The David Pakman Show - I don’t think they know how to get out of this

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Lanny Davis, political operative and attorney, joins us to discuss his new book "Finding the Third Way: Lessons in the Politics of Civility From My Journey Through History" -- Donald Trump, speaking to reporters, falsely says Barack Obama withdrew from Afghanistan, and claims the United States is “freeing Cuba" -- CNN analyst Harry Enten reports Donald Trump holds a negative fifty percent approval rating among nonvoters from the 2024 election -- Acting Surgeon General Stephanie Haridopolos appears on Fox News after Donald Trump withdraws his previous nominee -- Donald Trump rambles through a Coast Guard commencement speech and bizarrely claims Taiwan “took” the American chip industry -- Right-wingers defend Trump-aligned political narratives involving Cuba fears, January 6 compensation, and claims of persecution -- Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards for expenses as debt, delinquencies, housing costs, and financial anxiety rise -- Senator John Kennedy criticizes Cuba, however his description increasingly resembles fears about Trump-style politics in America -- On the Bonus Show: Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank dies at 86, officers sue to block Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund, Trump says he doesn't need Congress to build his DC arch, and much more... 🛍️ Shopify: Sign up for $1/month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a free Flavor Sampler and free gift at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 🍓 Strawberry.me: Get a $50 credit when you sign up for coaching at https://strawberry.me/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/david 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.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 (01:27) Trump says he's freeing Cuba (10:47) Trump's approval rating in freefall (17:04) Trump's finds a new surgeon general (26:15) Trump speaks to Coast Guard (31:37) Reactions to Trump's January 6 fund (42:23) Lanny Davis interview (1:10:54) Americans are running out of money under Trump (1:18:23) Senator criticizes Cuba, unwittingly the US too Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and will generate more than $15.5 billion in industrial value for Canada. This ad is sponsored by the F-35 partner team, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and RTX. Learn more at www.f35.com slash Canada. The president of the United States is unraveling in public again, and there are a lot of people still refusing to ask questions about what is happening. You're ignoring reality at this point, and we're going to talk about it. We also have multiple clips that are genuinely difficult to explain. Trump confusing Obama with Biden on Afghanistan, rambling incoherently when speaking at the Coast Guard

commencement, and making some very strange comments about freeing Cuba. But then we also have new polling that shows Trump losing 54 points, not a typo, not a joke, as Biden would say, losing 54 points in 18 months among the least politically engaged, which signals major problems for Republicans. We're also going to look at Donald Trump's new acting surgeon general who went on Fox News slurring badly. Like, are they all high as a kite?

What is happening and making no sense whatsoever. Even Brian Kilmead was taken aback. And later, Senator John Kennedy, Republican, describes Trump's America while trying to talk about Cuba. And it is a brutal irony that we're going to talk about. What a program today. We are starting to see the final perverted acts of President Donald Trump. And at this point, if you're not questioning his brain, something. Something's wrong.

Something's wrong. Donald Trump glitching endlessly when asked relatively basic questions. Donald Trump was flying out to give a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy yesterday. He was, I guess you would say interviewed, although these are really just press questions. And there is a fascinating moment. He has asked a question about J.D. Vance coming from Gavin Newsome. And it's framed up this way. Governor Gavin Newsome says JD doesn't have what it takes to follow you.

And what is a fascinating insight into Trump's psychology about this question is that Trump is trying to weigh that on one hand, he hates reporters, he hates critical questions and all of that. But on the other hand, he realizes, hey, they're kind of complimenting me here. In a way, what Newsome is suggesting is that JD isn't as talented as me. Or at least it's being implied because Newsom is saying JD can't do what Trump does. Trump likes that. So Trump has to figure out how do I answer this?

And it is very interesting. I don't think JD Vance has what it takes to come after you. What's your response to that? Kevin Newsom. He said doesn't have what? Trump, the era of Trump ends with you and that JD Vance doesn't have what it takes to come after you. Well, look, we've done a lot and JD's very talented. He's a smart guy.

He'll do very well if it's JD. We have a lot. I'm going to come back to what he just said if it's JD. A lot of very talented people. So I think hopefully we're going to leave something that's going to be real easy to run. We're doing we're doing a lot. We're doing a lot. And JD's a very talented guy.

JD's talented. We're doing a lot. Blah, blah, blah. If it's JD. Trump has been watching JD's numbers drop like a lead balloon. And Trump must suspect that Gavin Newsom is right. Now, Gavin Newsom, of course, is not meaning it as a compliment about JD, about Donald Trump. When he says, I don't know that JD can do what Trump did.

But Trump loves the idea that no one is going to be able to, quote, do what I did. because Trump's belief is that he is the only person who is capable of doing whatever it is that he's done, which has mostly been horrible. But the, wait a second, is this praise? Is this an insult? What am I supposed to say? Trump loves the idea that he might be the only one who can actually do what he has been able to do.

And I think he also recognizes that JD is on a significant decline. Now, then it got weird because of very confused Donald Trump. suggests that it was Barack Obama who withdrew from Afghanistan. Obama now. In fact, it was Joe Biden. But Trump's confused, but we're not allowed to question his a brain. But I get a kick when I look at somebody on television. He's lost 13 people.

I lost 13 people. They lost 13 people leaving an airport. Obama, 13 very good people that I got to. Now, of course, he is referring to individuals who tragically. died when Joe Biden decided we are finally getting out of Afghanistan. Remember that it was Biden implementing Trump's plan to leave Afghanistan. But Trump's just confused. This happens all the time with Donald Trump.

He doesn't know what year it is or he doesn't know what year it was. He can't do it. He just can't do it. He doesn't know what's going on. Cuba came up. Cuba is now referred to as a country that will be. freed by the United States. That is terrified because we know that the United States has a pretty patchy history of spreading freedom. And later in the show, we're going to delve more into Cuba,

but it seems increasingly clear that Donald Trump really wants to do this. What we're going to see? It's a failing nation. You see that it's falling apart. They have no oil. They have no money. It's a failing nation. So I just can't tell you that. But We're there to help. We're there to help the families, the people. And again, a lot of those people are related to me in the sense that I've had such a great relationship with Cuban Americans. They supported me at a 94% level. That's a pretty good level. And they're, you know, their relatives are there. So we got on a humanitarian basis, we're there to help. Sounds terrifying. I mean, quite frankly, the idea of Donald Trump going to help people,

people in other countries is a terrifying prospect because of his disastrous record with that sort of project, that sort of intervention. And we are later going to get back to the topic of Cuba, which it's very interesting because a lot of the criticisms that you hear from Republicans of Cuba sound increasingly like descriptions of the United States. Now, Donald Trump was asked about the people that are understandably upset about Donald Trump's slush fund settlement with the IRS, Donald Trump suing the IRS for 10, $10 billion. And then agreeing to drop that suit in exchange for a $1.7 billion slush fund to go to people

like the January 6th rioters with the agreement that the IRS will never investigate Donald Trump's finances or taxes. And it is understandable that a lot of people are upset. And Trump basically goes, no, it's great. Then we need it and blah, blah, blah. your settlement over your IRS case about the tax now that you can't be possible for Yeah, well, what happened is I was suing IRS for a lot of different reasons. I sued myself and everybody won.

