in the background clearly not wearing a hat. But of course, we have the real video and Donald Trump is wearing this ridiculous white hat. Here is just a little bit of video. So you can see that and John Trump very clearly wearing the white hat. Now this happened a couple of times on Fox News. and ultimately they issued an apology, claiming it was merely an accident.

Before we move on, we want to acknowledge a mistake made earlier on our program. During our coverage of yesterday's dignified transfer, we inadvertently aired video from an older dignified transfer instead of the ceremony that took place yesterday. Right. We deeply regret the error and extend our respect and condolences to the service members' families. We honor the sacrifice of those six American heroes. Yeah, read off of a teleprompter like a very good boy, and then they shifted.

This is just pathetic. Then they shifted to a version where they just don't show Trump at all. That way you can avoid the issue. Just don't even show Trump. President Trump and the first lady joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base yesterday to honor six fallen US soldiers. These heroes lost their lives in a drone strike in Kuwait, marking a somber moment in the conflict with Iran.

Yeah. So in this video, they just don't even show Trump. Trump was there. They're telling you that, but they don't show him. Pathetic. My question to you, was it on purpose? they got caught or was it genuinely an accident? Let me know in the comments. What if your son or daughter were drafted, conscripted into the American military to go fight Donald Trump's war

in Iran? Well, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt is not ruling it out. She was asked a very simple, straightforward question. Are you ruling out a military draft here? And instead of saying, No, no, no. We're not drafting Americans into this. She refuses to rule it out. Yeah, and the president had an interesting exchange on Air Force One over the weekend, Caroline. I want to get your take about this idea of troops on the ground. Mothers out there are worried that we're going to have a draft, that they're going to see their sons get in and daughters get involved in this. What do you want to say about the president's plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it's been largely an air campaign up until now.

It has been and it will continue to be and President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president as Commander-in-Chief wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation. It's not part of the current plan right now, but the President, again, wisely keeps his options on the table. But as Commander-in-Chief, there's no greater priority or responsibility to this president than, of course, protecting the American. American people and protecting our troops and our bases in the Middle East, which Iran has been threatening for 47 years. They have killed and named thousands of American soldiers. And President Trump was not going to allow Iran to attack our bases.

Listen, there's two stories here. First of all, it is newsworthy by itself that Caroline Leavitt is not ruling out a draft or boots on the ground. Historically, when administrations want to calm the public down, they go, no, no draft. She didn't do that. Right now, the United States has an all volunteer military. Moving to a draft means that the war will have escalated so dramatically beyond current operations that you need to start conscripting people.

Now, there's another aspect to this where she goes, you know, we 47 years and we're finally now going in and knocking out the regime, even though the Ayatollah son has. already been named the new supreme leader. You have to think for a second and realize it's true. The United States has had the firepower to, again, it's not really take out the regime because the regime seems to be surviving, but the United States could have carried out an operation similar to this for decades. Many presidents could have chosen to do this and they didn't.

You have to ask yourself, did other presidents not take action like what Trump just took? because they understood the difficulty and the unintended and unintended consequences that would come with it. Or is Trump the only one strong enough and smart enough to be willing to do it? Which scenario is more likely? I know what I think is the answer to that question. And in addition to not taking a draft or boots on the ground off the table, Caroline Leavitt did another classic, which they love, love, love. which is can we blame Biden for some of this stuff? Oh, gas prices are spiking because of Iran.

Well, really, this is a Biden issue. The president inherited the worst affordability crisis in our nation's history from Joe Biden. And look at the progress he has made in the course of the past year. Right. Let's blame Biden for some of this stuff if we can. Now, of course, we have had serious affordability crises in the United States before the 1970s inflation crisis. The the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, the Great Recession. What's notable here is the timing of what Caroline Leavitt is saying. Gas prices are up right now because of Donald Trump's war in Iran and the disruptions that

this is causing to global oil markets. And so talking about Biden is particularly funny. Now, I did see a hilarious thing. I don't remember the news outlet. So I don't, I'm not going to say any news outlet because I don't remember what it was. But I saw a headline like gas prices spiking in Gavin Newsome's California. And of course, the reason that gas prices are spiking in California and Texas and Florida and Illinois and Connecticut and Massachusetts and Montana, the reason that they're spiking