One of the reasons is they released my tax returns, which you're not allowed to do now. They showed I pay a lot of tax. I may even release my current returns because they show I. Yeah, right. They pay a lot of money, but they're not supposed to do that. There were lockboxes as president. And they released them and a certain firm released them, which was, I guess, a private firm, but it released them. Guys, can't you just accept and understand that because Trump's taxes were leaked, he needs

$1.7 billion to give to the January 6th rioters and Tina Peters. What? And Mike Pillow. Can't people just understand and accept that to a lot of the fake news and the fake news went and you're just not allowed to do that and many other things happened. So I released them from the lawsuit and I guess they made a settlement of some kind. I wasn't involved in the settlement. I could have been involved, but I didn't choose to be. So they made a settlement. Also the anti-weaponization of people. I mean, people were destroyed. They went to jail. Their families were ruined. They committed suicide. You know, all the Biden administration and the Obama administration, both of them. Obama administration started it. The Biden administration was horrible in terms of what they've done to people

is in. I can't. I can't just keep listening to this. Please just accept that because Trump tried to hide his tax returns from you and a couple of tax returns were leaked. He is entitled to $1.77 billion to give to Mike Pillow, Tina Peters, and the January, six riders. That's justice in the United States. Dear God. Finally, Donald Trump asked about AI. He doesn't have a damn idea what it is. But he says, it's great. And then he says, hey, a lot of people are working. Americans who are scared by the rise of AI. They're worried that their kids are not going to be able to have jobs someday because they are going to be amazing because right now we have more jobs,

more people working right now in the United States by far than we ever had before. And outside of the war and I assume the economy was going to go down. The stock market would go down 20, 25%. It's actually up. The stock market is higher now than it was before I started the Iran situation. So no, no, no substantive answer about AI, but Trump arguing we've got a lot of people working. And by the way, I thought you all would get crushed way more when it comes to your retirement

account. And I was fine with that happening. Wow. And there's a little problem with the argument that we have more people working than ever before, which is we also have more people living in the United States than ever before. And so the fact that more people are working doesn't really tell us in any kind of material way whether things are better or worse. There is Trump.

And if you thought he glitched badly on the way to his commencement speech, later we'll get back to the speech itself. A red alert for MAGA in November. Donald Trump is minus 54 in 18 months. That is not a glitch. I'm not, I'm not glitching. That is not a typo. Donald Trump has a massive political problem.

And it's a group, by the way, that doesn't get a lot of attention paid to it. It's people who didn't vote in 2024. Now let me build up the case for you here. CNN's Harry Enton highlighted this disastrous number for Trump. Trump used to be plus four among people who didn't vote in 2024. And now he's minus 50. So plus four, one of 50, divide by zero, sign cosine tangent, raised to the seventh power. That's minus 54 in 18 months.

And let's explain. Let's hear the explanation from Harry. Ones that are changing, that are moving, that are different than the last election. You know, you mentioned the Republican base in your intro and then obviously. leaders, their Democratic opposition. But what about those who didn't cast a ballot at all in 2024? Those who didn't show up to vote. Well, they have become absolutely perturbed. I dare say they are pissed off at the President of the United States. Voters who didn't cast a ballot in 2024. Trump's not approval rating. Back in November of 2024, just after the election, look at his net approval rating. It was plus four points for his plans in office. But look at that. It is

falling. Yeah. There you go, Sarah Seidner. That's the only sound. you can make. It has fallen through the floor. Look at this. Minus 50 points on Trump's net approval rating among voters who did not, in fact, cast a ballot in 2024. That is, you don't have to be a mathematical genius, an over 50 point move against the president of the United States among those who are kind of like, you know, in terms of voting in 2024. But now they are pissed off. Well, and that's the thing. All right. So let's talk about this. I believe this is a complete and total catastrophe. for the Republican Party. If, you know, big time Democrats hate Trump, fine, big time Democrats hate Trump, whatever.

If people who have MSNBC turned on in their houses 18 hours a day, hate Trump, okay, fine, they hate Trump. These are disengaged, low information, inconsistent voters. When that group strongly turns against you from the little they are paying attention to, it usually means that something very deep is happening underneath the surface. And what Harry Enton's point is, is that this is about the economy. This is where Trump world kind of keeps misunderstanding the political movement, arguably in a similar way than how Biden understood it during his presidency.

You can flood social media with AI images of you looking like Jesus, which Donald Trump has done. You can scream about the culture war issues and men and women's sports and all of the stuff the way Trump and Republicans have done. You can go on Fox News and declare victory every single day and claim that in week 12 of a three week war you've won. You can do that. But if people feel I'm broke, I'm exhausted from this stuff, I'm anxious from how erratic governance is, I'm stuck.

The performance of we're winning everything is not going to matter. And people, we've now really looked at the numbers deeply. People are carrying credit card debt at insane interest. rates at greater and greater levels. Auto loan delinquencies are surging and currently at their highest level in history. Food prices have only gone up, not down. Gas is out of control. Housing seems totally out of reach for younger Americans.

Insurance costs are exploding. People feel like they're constantly working just to maintain their lives with no extra. And of course, the people who are only loosely paying attention are now going to say, no, I think Trump's doing a terrible job. is even they are seeing it in their day to day lives. The really kind of dangerous part for Trump and for Republicans in November is who these voters are. People who skip elections are usually less ideological. They're less tribal. They're less politically loyal, which means they are more often reacting to real world conditions than like inside the Beltway stories or what you would see

on MSNBC or whatever. If life feels expensive and unstable, they're going to say, I don't approve of who's in power. And these are the voters that can turn an election, especially a midterm election, because for a strip in general, turnout is lower in midterms. And when even people that don't really always vote and don't follow politics, when they all of a sudden say, hey, I'm in a boiling point. I can't do more of this. I'm going to go out and vote. That can turn an election completely. You've got the voters who watch the three hour podcasts about ideology. They are not this group. This is a group that is not keyed into the online culture war discourse.

They go, what's my rent? How much am I making? What's the grocery bill? How much debt do I have? What's coming in? What's my stress level with what's taking place? Is my life getting better or worse? And we have a lot of polling that 80% of Americans expect the economy to be worse in a year than

better or the same. And so when a president loses 54 points with disengaged voters, it's because people are realizing things are getting worse. And I might go out and vote as a result of that. Now, there are still structural advantages for Republicans. You've got a polarized country. You've got an effort from Republicans to depress turnout. Trump has a very loyal base to the extent that he's keeping most of it.

And midterm elections are often decided not by the loudest supporters, but by the people that are exhausted, I might vote or I might not depending on whether I feel like I need to go out and make a statement. Losing 54 points among unengaged voters absolutely means some of those voters are going to want to go out and make a statement in November. This is a disaster for MAGA. The wife of Congressman Mike Herodopoulos, Dr. Stephanie Herodopoulos, has been named acting Surgeon General. Why? Because Donald Trump's nominee, Casey Means, crashed and burned. And Donald

Trump had to withdraw that nomination. Well, this morning, Stephanie Herodopoulos appeared on Fox and Friends with the title acting Surgeon General, but was not introduced in that way for some strange reason. She was slurring badly and speaking so bizarrely that host Brian Kilmead was visibly alarmed. Check out this embarrassment. This is who Donald Trump has named interacting Surgeon General. Dear God, we are screwed. So let's bring in the chief of staff and senior advisor to the office of Surgeon General, Dr. Stephanie Ardopoulos, and we appreciate it, doctor, for being here. First off, if you You run down what age you should have certain amount of screen time. How did you decide how this would be broken down?

Okay. Now, does she answer the question? Take a guess. No, she slurs. Well, good morning, Brian. It has been a whirlwind couple days. As you could see, we were in Iowa yesterday with Governor Reynolds. She signed her Maha Act with Secretary Kennedy.

And now I'm in D.C. speaking with you today. It has been such an exciting time. I wanted to just show you this is our document that now is on surgeon general.gov website for your viewers. That would be wonderful. They read it. But, you know, Surgeon General's warnings are... Surgeon General.

Designed to just bring the public's attention to emerging concerns that need to be addressed. And so with that, we took this document. Notice that Brian's question was not, what does the surgeon general do? Said, you know, what could we, let's research it and bring the best evidence that we can to the table, pairing from what has already been developed. So have there ever been guidelines before? The American Academy of Pediatrics did just revise their guidelines last May. But we took it and we started talking about more.

physical problems like myopia. That means that you can't see far in children. Right. And by 2050, 40% of children. Now kill meat at this point is like, what is wrong with this woman? ... estimated to have near-sightedness, which is myopia. That is just one example. But this screen time is crowding out normal activities, especially the younger you expose them.

So we want you to delay it as long as possible. Okay. So for example, here's what there you go. Oh my God. Can we get one normal person in a position of power? Here's a little speech that Dr. Herodopoulos previously made. History will judge us not only by the steps that we take today, but by the inaction that we allowed for years. And so with that, I want you to look at the certain General's advisory and toolkit, which offers practical evidence informed steps to help kids build healthier, more intentional relationships with technology. Yeah. And that phrase evidence informed rather than evidence based is the newest sort of like what are you saying kind of thing where they go listen. It's not about it being evidence based

because evidence based has a very particular meaning in science and medicine. And evidence based would mean they wouldn't have done away with all of those vaccine recommendations, for example. So their new phrase, their new cop out phrase is evidence informed. We'll inform ourselves with the evidence and then we'll ignore it is essentially what they mean. I'm just asking for one normal person in a position. That's all it's a very low bar. Trump cannot fill basic government jobs with qualified people. And they have now started to scrape and dig and dig to the bottom of the barrel for loyalists. And in this particular case, it's Donald Trump's nominee was a humiliating mess. She was a mess, corrupt mess. And the nomination had to be withdrawn. And now it's what

loyalists can we find. So listen, I don't know if she was wasted during the Fox News interview. I the big story. It wouldn't be that weird, right? I mean, we've, Heg Seth has had his drinking problems. Cash Patel has had his drinking. That's not even really the story. It's are these people being vetted anymore? Is there any vetting going on of the people that are in positions of power?

And every single appointment is who is loyal, not who can do the job, not who's qualified, not who's competent, who has the experience? None of that stuff. Who is personally loyal and will go out there and make. make every public appearance a form of prayer at the altar of Trump. The Surgeon General role used to protect people and would project competence and it would be an office of public trust during a crisis. It's like reality TV showcasting at this point. Starting something new is exciting. It can also be intimidating. Whether you're launching a

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and K2 in your AG1 welcome kit when you first subscribe. That's a $72 value. The link is in the description. I have to start with such a huge thank you to the audience. Two days ago, I came to you with my hat in my hand. And I said, YouTube is doing something. YouTube is crushing us. We need your help on YouTube. And in the last 48 hours, not even, 11,000 of you subscribed to my YouTube channel. 11,000 of you in like 42 hours.

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And we are going to continue building this for as long as we, they will have to pull it from my cult. We're going to keep building it. That's the point. Donald Trump suffered another cognitive failure behind bulletproof glass spitting out random words as his brain misfired very badly. This was Donald Trump speaking at the Coast Guard graduation, the commencement speech. Now, who in their right mind would think that Donald Trump could deliver an inspirational and passionate speech to graduates? Well, whoever thought it was very wrong.

Here is Donald Trump spitting out random words, just completely random. Going to happen change that we can't even think of right now. The things will happen and I believe for the best, hopefully for the best, but I believe for the best. But things will happen that you can't even imagine and it's going to be very exciting. But the way that's going to happen is through thinking big. Nothing great was ever built. Think of that.

Nothing great was ever built. built without the word momentum at your side. Right. In times of your life, you'll have momentum. That's the time you go for it. This is what happens when you put a speech on the teleprompter. The teleprompter Trump doesn't need, of course, he never would need a teleprompter. He just uses one at every single speech. When you put stuff up there and this is the first Trump is seeing it, this is the first Trump is hearing it, random words. His message of hope to the Coast Guard graduates is that maybe he will still be president in 2032. What a promise to the cadets.

But we're making right now currently under construction. We have 11 beautiful. And I said, come on, when's the first one coming? They said in 28. I'm going to be here in 28. Maybe I'll be here in 32 too. I don't know. Maybe I will.

But I'm going to be here. Nice, unifying message when speaking to graduates of a branch of the military. I may attempt to stay president longer than what I'm constitutionally allowed to do. Trump then struggling with the pronunciation of Iran. And it got very weird, very weird. And Trump does the thing where he obviously, he pretends as though what he's doing is on purpose. And the man said, no, no, we are going back to Iran. See, now I say Iran.

I don't use because he obviously has a correct pronunciation. We will go back to Iran. We're going back to Iran, Perlman, and that is going to be a really, really big day. Trump then switching from pronunciation mistakes and cognitive glitches to just fabricated stories about the history of industry, as he likes to call it. Listen to this one. Close to 50% of the chip business by the time I leave. And right now we have none practically.

And it was taken by other places. It was taken by Taiwan. I'm not knocking them. I'm saying if they can get away with it. But if you had the right president, that would have never happened. Trump is now overtly parroting, uncritically repeating talking points from take a guess, ding, ding, ding, Chinese authoritarian president Xi. He is now using an approved China talking point.

Taiwan took the chip industry. Happens not to be true. They took our chips. They took our popcorn. They took our veggie sticks. They've taken everything. It's incorrect. And again, it's a commencement speech. What aside from the factual accuracy of these completely hairbrained claims, why is this even the subject matter at a commencement speech? And then Trump trying to wrap up this screed with an inspiring message. And it just doesn't really suit Trump. Take a listen. Today, let me leave you with a few words of advice to maybe help you a little bit on your way.