is because of what Donald Trump chose to do in Iran. So it's very funny to go, oh, they're getting really expensive in California where Gavin Newsom is currently the governor. So no explanation as to what can be done as to how Americans are being economically affected by this. basically just blame Biden. That's what it is. This is Trump's price spike. Another clip here. With the question of gas prices specifically, Caroline is saying this is a blip, but we're going to get beautiful low gas prices thanks to this war. Now, with respect to what's happening with gas prices

right now, this is a short term disruption for the long term gain of taking out the rogue Iranian terrorist regime and finally ending their. restriction of the free flow of energy in the Middle East and in the straight of Hermuz. And even with this short-term period throughout Operation Epic Fury, the president and his energy team are on the ball. They've announced political risk insurance for cargo vessels and oil ships that are going to be moving through the strait. They've announced that the U.S. Navy, if and when necessary, will escort those tankers to ensure that oil can move. The president is also tapping into our newfound market in Venezuela, where, again, there were a lot

Calling it a market is a bit of a stretch. About that military operation and look at the success. We are working in a cooperative manner with the interim authorities to bring that oil into the market. So basically the point is, yes, gas prices are up. It's for the short term. The long term is going to be great. We're going to have dirt cheap gasoline.

And so what Trump has decided for you is that your energy prices will go up, but that's simply the price of the strategy and it's worth it. Now, you might say, who decided it's worth it? Trump did. That's it. That this is the argument. The economic pain that he is causing you at home is worth it for the long term. That is a very different tone from we are going to absolutely reduce oil, gas, energy prices

right away and keep them down and keep driving them lower. The framing now is you should accept the higher prices because they're good for you. Try it. It's good for you. And it is striking that the administration is all. preparing for the absolutely disastrous economic fallout by saying it's short term and it's going to be worth it. Yes, you'll pay more, but it'll be worth it.

Problem solved, at least politically, according to the White House. I believe it is time for someone to take away grandpa's car keys. And that someone is Donald Trump. And the car keys are the presidency. They are the nuclear codes. They are the ability to start wars on a whim. Donald Trump was asked, would you send in ground troops? Here is Donald Trump's answer.

This is where you send in ground troops. How are you thinking about that? I don't want to talk about it now. I mean, I don't think it's an appropriate question. It's an inappropriate question to say, hey, are you going to put the sons and daughters of Americans on the ground in Iran for this hairbrain scheme, inappropriate question. I'm not going to answer it. Could there be possible for a very good reason? Oh, boy, have to be very good reason. And I would say if we ever did that, they would be so

decimated that they would be able to fight at the ground level. Now, let me pause there. Trump says, if I did decide to send in ground troops, which he goes, I'm not going to answer it, But I might. I'm not going to answer it, but I might send in ground troops. It says if I did that, they would be just absolutely decimated. There's a different perspective, which is if it got to the point where Trump decided to send in ground troops, it would be because the entire operation is failing so hard that out of reflexive desperation, Trump goes send in troops. He wants you to believe if he sends in troops, it will be very very very bad for the Iranian regime. But the truth is, if it gets to a point of Trump sending it in

troops, it will be because it has gone very poorly for the United States. A little bit, little bit more on this. negotiating leverage, maybe maximum, but we're not looking to settle. They'd like to settle. We're not looking to settle. They're on their third or fourth level of leadership. And they have leaders right now that nobody even knows who they are that they're being decimated now. You know, at some point, I don't think there'll be anybody left maybe to say, we surrender, but they're being decimated. And of course, that does not seem to be what's going on.

Trump's saying they're on their third or fourth layer of leadership. They have just appointed the Ayatollah son to be the new supreme leader. Not exactly the regime change that Donald Trump promised. Trump asked, did the United States bomb an elementary school and kill 175 people? Trump goes, uh, I think Iran did that. Did the United States bomb a girls elementary school in southern Iran in the first day of the war and kill 175 people? Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

Is that true? Mr. Hexseth, it was Iran who did that? We're certainly investigating. We're in look at Pete Hegset. We, I believe it has now been reported that yes, it's true the United States did do that. And when, when Hegset is asked, is it true? Iran bombed their own school. Hegset can't even go along with it.