First, most important, never ever give up. Never give up. They ask me, how do you be successful, sir? Starts with never give up. Never, ever, ever give up. I've learned a lot about life. But the one thing I've really learned is that perseverance, never quitting, never giving up is a big deal. You'll be right there, right at the gate. You've seen it. You've seen it in sports. You've seen it. They're right there at the gate and they give up. Never give up. I'm feeling very inspired, very, very inspired to vote out every single last one of these Magapitamians. That was the, I don't know what message the cadets came away from this very unusual speech. I'm not, I'm not totally sure. But the message I came.

away with is Trump and anybody who thinks Trump has done a good job should not be allowed near power ever, ever, ever again. And it reinvigorated my desire and commitment to go out and vote every single one of these people out of office that I can in November and encourage the people in my audience to do the same. Donald Trump graduation speech, not exactly compatible, I would say. You know, one of the unfortunate trickle-down effects of having an administration and a movement like we currently have in power is that it creates a sort of diaspora of dirt bags, as I may call it.

And this includes people like Congressman James Comer. This includes Mike Pillow, Mike Lindell. It includes a lot of different people. And I want to give you a tour through the sorts of. of nonsense that surfaces when people like Trump are in power and when nonsense is normalized. First is a newsmax interview with Congressman James Comer. Now I've got to hand it to newsmax, which is a completely wacky right wing news outlet. The newsmax host here, Rob Finnerdy, seems pretty damn skeptical of what Trump wants to do with

Cuba. Take a look at this, but the focus is James Comer and the way that these people just go. Anything Trump says we're going to do. This Cuba thing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a message to the people of Cuba today in Spanish. Then Raul Castro gets indicted. I get it. The Ayatollah is gone. Nicholas Maduro is in jail.

But now Cuba, I just, look, I think people struggle with how this is America first when gas is $455 a gallon right now. It is. you're absolutely right. But at the end of the day, Cuba has always been a national security threat. And as you said earlier, we've been negotiating with Cuba since before I was born. I'm 53 years old. So the negotiations have gone nowhere. Cuba's leader is at the end of his lifespan.

The Cuban people clearly, unlike maybe the Iranian people, the Cuban people clearly want a regime change in Cuba. It's just, you know, minutes away from Miami and Florida in the United States. So it's a strategic problem for the United States. But do you really think they're a threat, Mr. Chairman? Do you really think that Cuba's a threat? What? If some country went in and loaded Cuba with the same drones that...

If someone went in and gave Cuba drones that Iran, if... Iran had when we first started bombing. Iran, then yes, I think it could be a threat. I don't think that's there. I know John Radcliffe has been on the ground. The CIA's on the ground as we speak, talking to the Cuban officials. I really don't think, Rob, it'll get to any type of military action. But the president's threatening that. He's increased sanctions on Cuba. I don't know how many more sanctions the Cubans can take, especially after what happened in Venezuela. It is fascinating that even on Newsmax, they are struggling to fall for this crap. Why should Americans support going into Iran, going into Cuba?

Look at gas prices. People can't afford their bills. And James Comer basically goes, well, if Cuba were to be loaded up with a bunch of weapons, they're really close. And therefore, if they got those weapons, they might be able to if they want to do something if all of other other defenses weren't able to. James Comer, give me a break, dude. You're not even convinced. Look at the skeptical look. on Rob Finnerty's face. He's not buying any of this crap. All right. So then we go to U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, defends Donald Trump's slush fund. And he defends it basically by saying, I think people are going to forget about this. But pretend it's not the president. Pretend it's me. Yeah. Why? And let's say you thought that I was

a tax cheat. Why would you, I'm not saying you, I, that he was a tax cheat. I'm just saying, let's say you thought that I owed the government money wouldn't you want me to pay the money why would the government not want me to pay pay the money and we have two things going on here we intentionally leak your tax returns to embarrass you in the public you have a claim against us there's an audit that we don't know whether there's money owed or not owed to resolve that we say you know what andrew we're going to drop the audit we're going to move on and you're going to drop your claim against us for trying to name and shame you that's a deal I think that, you know, is actually a pretty good deal for the government if the government

intentionally leaked somebody's tax returns. That's a horrible thing. Do you think it's any different? I don't just, look, the leaking pieces, I agree with you 100%. The only question I have for you that relates to this is whether you think being in the position of being the president changes that dynamic at all? I do not. What are you?

Is the president supposed to say, you know what? You can do whatever you want to me? and I have no recourse. And it was done when he was a private citizen. I don't think we're going to be talking about it. No, no, no. I just wonder maybe there should be a, I don't know if it should be a third party that makes a decision

or something like that. I don't think we're going to be talking about this issue in a week because the American people are going to say, look, they leaked his tax returns, they tried to name and shame him, they tried to destroy him. Okay, we resolved that in terms of the audit that had been going on for years.

with obviously, you know, his defense of the slush fund for Trump to give money to the January 6th rioters and who knows who else is basically people are going to stop caring about this really quick. They're going to move on to the next thing. Imagine Democrats doing something so brazenly corrupt and then going, I think the public is going to forget about it in seven days. Would any of these right wingers accept that? No, they would not. And then as the final sort of incredible cherry on top of this totally rancid cake, this rancid ice cream Sunday, a totally rotten cherry on top. Here is Mike Pillow, Mike Lindell saying he believes he is entitled to compensation under Trump's

slush fund because he was persecuted and my pillow was persecuted. This is exactly what we weren't about. The worst people figuring out, hey, I might be able to get some money out of it. of this corrupt slush fund. We actually put into the government a couple months ago through following a process that they told us about then. Now this is new and we are actually going to get it out there. I don't care which comes first to help my employees that lost.

They lost millions upon millions of dollars. We had three third parties look and do an evaluation of my pillow what it was prior to all these attacks and what it is now and all of them average $400 million. Uh-oh, sounds like Pillow wants 400 million from the slush fund. That it costs the brand and cost my pillow. And it's just horrific that our own government could do this to the American dream, this company that was built on the American dream and made in the USA and to have this happen.

All right. So it's wow, we're the biggest victims. Now, what really happened is Mike Pillow decided to become political. Mike Pillow decided to align himself with Trump. Mike Pillow decided to say he believes Donald Trump was sent by God to be president of the United States. Optional stuff. You could keep that crap to yourself. And that had consequences. It's called free speech. It's called the free market. People go, I don't like what this guy's political views are. I might shop and get different sheets or pillows or something else. That's what happened. But the entire movement now operates like a victimhood machine. They are permanent victim. The Trump family, biggest victims in the world. Pillows a victim. The J6 rioters are victims. Everybody wants compensation now.

Everybody thinks we were persecuted and contrasts that to their take responsibility for your life stuff that they spout. The core of modern MAGA is monetizing grievances. And now they've gotten a slush fund for it. Pillow is right in there with them. And you know what? I think they're going to get away with it. It pains me to acknowledge that. One of the most common career problems is not knowing how to make a change without blowing up your life and everything you have going on. A lot of people reach a point where they don't necessarily hate their job. They want more direction, growth, or maybe confidence as far as what the next move is. Even if on paper, everything is sort of okay. Our sponsor, strawberry dot me, is a career coaching platform.

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Thank you for having me. You know, I'm very interested in your career because there's a couple of areas of it. There's the more overtly political side. But also, I read a lot of nonfiction, nonfiction about investigations, nonfiction about scandals. And you appear as a character in many of those books as the accused or the embattled or the beleaguered was represented by Lanny Davis. The most recent one was a book about Harvey Weinstein and there have been many others. I'm interested generally just in learning about how this space you operated in, both on the political side and the more, you know, kind of like crisis PR side works in the sense of,

do you gain a reputation of, hey, if you have a certain type of problem, maybe you want to talk to Lanny? Is it transactional? Is it relational? How do you sort of get that reputation? Well, first of all, I am a bit defensive about one of the people you mentioned because I did know the truth. I sometimes get calls from clients to help them in the media.

If I'm a defense lawyer, that's what we do. Sometimes we defend people who wouldn't be needed as criminal defense lawyers if there weren't an accusation of crimes. But in the case of advocacy in the media, I have a litmus test. I'm not comfortable with what the individual has done and I can't defend that individual on the facts and the truth. I resign. What happened with Mr. Weinstein is that when he called me, he was a Hollywood producer, very active in liberal Democratic Party politics. And he asked me to help him on accusations involving sexual misdeeds.

and I was trying to investigate exactly who the accusers were and how I would possibly defend him. And then the New York Times was writing the story that ended up earning the two reporters, the Pulitzer, and I resigned as soon as I recognized that Mr. Weinstein was not somebody who I could possibly, nor would I be able to defend. So just for the record,

when people mentioned my defense of Mr. Weinstein, it isn't involving criminal defense lawyers, and that's what you're supposed to do is defend people so there's due process. But I just resigned, and that was something both reporters gave me a lot of credit from the New York Times for helping them write the story. There's even a movie made where somebody played me,

and I didn't like the way the person who was a lawyer from Succession, rather great actor, portrayed me. But nevertheless, I had to just clear the air that I resigned, Harvey Weinstein account. So I guess the answer, which is an amusing answer, but it's the truth, is I never get a phone call. Hey, Lanny, I've got great news for you. I have a reputation for helping people who are in trouble in the media, but only if I have facts that are substantiated, which I can give to the media as facts. And I wrote a book of, if they're bad facts, even more so do I want

to get that into the media so that all the facts come out. And the book that I wrote about my White House experience, sorry for the long answer, is called Truth to Tell, which is what I did in the White House, is try to tell the truth about what President Clinton was going through. And then the subhead is the mantra of tell it early, tell it all, tell it yourself, meaning bad facts as well as good facts. I share with the media, because we might as well get the bad facts out ourselves,

Most people resist that. It's counterintuitive, but it gets the story over with and gets all the truth out into the marketplace. So that's my reputation. Do you think that the Trump administration fails to do that to their own detriment in the sense of like if we think back to one of the earliest news stories I remember sort of consuming as an individual was the Bill Clinton Lewinsky drama back in the second half of the 90s? I believe then and you've written about you went in with let's dump all the news ourselves.

And in some way that can take the power away from those who might seek to drip, drip, drip, drip it out a little bit at a time. And then we're reacting to that with Trump. I mean, just as an example, this MRI CT scan thing that dragged on for months. They didn't originally even say Trump had had a scan. Then he says, I did have an MRI, but he doesn't say why or what part of the body. It goes on for months. Then it turns out it was a CAT scan all along, which raises more questions. Are they, would you give them different advice if you were advising them on some of these things?

Well, I have a long answer and a short answer. So I'm going to use a short answer. Okay. The answer is that Trump and his communications White House organization and they're probably very good people, but they did it the opposite and made things worse for President Trump. He made things worse for himself and the best example of it or were. example is Epstein. Everybody knew that that story was not going away. His own base wanted all the information about Epstein and the survivors and the people who were the victims. That information

needed to be put out by the Justice Department. Pam Bondi shot herself somewhere when she promised to do that and then all of a sudden resisted. I think that resistance came from the Trump White House because he was worried about his being mentioned in those files. It didn't matter whether he was mentioned or not. It was all coming out anyway. He made it worse. And it's classic. He did what most people do when there's bad news they're worried about. They hold it back. I was taught by the White House Press Secretary for President Clinton, Mike McCurry, taught me everything. I went over there as a lawyer and I learned how to do media thanks to Mike McCurry, that if we have bad facts and the reporter doesn't ask us about the bad facts,

and in this case, it was about campaign fundraising practices. That's all I did. I had left the White House by the time the Ms. Lewinsky's matter came up. But I was doing campaign finance, abusive practices allegedly in the presidential campaign. If I had a bad document, I would call a reporter and I was an equal opportunity leaker under the supervision of the press secretary. I would give bad stories out proactively, make sure they were complete and accurate, try to get my share of perspective in that might be a positive defense. And then the story was done. So when on national television, the Republicans tried to make a big issue about campaign fundraising practices by President Clinton during his campaign. I would circulate stories already published with the media that was covering,

it was the late Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee on national television. And I would hand out the stories already published. That were the negative stories. And I would say, old news, been there, done that. It was so effective, if you don't mind me, just adding to the funny part of this story. Senator Thompson at one point had a really major hearing on national television that he thought was a terrible example of fundraising abuses by President. Clinton's campaign. I'd already gotten that story published and the Associated Press was all over

the place. I handed it out and Senator Thompson had seen me do this before. And he said, now, today we're going to do a story that even Lanny Davis can't call old news. Of course, we celebrated him saying that and I became good friends with Senator Thompson after the hearings were over. But that's the technique that I think you're asking me about. Yeah. Opposite is what Donald Trump did on the Epstein matter and it only made things worse. Another, I don't know if I would call it a vignette or an episode or an element of your career was you were working with Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, who I've gotten to know and over the last few years, who ultimately went to prison. And then I'll

ask you, I've read it said you sort of engineered setting the wheels in motion for Trump's eventual indictment on those multiple felony counts or falsifying business records. Can you talk more broadly about how you first worked with Cohen and what involvement you had in those charges with Trump? Yes, broadly, I was helping Michael Cohen as an attorney as well as a media and political specialist by advising him through a mutual friend. We met on the telephone and I advised him you need to get your story out in the national media arena through testifying before Congress.

And that will get you a national, international television audience. And he agreed. And I called an old friend who was a congressman from Baltimore named Elijah Cummings, the late Elijah Cummings. The rest is history. He was on national, international television. Sometimes I see myself sitting right behind him, testifying about his experiences with Mr. Trump. But that's a classic example where Michael Cohen had a shadow hanging over him. Why did you work for Donald Trump for 20 years? And he was not able to answer that question well, because there is no good answer. As he then had to say up front to the congressional committee, I did a lot of stupid things, a lot of bad things. However, he phrased it. He was

very refreshingly honest. And with my encouragement, he answered every question from hostile Republicans two Democrats was on international television, and he was able to answer the shadow that was hanging over him, which was my first question to him, is why did you work for Trump all these years? So that is something I hope I helped Michael with, and he took a lot of slings and arrows, and even the Justice Department acted very poorly towards him

and sent him back to jail under very unfair circumstances when he went in for a check with his probation officer. So I stayed with him as long as I could and I hope I helped them. With the charges eventually on Trump, I mean, do you, is it accurate to say you engineered those charges? Is that too generous? Is it not generous enough? So the answer to your question is you're referring to the Manhattan district attorney

who indicted prosecuted and then convicted Donald Trump involving the stormy Daniels hush money. Yes. that led to an indictment. It's beyond me why media, mainstream media, allows the word weaponization by the Biden Justice Department to be used without saying, wait a minute, there was a multiple indictment by a grand jury by a DA in Manhattan. What does that have to do with the President of the United States? Oh, well, they were Democrats. Excuse me. You left something out. There was a grand jury indictment and a conviction by a jury in New York City.