And Heg says it's desperate to go along with Trump. But even Hegsafe has to go, well, we're investigating it. So Trump insisting on a story that appears to be completely false. And then finally, Trump asked a good question. What would a surrender look like? Because Trump has said, oh, Iran needs to unconditionally surrender. Let's see if Trump can put together a couple sentences about what that looks like. Can you give us an idea of what unconditional surrender looks like to you?

What do you want from Iran? I said unconditioned, not condition. I said unconditioned. It's where they cry uncle or when they can't find any longer. There's nobody around to cry uncle. That could happen too. is, you know, we've wiped out their leadership numerous times already. So it's, uh, if they surrender or if there is nobody around to surrender, but they're rendered useless

and- Yep. Once they cry uncle, we will know that they have surrendered in the way that Donald Trump wants. Listen, as I've said before many times, I am an opponent of theocratic and authoritarian regimes. Period. That is it. But even by the standards of Trump, of removing this regime. They failed. The Ayatollah son has already been named the Supreme Leader. What? I guess they'll go and kill him.

I mean, they might. But it seems as though this is going to be a much more difficult war to win, despite, as usual, Donald Trump going, I got this. This is super easy. Give me a couple days and I will have this wrapped up. It's time for someone to take the keys from Donald Trump. Identity theft and targeted scams often start long before the breach when, Bits of your personal life addresses, emails, relatives, your work history are scattered around

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get 27% off everything on their site when you go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Donald Trump is recklessly deploying ice agents all over the country. People have died. People have been injured. Citizens have been needlessly harassed and detained. And are we making anything safer here? Certainly, we're hurting the economy by not only bringing.

bringing chaos, but also mass deportations aren't good for the economy. They reduce the workforce. But are we seeing the crime rate go down faster than it's been going down for the last 30 years? No, we haven't. And so one of the things I want to dig into is what can states do to keep ice out or to hold ice to account? And one of the people who is doing that is the governor of Massachusetts, Mora Healy. It's Governor Mora Healy joins us today.

Governor, so great to talk to you. I want to start with ICE. You have done some things that not all states have done to try to limit and restrict ICE's ability to operate. I guess unfettered is the way that I would say it in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Tell us a little bit about what you've done and to what degree governors really have a say over these federal operations. Well, David, I'm governor, and my job is to protect the residents of my state and to protect public safety.

Before I was governor, I was a prosecutor. For eight years, I was attorney general. I went after and prosecuted bad guys who, you know, whether they were trafficking drugs or human beings or guns, I worked a lot with federal law enforcement agencies. What I can tell you is that ICE is not acting like a law. enforcement agency and ICE is making our communities less safe around the country and certainly here in Massachusetts. And, you know, this has been well covered. I mean, the vast majority of people they're picking up are people who are working who are paying taxes, who are raising families, and growing

businesses and the like. They say they were about the worst of the worst. That's not what this has been about at all. So what I did in Massachusetts, and again, this is because I need to protect public safety of my residents is I took action and banned ice from schools, daycare centers, hospitals, churches, courthouses, because we had kids who were afraid to go to school, people afraid to go to the doctors. Because of ICE, we had criminal cases being dismissed because victims and witnesses were afraid to show up in courthouses. So that's the first thing I did. The second thing I did is to say no other governor can send their National Guard into Massachusetts, which without my request or authorization.

And then third, I made sure that no state resources, property, or any assets are able to be used by ICE in whatever ICE is doing. Again, we just shouldn't be at this point, but what Christie Nome and DHS have done is completely corrupt ICE. And now we've got an agency with a lot of folks, I think the majority of folks working at ICE,

now have just recently come on board. They're not trained. They don't know what they're doing. They're not acting like law enforcement should act. And look, we've seen everything from people being killed in the streets or shot at to U.S. citizens also being picked up and detained to little kids being detained. This is not making us safer. And I'm going to do what I can here in Massachusetts to protect people. And I think that's what governors and other parts are doing as well. One of the things we've learned about banning stuff is that if an administration doesn't really care what the law is, something being banned in theory may still create problems. Now, in different parts of the country, we are seeing, for example, in Minneapolis now,

local prosecutors are criminally investigating the federal forces that were there, up to it, including the former commander, I guess was the name he had of the CBP, Gregory Bovino, for this incident where he deployed a canister of green gas against protesters. Have you had conversations with, be it the attorney general, state police, et cetera, about specific scenarios in which you would say we actually have to consider arresting ICE agents? Yeah. I mean, like, I work very closely with the attorney general here and with law enforcement around the state and with district attorney's offices around the state. Again, I was a former AG and prosecutor. myself, I can tell you that anyone who commits a crime against a resident of Massachusetts

will be and should be held accountable. I don't care if you're working for ICE or the federal government. No one is above the law here in Massachusetts. And I know that our law enforcement, including our prosecutors here in the state, are willing to take action against anyone who commits crimes against residents in Massachusetts, including ICE. The important thing, too, David, that we've done is We've set up a portal where people can submit videos, testimony, provide information, documenting offenses by ICE agents. It's very important that these things be documented, not just for purposes of holding people accountable as they need to be under the law, including to the extent they need to be criminally prosecuted, but also just so that we understand what has happened here, what has transpired here. We cannot let this happen again in America. American history. We cannot let this happen. I mean, it just saddens me and it's unbelievable to me

that we have ICE acting as ICE is acting and that, you know, I think about the men and women who are out there working hard every day to protect public safety, the size of ICE's budget, it's insane. You know, it's more than the grand total of all state and local law enforcement budgets combined in this country, right? And to what end? To terrorize our communities? To take mothers and fathers away from their kids to disrupt local economies and our communities. It's cruel. It's callous. And it's not American.

It's not who we are. Have you received pressure or threats from the Trump administration because of how you have proactively handled this? You know, I think all of us have listened to the rhetoric around attacking blue state governors or blue state mayors or what have you but you know i can't pay attention to that i got a job to do david and my job is to lead my state is to protect the health and well-being and the public safety of residents of massachusetts it's to protect Massachusetts and so you know we've seen actions by the trump administration that are threatening um look i've got colleagues

governors who were the subject of criminal species criminal investigation right now because the Trump administration and President Trump is about retaliation and retribution for anyone who stands in his way. And he's surrounded by people who are, I don't know, sworn some sort of loyalty oath to him. They forget about the Constitution. They forget about the rule of law. They're ignoring all of that. All the further, whatever their great leader wants. That's where we are right now. But I think it's important that we all stay resolute in who we are. And I'm going to continue abide by Massachusetts law and the United States Constitution and do what I need to do as a leader here in the state.

I want to talk about the economy a little bit. One of the sort of trickle down, there's real trickle down in this case. One of the trickle down effects of Donald Trump's actions in Iran are that in the last five or six days, we've seen a 19% increase in gas prices nationally. We also since Donald Trump took over in January of 2025 have seen. electricity. This is nationally, of course, go up 10 or 12 percent. I see online people posting their electric bills, their gas bills, et cetera. One of the things about states like Massachusetts and, of course, Connecticut and others is that there is a very high standard of living. You know,

often people talk about, oh, California is expensive. Massachusetts is expensive. But at the same time, there is a very high quality of life, equivalent, if you look at the HDI, the Human Development Index, to places like Norway and Denmark and some of the... these places that are considered good places to live. What are you able to do and what can people in Massachusetts expect with regard to gas and heating costs as you are going to kind of have to deal with the follow on effects of decisions being made about invading other countries or attacking other countries in Washington, D.C., which affect your residents.

Yeah, I mean, once again, Donald Trump is doing things that make life more expensive and difficult for Americans and certainly people here in Massachusetts. Massachusetts. I mean, in the early days, it was the tariffs, which continues to this day to have serious consequences. And now we've got the situation that he's created now in the Middle East, where we've got, you know, supply chain blocked. We've got disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, this is a big deal. And as you just pointed out, already we're seeing the consequence at the pump. What I'm doing in Massachusetts is just, and I'm going to continue to focus on this, You know, from day one, I've been about building more homes as quickly as possible.

We've got 100,000 housing starts underway in Massachusetts in just the last three years. We need to continue to do that to drive housing costs down. On energy, I've embraced all of the above, and we're going full out and deploying as much solar as we can, continuing with our offshore wind industry, which right now is powering 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts. since we had to take Donald Trump to court when he tried to shut that down. I've got hydro coming in from Quebec now that'll actually supply about 20% of electricity needs here in Massachusetts. And we're doing a lot with battery storage.