So that's how I got involved afterwards when the prosecutors in the DA's office having nothing to do with the White House, despite Trump's fiction about weaponization, it was about a Manhattan DA, a grand jury, an indictment, and hush money payments that Michael Cohen pled guilty to when, as he used to say to me frequently, yes, I shouldn't have. facilitated those hush money payments, but I didn't get any favorable results from Stormy Daniels. Only Mr. Trump got those results. But that's why I was involved in the interviewing of Michael Cohen leading up to the indictment that led to the 37 felony count convictions by a jury in New York City. And one other point, that jury contained three members, three, who said during the voir year when they're being interviewed by Mr. Trump's defense counsel, who happens to now be the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, allowed three jurors who said they voted for Donald Trump. Right.

So every time you hear about those convictions and the 37 felony counsel, oh, that's New York City, they're Democrats. Three out of 12 jurors said they had voted for Donald Trump and they voted for conviction after that trial. Have you had what are the toughest conversations you have with the people you work with in terms of are you sometimes handed what we might call rotten ingredients you can't possibly make a dinner out of when you have to say I don't know that there's really much I can do here or we can only we can only do so much like what are those conversations like?

I'm going to segue over to my book at some point because I think this is a good question but I can do that segue if you don't mind. Please. I'd love to talk about my book. So when I work for President Clinton, in this exact situation, I had sometimes bad facts,

and I needed to answer the reporter's questions. I never know commented. Sometimes I would say, look, I don't know the answer to that question or I can't answer the question because it's a legal issue. And I don't do anything that puts a client in jeopardy.

In this case, when I work with President Clinton, there were no such criminal legal issues. They were all political. But that's really the line that I draw. If I can't tell a reporter the truth, I will say, off the record, I can't answer your question because it creates legal jeopardy for my client. But you can't publish that sentence because I'm a lawyer. But that's why I'm not answering your question. You can see that a reporter will trust me to explain why I can't answer as opposed to avoiding the answer. being disingenuous or just not answered.

I want to shift into the concept of the third way that I write about in the book. You, you know, one of the things that is getting a lot of attention right now is, okay, Trump's a disaster, MAGA's a disaster, fine, but we have a 2026 election and we have a 2028 election after that. And there's concern that Democrats aren't really accurately or successfully figuring out exactly out exactly what the positioning needs to be. Some analyze it as, well, the party needs to follow its voters to the left politically. Others say that's wrong. It needs to actually move to the center. Others say, and I'm sort of partial to this, there needs to be something overarching like we are

going to be strongly anti-corruption. And whatever you think about abortion or taxes, this is a corrupt regime. And that's what Democrats need to be. Talk about what you see in this third way concept that was popularized by Bill Clinton as what Democrats should do. Thank you. You're so on point that I'm almost ready to publish. I have a regular spot with Real Clear Politics.com. The editor of Real Clear is the editor of my book. I'll least, I don't know if you put the cover on, but I'll say the title. It's finding the third way, lessons in the politics of decency from my journey through history. So the two aspects of that title is what do I mean by the third way?

And what lessons did I learn from my life going back to my childhood all the way through the present? Indeed, my first chapter of the book is somewhat autobiographical, is a story about my father, seeing him attack anyone over the dinner table. He was a dentist even while he was practicing dentistry if there was a political difference of opinion. My father was a liberal Democrat surprise, surprise. And if there was somebody who disagreed with him, he'd go on the attack. So I wrote a first chapter about my father who I passed, but I love with all my heart. And the name of the chapter is a quote from him when I said,

Dad, I love the New York Yankees, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle. I was a child of the 50s and the 60s, and the Yankees won all the time, all the World Series. I would love to root for the Yankees, Dad. And my father said, you can't root for the Yankees. They win all the time. They have all the money. They're Republicans. That's the title of my chapter.

So the lessons I learned was to be in that case, as much as I love my father, the opposite. We can't demonize people, including lots of friends of mine who voted for Mr. Trump. We can't demonize people that we have political differences written. We can use the words, I don't. disagree, let's talk about it. Or tell me why you voted for Mr. Trump. And I'll see whether we have anything in common. They may be, though I strongly opposed Donald Trump, his policies, especially his character and his conduct, but I won't get into that. My point is, I will ask a Trump voter, some of whom are friends of mine. Why did you vote Mr. Trump? Tell me why you didn't vote for the

Democrats. And I've learned, and I'm about to write something very extensive on this topic, that the book, the third way, is to give Trump Democrats who voted for Trump and not the Democratic Party a reason that's positive to return to the Democratic Party, not just bashing Trump, which is all we seem to be able to do. But let me ask you about that because that one of the, I'm thinking mathematically. The number of Democrats who voted Trump is quite small relative to the disaffected voters, the non-voters, and the people who did vote Trump maybe once, twice, or three times that see the corruption and don't like it.

That's a much bigger group. Don't we need to figure out how to get them to come back to the or to come to the Democratic Party? No, it's a very important point, but we are talking about swing voters. Okay. Talking about people who voted Democratic, voted for Bill Clinton, maybe voted for Joe Biden, then switched to Trump. I see.

And we need to capture those swing states. We lost the election in about seven states that are swing states. Right. So based Democratic voters, liberal, Democratic voters, I use the word liberal, by the way, even though some people in my base say, don't use the word liberal, use the word progressive. Yeah. First of all, don't tell me what words to use. Secondly, they're the same as far as I'm concerned.

Well, there is a critique, though. I mean, I think you're talking about the language, but there are some who would say, listen, I'm progressive. And third way is capitulation to centrism and corporate interests. So I think there are some who don't who say, no, these are very different terms. So there are a lot of people. And that's the problem and the reason why we lost to Trump. So if you want Donald Trump as president, worry about vocabulary, that difference between liberal

and progressive or the word centrist or whatever the labels are. And that's why people voted, who are our people, for Trump. So if you want Trump, worry about those labels. Be vocabulary police and tell me to use the word progressive. I would rather talk about policies. So let's get out of the labeling business as Democrats. Let's talk about policies. What are we for?

That's not what we're hearing from our leaders. We're hearing nothing about what we're for. We're just bashing Trump, which I do as well. What are we for? Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, defined. liberalism, quote, progressivism, which actually was defined by Theodore Roosevelt when he first became president as a liberal Republican. Liberal Democrats support the government as a friend, not the enemy, which is what conservatives will say mostly government is. Government should be

our friend. What do we mean by that? We mean Medicare. We mean Social Security. We mean Medicaid. We mean social programs in helping kids in school. We mean the government being our partner and our friend. That's how we differentiate ourselves from conservatives. And all the other issues you could ask me, what's your position on? I'm very liberal. But I would be accused of centrism or whatever that silly label is that has no meaning unless you talk policies. What is a label?