So, you know, we're going to continue to bring online as much energy as possible. I want Massachusetts in the Northeast to be energy independent and not to be subject to whatever is happening elsewhere with respect to the Middle East and oil. supply, for example. That's what I'm going to continue to focus on. And the other cost driver for Americans right now is health care. And, you know, I'm the first governor in our state to cut deductibles and co-pays. I got rid of prior authorizations recently so that if you're somebody with diabetes, you shouldn't have to get permission from your insurance company to get your insulin. We're working every day to find ways to get health care coverage in the wake of the president cutting a trillion

dollars from health care in this country. Two months ago, I had to make sure that because of Donald Trump taking away those health care subsidies, right, and letting those expire, we came forward and I found some funds to make sure that 300,000 Massachusetts households were able to keep their health care coverage. So, you know, it's a game of both offense and defense right now with this administration that continues to make life more unaffordable, more expensive for people, create a tremendous amount of uncertainty. I can also tell you this, David, and I know you've spent time in Massachusetts, our economy here, our ecosystem is an innovation-driven and a knowledge-driven ecosystem. We've got life sciences and biotech and technology and tremendous amounts of the

defense industry is powered actually out of innovations and developed development right here. One in 10 R&D jobs in this country are in Massachusetts. And Trump is basically giving it away to China right now by defunding science and research and allowing other countries to come in and say to our scientists and entrepreneurs and researchers, hey, come to our country and, you know, you can innovate and develop and also socialize new technologies. That's just stupid for American competitiveness. So, you know, it's just to say that we've just got to be strong together. I'm proud to be governor of this state. Right now, we're number one in the country in education and healthcare and innovation. I think we have the second

highest life expectancy. We've got great parks and outdoor spaces and recreation. We're an incredibly safe state. A lot of great things going for us. And that leads to a great quality of life, but I'm going to do everything I can to protect that, David, and also make life more affordable in the face of a federal government that seems to be doing just about everything to make life more expensive and harder for people. Last thing I want to ask you about it, and I'll let you go. And it does have to do with Massachusetts and health care. One of the things that I've talked to doctors who work at everywhere from Boston Children's

Hospital, Brigham and Women, Beth Israel, Mass General, is that under the, you know, this Maha movement and more generally the skepticism of vaccines that started after Trump took credit for giving us the vaccines and then turned against them, all of this environment. We have doctors and hospital administrators now worried about is Boston Children's Hospital getting another bomb threat or other threat because of false rumors about gender affirming care? Or is Brigham and women's having to move around where they're going to. the family planning departments are because there are people hanging around trying to berate women or families.

What are you doing in working with these hospitals just in terms of like physical security, which is crazy that this is even an issue for you? Well, I mean, we continue to be in dialogue with our local hospitals and health care providers to make sure that they're safe, that their providers are safe, that their patients are safe. We continue to enforce the law and protect people. access to gender affirming care, to reproductive health care, including abortion. This is so important. It's also these are rights protected here in Massachusetts, and we're going to uphold those

rights. But, you know, the attacks are, it's just insanity, right? I mean, you have an administration. RFK comes in and he takes away vaccines. What do we see? We see measles and other outbreaks. What do I do as governor? I basically set up my own CDC, and we figure out.

out a way to get vaccines to people. I had my public health commissioner actually write a prescription for everybody in the state for vaccines and got insurers to cover it. So in Massachusetts, if you want a vaccine, whether it's for COVID or RSV or a childhood immunization, you were going to get that. So we're going to continue to do everything we can to protect access to health care and to protect our health care providers. And, you know, insane is the only way I can think to describe. some of this. I mean, the specter of measles. I mean, we've seen measles come back in this country, right? Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just ridiculous. And, you know, I mean, that, that kid rock, RFK, whatever you want to call it the other day, imagine that is coming out from a

government website. That is coming out from the Department of Health and Human Services. Are you kidding me? And it just means that we need to be the adults here as governors. Um, We need to leave in our states. And we need to take care of our people in the face of a federal government that is either incompetent, cruel, bought off by special interests and not focused on the needs of American people. And, you know, that speaks to what's going on in Iran right now. I mean, we've got six service members dead right now. I've got calls from people who are in the Middle East who cannot get home right now, who hear bombs and drones going off, you know, and around them. And there's no plan from the president, right?