We don't know. But I am in favor of balancing budgets and not using, credit cards and increasing the national debt and deficit spending. Now, that sounds conservative. Well, Donald Trump has completely multiplied our national debt. I call that national debt spending as morally wrong. Why, if I take, and this is where I win the argument with my fellow liberals, why we cannot do deficit spending. We have to balance the budget. If we go around the world, I say to my friends, well, that sounds like you're a corporatist, a conservative, talking about balanced budgets.

Well, let me ask you a question. You go around the world using your credit cards with your wife or your husband, and you charge everything, first class airfare, first class hotels, first class dinners around the world, hundreds of thousands of dollars of credit card expenses. You're having a great time. You come home and what do you do? You go to your children and you dump on their bed all the receipts from your trip that you enjoyed, and you say, you pay for it. That's exactly what we Democrats do when we use a credit

card to spend money rather than from revenues. It's immoral to turn over those debts to our children. Now, am I conservative or liberal or whatever the label is, everybody agrees with me. No, that's wrong. If you took the trip, why should your children pay the expenses? Believe me, that's what conservative Trump voters who used to vote Democratic think we favor using a credit card. Well, guess what? Trump has run that argument into the ground because our national debt has trebled under Republican presidents. We can take that issue and make it into a progressive or a liberal issue by saying, no, we need to pay for what we spend. So that's an example of the third way. Bill Clinton inherited a budget deficit. Most Democrats increase.

the deficit. What did Bill Clinton do? He raised taxes on the wealthy, and he cut back on federal spending, and he reduced the federal workforce over a long period of time, not like Elon Musk and the Doge fanatics. He did it carefully. So does that sound conservative? Yes, he balanced the budget and left a budget surplus. That actually happened in his last year in office. And his approval rating when he left after his second term with conservative fiscal policies and a balanced budget was 66% job approval rating. Now, we win elections with someone with a 66% job approval, but people in my left base, I consider myself a member of the left base, was like, oh, you're being a corporatist label. You're being a centrist label. Tell me what policies you disagree with.

Do you disagree with balancing a budget and not leaving those receipts for our children? So if I get out of the labeling business, I'll win support for my fellow liberals or progressives. I think that's fair. I think where sometimes people say, Lanny's not wrong, but sometimes the question is, let's balance the budget at what cost to other areas of society. Correct. Then you're now we're talking details. Now, now we're back to what are progressive values.

We balance the budget, not on the backs of working people and poor people. We balance the budget on the backs of people who can afford. to pay and are not paying fair shares of taxes. Tax cuts for billionaires, cuts in Medicaid. That's a progressive Bill Clinton position, but he's balancing the budget, which, oh, you're being centrist. Forget the label. It's the right thing to do. And that's the way I deal in my book with, instead of just bashing, and it's called finding the third way. The third way is to on policies, be able to attract conservatives, traditional conservatives, Donald Trump isn't a conservative. He's nothing other than corrupt, in my opinion.

So by being willing to take policy positions that are labeled conservative, or what is corporatists, I've been accused of that before. I still have no definition of that. I believe that corporations should pay taxes, and I don't believe that they should be allowed to give campaign contributions. Does that make me a corporatist? I don't know. So I guess I'm down to a quick answer.

The third way is Bill Clinton was liberal on the progressive programs for the government to help people, especially people in need. Centrist, when it came to moderate, I would use it instead of centrist, when it came to cultural issues. The issues that divided us and which Trump used effectively, Bill Clinton would say such as transgender issues, Bill Clinton would say, Bill Clinton would say we need to be tolerant, tolerant of both sides, people uncomfortable with that issue, especially when it comes to sports, when it comes to restrooms. There are people who are uncomfortable with the issue of transgender. We need to be tolerant of their discomfort and explain we need to be empathetic with especially young people with gender identity conflicts.

So that's the cultural moderate position that I would recommend to our party. And then, of course, on the FDR version of liberalism is that we believe government is our friend and that the wealthy should pay their fair share of taxes. That's a big summary of the third way definition. Well, I want to hear from my audience. What do you think of the platform that Lanny Davis is laying out here? I will again mention the book is finding the third way lessons in the politics of civility from my journey through history. I really do appreciate your time. Thank you so much. David, I just ask one favor when your listeners call in every time they use a label, whether it's centrist or whatever it is. Yes, define it. Questions. Well, what about the policies

that Lanny Davis says Bill Clinton stood for? Right. Talk about what you disagree with his policies and don't use label. So I'd ask that favor of you because that's a fair request. A fair request. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for plugging my book. Most guys I know wear underwear that is acceptable. It's not particularly comfortable. It's not really breathable. It's just like, okay, I guess it does the job.

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economic collapse to happen before they go, okay, now it's getting really bad. But what I want to argue here and go over with you is that that is not. not usually how declined feels when you're in the middle of it. People are slowly running out of money. People are slowly falling behind on bills. People are slowly going further and further into debt. And often it feels slow even though the trajectory is a problem. There's sometimes an expectation that when things get really bad, it'll get bad from one day to the next. Sort of like today, the Dow is down 10,000 points kind of thing. Typically, that's not the way that it happens.

And what we are seeing take place under Donald Trump is that Americans are slowly and quietly falling further and further behind. People aren't necessarily poor in the traditional sense, like based on their income, for example. But people are more and more stretched financially to the breaking point. Every single month, it gets pushed a little more on average at the macroeconomic level. You see credit card debt climb because people are increasingly using debt for survival expenses and they are leaving a little bit, a little bigger balance each month and paying a little more

interest each month. So that's a slow process. They're not falling behind because they're buying luxury items. They're not spending recklessly. Like politicians often will suggest, oh, if people just stop spending recklessly, they'd be fine. People are saying, well, I'm going to charge my groceries and maybe not pay the full thing every month, this month. I'm going to put an unexpected car repair on a credit card and pay off part of it. And then I pay interest and then I pay interest on that. Insurance premiums, school

expenses, household bills, et cetera. And it's because the paycheck isn't comfortably covering the cost of life. The delinquencies are reflecting how financially stressed people are. We looked at credit card delinquencies. That's people not even making the minimum payment. If you make your minimum payment, yes, you're paying interest, but you're not delinquent. Credit card delinquencies are going up. People more than 90 days behind on auto loans making those delinquent are at an all time high. And people are falling behind because they just don't have any breathing room in their budget. Not irresponsibility. You could say, well, there's a luck element. Oh, my tire blew and I had to get a new tire and I had to charge it. But at the same time, we could sort of say like, well, on average,

you expect to spend, I don't know if it's like 1% of the value of the car a year or what it would be, but there's some amount of vehicle maintenance you would expect. So it's not bad luck in that sense. The timing may be unfortunate. And you've got someone who's stretched thin now is negative for the month. And then they're paying interest on that negative. And then it gets worse and worse. The flat tire becomes a crisis in this way or a dental bill becomes a problem where now you're paying more and more interest on that.

And this is really the way it happens. They sometimes on the right like to talk about bread lines, people waiting to pick up bread with government vouchers and this sort of thing. It's not typically like that. It's a slower erosion of people's economic stability. And meanwhile, when you look at what the administration offers, it's the same crap. It's, you know, the tariffs are eventually going to make us really rich. And even though gas prices are up, we're going to be much better off because I went into a

run and eventually it'll recover. It's political theater at the end of the day. And what economists and elected officials don't seem to get about ordinary Americans. And we talked about it earlier is that they are experiencing the economy every single day. Maybe you watch 30 minutes of news and you turn it on and Trump goes, this is great and that's great. And Caroline Levitt's like, this is awesome and that's awesome. Okay, that's 30 minutes. Then you go, I've got to run to the grocery store to pick up dinner. And you pay $140 and you go, what did I? even get. I don't even have anything here. And then you go and you pick up your kid at daycare, for example, and they say, hey, we need you to bring some extra items of clothing. And you go, okay,

I've got to go buy those. I don't have extras at home. Am I going to have to charge that? You experience that day to day. And so the 30 minutes you see on the news of Trump telling you how great everything is or you see, oh, the GDP is up. Okay, well, what does that actually do for my household budget? I'm standing in a grocery store. The GDP going. up isn't relevant to what I am experiencing in the grocery store. So this is a problem that is building slowly, but it's building. And the framing from Trump economic advisors when you consider this is borderline insane. They go on TV and they just brag.

They go consumer spending remains strong thanks to people putting charges on their credit card. Wait a second. You're bragging that people feel the economic need to go in. into debt to afford day to day expenses. How is that a good sign for the economy? And of course, we have already analyzed this and we rely it's not. When people are relying on debt to survive, they present that it is awesome.

We realize that this is a major problem. People as they see this become angrier. They become more cynical. They lose patience with just wait. The prices on gas are going to come down. We're months into this thing. We are almost in week 13 of a three week, supposedly three week war. And so when people hear these disconnected statements from people like Scott Bessent and Kevin

Hassett, Caroline Levitt, J.D. Vance, Trump himself, they go, this is totally disconnected from my life. I'm not going to vote for these people. I'm not going to reward these people. But importantly, this is very, very bad for the economy. Now, as we see people lose faith in the idea that they can work hard and afford a reasonable home for their family. and not have to pay interest on interest on interest just for groceries or school expenses.

When people say, I believe I should be able to do that. And then they go, but I can't. So I've lost faith in our systems, our institutions, our government. Who can blame them? We were told housing costs would be dealt with, hasn't been dealt with. We were told we're going to get insurance prices under control. Hasn't happened. We're going to get childcare under control.

Hasn't happened. Groceries. Hasn't happen. Gas. Forget about gas. It's up 65% since January 15th. So it's understandable that as this disconnect grows from what people are being told and from what people are seeing, that they will ultimately say, I've lost faith.

I've lost trust. And we need to try something different. Now, there is, I'm the first to acknowledge. There's no guarantee Democrats are going to fix this stuff. Not necessarily because they don't want to. But these are major problems. Even if Democrats take the House, Republicans would still have the Senate in that scenario. Trump would still be president. It would be dishonest for me to say, you put Democrats in power in November, they fix everything. But they're going to try. And they're going to, I believe, stop the overt gaslighting about how awesome everything is. As people realize, things aren't quite so good. People are slowly, but definitively running out of money. We have enough access to credit right now that it can cover it for a while. But that's not going to happen indefinitely. I'm going to play a lot. I'm going to play a lot.

clip for you and I want you to tell me, does this sound more like Cuba or does this sound more like the United States? Senator John Kennedy, not of the Democratic Kennedy family. His last name happens to be Kennedy. He's a Republican. Senator John Kennedy went on Fox News, was interviewed by Will Kane and was asked about Cuba. And he is justifying what may be military action in Cuba by describing the ways Cuba is bad. But I've got to tell you, his description sounds a lot like that.

the United States. Listen to this. And number two, Fidel Castro, the original Castro, was pretty smart. He was evil, but he was smart. But these, these, these ass hats since then have just been incompetent. They're like, they're like three wheel shopping carts. I mean, they're incompetent. All they know how to do is oppress people. They take all their money. And they're, they give it to the military and the police and themselves and to hell with the good people of Cuba. And that's not a model for success. No.

And they're gone and they just don't know it yet whether we do it through an invasion or not. I'd rather do it the easy way, but that's kind of up to the to the communist you're running. Yeah. Listen to that. They're incompetent. Okay. Wait. Trump or Cuba.

They only oppress people. Okay. Is that Trump or Cuba? They take taxpayer money and give it to the military and to police and to enrich themselves. Is that Trump or Cuba? And they say to hell with the good people in the way that they govern. Is that Trump or is that Cuba? The whole to hell with the good people really resonates because millions of people in the

United States feel economically and politically abandoned while they are enriching themselves. Trump has made billions added to his net worth during this second presidential term. He's got his flush fund. He's got an agreement that the IRS won't investigate his taxes. Kennedy is obviously trying to describe Cuba. I get it. But he ends up describing what a lot of Americans see Donald Trump doing here. And this really, you know, what I was thinking as I watched this the first time and the second

time through is that authoritarianism often sounds the same regardless of ideas. Trump is a right-wing authoritarian. Cuban regimes have been left-wing authoritarians. I'm against the Cuban regime and I've been against the Cuban regime for decades. But the authoritarianism is a very common through line from both left and right-wing authoritarians. Give the money to the military and the police and enrich yourselves. That's how we've been seeing Trumpism operate. And Republicans have spent decades warning us about authoritarianism in other countries, but now

they've ushered it in. We were speaking last week with Sarah Isger about the Supreme Court and she pointed out, there's nothing at all conservative about this modern Republican Party. It's a reactionary authoritarian movement. There's nothing conservative in terms of small government. There's nothing conservative in terms of getting the government out of areas or a low deficit scenario. Any of the definitions of conservatism are not valid here.

It is not me saying, by the way, America is Cuba. But the point is, these authoritarian patterns emerge in a variety of ideological systems. One party loyalty, attacks on the media, loyalty tests, punishing dissent, glorifying state power. These aren't unique to communist regimes. They are threads in authoritarianism and we see them with Trump. Think of it as this way. When we hear oppress people and reward loyalists and weaponize institutions, we're. right to think about the Trump administration. That's what they're doing. That's what they're trying

to do. And so the takeaway is that stuff about Cuba sounds really bad. I agree. I've Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, Russia. I'm not an authoritarian. I'm a small L libertarian, but we've got to apply it to the United States as well. And when you add the cult of personality around Trump, you really start to get something that resembles the sorts of regimes we criticized for decades over overseas, it's here. The calls are coming from inside the house and it should terrify every single one of us. Now, on the bonus show today, we will talk about the death of former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.

I have a couple of interesting personal stories about Barney Frank. We will talk about the building of Trump's arch. Now, you might be going, wait, the ballroom? No. The arch. There's another delusional construction project. And we will also talk about officers who defended the Capitol from the January 6th rioters. suing to block payouts from Trump's slush fund.

What's the legal argument? We will talk about it on the bonus show. Sign up and get instant access at join packman.com.