There's no plan or articulation of a way forward what precipitated this and what the goal is here. And, you know, the administration just doesn't seem to care at all what's going to happen to the men and women who are overseas. And, you know, I come from a military family. I'm not an astronaut. I don't need an astronaut. Audiences have spoken. Project Hail Mary is an awe-inspiring masterpiece. So I met an alien.

If you've fallen out of love with going to the movies, this one will bring you back. Ryan Gosling in the first must-see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary. Only theaters March 20th. We got a proud military tradition here in Massachusetts, right? And, you know, it just sort of sickens me that this is where we are. And, of course, all this is happening. Well, nothing is being said about affordability or making life easier for people.

Of course, this is a great distraction from the Epstein files. I'm glad to see my former colleague Pam Bondi now asked to testify and be held accountable, I hope, for what is just an absolute abomination. You know, this is where we are right now, I think. An unfortunate place to be, but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to chat with you about some of these issues. Governor of Massachusetts, Mora Healy, thanks so much for your time today. Hey, great to be with you, David. 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. Well, listen to this. The Department of Justice has released a new batch of documents from the Epstein investigation. We're not forgetting about the Epstein files just because Trump invaded Iran. And they include something that is going to explode sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. Now these are, we've talked about these before, these are FBI 302 reports.

302 reports are official summaries written by an agent after interviewing a witness. In this particular case, they summarize three interviews that the FBI did with a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by Trump when she was a minor. Now I want to just remind you, not everything that is in the files is more than an allegation. The files contain things which are merely allegations. But what's very interesting is that these were held back by the DOJ for a very long time, and now they are finally out. Now, according to the interview summaries, the woman told investigators that Jeffrey Epstein

brought her to meet Trump sometime in the 80s when she was between 13 and 15. She alleges Trump sexually assaulted her during that encounter. The FBI summaries say she described the alleged assault in very graphic terms, and she said to investigators that she did attempt to fight back. She also told agents that she had two additional encounters with Donald Trump after the initial one. But when investigators asked her, tell us more about those, she reportedly stopped and said, I want to move on to some other topic. Now, agents later came back to that and they said, hey, we would like more information about your contacts with Donald Trump. And she said she doesn't know what the point

would be if there was a good chance nothing would ever come of it, which is unfortunately something that is not that rare for victims to feel. What makes the story even weirder again is how these documents came out earlier this year. We've all been tracking it. The DOJ put out this massive tranche of Epstein files and the interview summaries were missing. And reporters eventually noticed that there was this gap because a document list was given to attorneys for Epstein associate at Jelaine Maxwell, and it referenced four interviews with the same accuser, but only one had had actually been released. So this exposed to reporters that, hey, there's some summaries here that are missing.

The other three of the four, one was released. The other three, which were not released, the ones that include the Trump allegations simply were missing from that tranche of files. So reports flagged, reporters flagged the discrepancy. DOJ said, oh, those were mistaken. classified and they were not in the first batch and then they released them. Now, the DOJ also says that members of Congress are going to be able to look at unredacted versions of these documents.

That's important. But the full picture, I believe, is still not really public because journalists that are looking really closely at the Epstein file say that there's at least 37 pages tied to these three interviews that are missing. It includes investigative notes. What did the agents find in the process? of their investigation of these claims. They show internal communications, which this is theoretical.

The internal communications between agents could expose that they were deliberately slow playing it or trying to get away from doing their full due diligence here because it was Donald Trump. We don't know. I'm not making that allegation. I'm saying if that happened, it would presumably be notable in these internal communication files. Now, I'm always reminding people these allegations. are not proven.

The accuser has not been publicly identified. The White House of course says it's completely baseless and also says that the alleged victim, the woman, is sadly disturbed and has a criminal history, which of course is interesting because that person's identity, that woman's identity has not been publicly disclosed, which if the White House is saying mentally disturbed criminal record, it means they know who it is. The FBI summaries do reference arrests. They say that the woman was arrested as a minor. And maybe that's what the statement from the White House is referring to.

Now we have additional reporting from the Miami Herald from journalist Julie K. Brown, who has done a lot to expose the Epstein scandal, a network in the first place, who says that the justice department officials who interviewed the woman considered her credible enough to interview her multiple times. And I think that that goes to show that this, these documents are are a little bit different than some of the others. I told you about this document that says, oh, Trump was on a yacht in a little inlet off of Lake Michigan with Epstein and participated in killing a woman's baby or something like that. And we looked into it and there are not multiple documents about that. The timing doesn't really make sense. There's questions as to whether the boats that Epstein would

have would even fit in these inlets like nothing about it really made sense and there was no follow up this is different because the FBI determined we need to do multiple interviews with this person. So not proof here, okay, but investigators wouldn't typically do that unless they believe there is the potential for credibility here. The obvious question hanging over this entire story is what else is still in the files that we haven't seen. It doesn't mean it's about Trump or it certainly doesn't mean it's proof of Trump doing anything in particular. But given that every single time, we found more files. We found major allegations in the files that now came out, which were not originally released. It would be

logical to say what on earth is going on here. Pete Hegseth was interviewed by Major Garrett on 60 minutes and it is completely and totally deranged. Asked about all sorts of concerning allegations, intelligence that has been discovered, asked about so many different problems with what's going on in Iran. Pete Hegseth goes, the only real problem, the people that need to be worried right now are these Iranians who think they're going to live. What a deranged individual. CBS News has three sources telling us that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. positions and movements. The average American might hear that and think that's a big and dangerous deal, is it? Now, before we hear his answer, the premise here is, has Russia joined the war against the United States?

As Putin has Trump wrapped around his finger, is Russia actually fighting against us in this war? Here's Hagseth response. Well, we're tracking everything. Our commanders are aware of everything. We have the best intelligence in the world. We're aware of who's talking to who, why they're talking to him, how accurate that information might be, how we factor that into our battle plans, our CENTCOM commander. So we know what's going on.

And the president has an incredible knack at knowing how to mitigate those risks. And so the American people can rest assured. Their commander-in-chief is well aware of who's talking to who. And anything that shouldn't be happening, whether it's in public or back-channeled, is being confronted and confronted strongly. The American people can therefore expect conversations with the Russians to stop this? Well, President Trump, as people have seen, has a unique relationship with a lot of world leaders where he can get things done that other presidents, certainly Joe Biden never could have.

And through direct conversations or indirect, through him one-to-one or through his cabinet, messages definitely can be delivered. Listen to that. Um, is Iran joined by Russia in this fight against the United States? Well, Trump's the best. That's number one. Always remember that. Trump is absolutely the best.

We are the best. We have the best everything all the time. And Biden sucks. Wow. What a great analysis from the secretary of defense. Incredible. Pete Hegseth, by the way, we heard from Caroline Leavitt. We heard from Donald Trump.

Heg Seth also not ruling out. boots on the ground in Iran. People ask boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, go in, go in. President Trump knows, I know, you don't tell the enemy, you don't tell the press, you don't tell anybody what your limits would be on an operation. We're willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful. Pretty rich for Pete Hegseth to be waxing poetic about informational security, considering what he shared in Signal. chats, including one that his wife was in. I struggle to believe that informational security is the most important thing here. And then finally, finally, Pete Hegseth reminding us,

more Americans are going to die. Six U.S. Army reservists were killed in an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait last Sunday. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth attended the dignified transfer yesterday at Dover Air Force Base. One more service member's death was announced, afternoon. And president's been right to say there will be casualties. Things like this don't happen without casualties. There will be more casualties. And no one is, I mean, especially our generation knows what it's like to see Americans come home in caskets. Yeah. I'm reminded of the film. I believe this is from Shrek. Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make. And that is exactly where we find ourselves. No congressional authorization. Not really any American

interest in fighting this war, but they've decided that it's a sacrifice that they are willing to make. Now, we are going to talk about what is happening with the DHS shutdown at airports. Many of you stranded. It potentially is going to get even worse. We're going to discuss that on the bonus show. We will talk about a fascinating new bill from Senator Cory Booker to make a fascinating new bill from Senator Cory Booker to make $75,000 in income free of federal taxes. And we will also talk about Alabama set to execute a man who didn't kill anyone. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join packman.com.

And remember that we do the show every day and make it free for everybody. to the support of our audience. Consider getting that membership. Follow us on any platforms. Leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe on YouTube. Most of the ways to help us are free. And I will see you on the bonus show.

I'll be back tomorrow.