The David Pakman Show - One of the strangest days in American politics

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

-- On the Show: -- New sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner prompt Democratic leaders to call for his withdrawal from the Maine Senate race -- Juan Williams argues Republicans increasingly fear Trump has tied the party's fate to his own as they face a difficult midterm election season -- New reporting claims Mitch McConnell has remained unconscious since being hospitalized three weeks ago, rasing serious transparency concerns -- Labor force participation falls to its lowest level since 2021, reviving a Republican economic metric that was frequently used against Democrats -- Donald Trump spends an Oval Office event jumping between the World Cup, TikTok, tech companies, cryptocurrency, and a proposed helipad -- Donald Trump struggles through a NATO press conference, says he has "no concerns about anything," and says he settled eight wars -- After Trump pushed FIFA to overturn Folarin Balogun's suspension, the U.S. still lost 4-1 to Belgium, presenting the idea of a "Trump curse" -- Donald Trump claims D.C. restaurants were routinely robbed at gunpoint and says he can identify dangerous immigrants by appearance -- On the ⁠Bonus Show⁠: Trump is hoarding cash meant for Republican candidates, a man sues ICE after he was targeted following a scathing email, Trump says 500,000 children have received $1,000 in "Trump accounts," and much more... 👕 American Giant: Get 20% off your first order with code PAKMAN at https://american-giant.com 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 30% OFF 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 Book: ⁠https://bit.ly/m/attention⁠ -- TDPS Subreddit: ⁠http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow⁠ -- David on Bluesky: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/bluesky⁠ -- David on Facebook: ⁠http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow⁠ (00:00) Start (01:23) New allegations rock Maine Senate race (10:41) Republicans fear Trump is dragging down the party (21:31) Questions grow over McConnell's condition (28:26) Labor force participation hits four-year low (35:25) Trump's bizarre Oval Office ramble (45:47) Trump's strange NATO press conference (52:47) Did Trump just curse Team USA? (59:34) Trump makes shocking claims about D.C. crime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump had one of his strangest public days yet rambling through bizarre oval office appearances, confusing world leaders, and also making false claims about what he calls Tic Tac. And he also promoted a company he owns stock in and joked that crypto executives are lucky that he's president. As if it's not obvious why, we will look at why Republicans are very nervous about the midterms. And some analysts believe Trump has transformed. the Republican Party into a party that just rises and falls with Trump and Trump is currently down. We then have extraordinary new questions surrounding Mitch McConnell's health and the David

Pacman show is able to exclusively report that McConnell has actually been unconscious for three weeks. And a bomb drops on the Graham Platner campaign as a woman comes out and says he sexually assaulted her. Most Democratic leaders now calling for him to drop out. we'll talk about whether he will or won't. And a surprising economic number that Republicans used to love is now moving in the wrong direction and the Trump's sports curse may have struck again. I don't know how many of you saw that game last night.

All of that and more today. Let's do it. The Democratic Party in Maine is suddenly in complete chaos as allegations of rape against Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner have dropped. Calls for him to step down are growing. His campaign may be finished, although there are some people saying he should simply stick it out. The allegations are from a woman who said that she was in a relationship, a situation ship with Grand Platner previously. Her name is Jenny Racicoat. I hope I'm pronouncing that last name, We are going to hear from her in a moment, but the allegations build on the preexisting

allegations against Platner of inappropriate behavior. While it did not lend itself to the topic, to the to the category, I guess, of any kind of assault. It was inappropriate or unseemly behavior. This has now exploded. Now I think it's important to say a few things up front. Number one, if Platner were a Republican. I don't think this would make a difference at all because Republicans overtly don't care about

this type of allegation, a reminder that Republicans and Democrats are different in a lot of different ways. I am going to play a video from Platner that he put out after the explosive allegations came out. Listen, my view on this for a while has been. Susan Collins is terrible. And if there's anyone better than Susan Collins to vote for, that's who we should vote for. At the same time, I haven't been doing the rah-rah platinum stuff because I didn't find

him to be particularly honest when I interviewed him. And big picture picking the guy with a Nazi tattoo who I thought was lying to me about when he found out it was a Nazi tattoo and probably was lying about other things. I don't think was a really good idea. And if this were a Republican, we would all be saying this person has no business even running for elected office. And now we end up in what I think is an unsurprising situation of a major scandal where like we say, we have to believe the women.

The allegations are extensively corroborated in the reporting. And party leadership is saying he's got to resign. And it has the potential to hand this election to a Republican. So you end up in an absolutely terrible situation. I think AOC saw that this was a problem. She never endorsed Platner. Let's hear the reaction from Platner. And I think the key line is that he's.

going to figure out the path forward, which to me suggests he's going to get out. I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false. Over the last 10 months, I've been deeply humbled by the faith mayors have put in me. You have welcomed me into your homes, into your places of work, into your restaurants, into your houses of worship. You have shown that a different kind of politics, one that puts the interests of people over corporations, is not just possible, but is inevitable. This movement we have built, the largest volunteer base in the history of Maine politics, the hundreds of thousands of grassroots donors, and the supporters

across the ideological spectrum, we were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, and a focus on defeating Susan Collins. regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality, it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward. Right. The state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins. I believe ultimately he is going to step down.

I would be surprised if he didn't. And importantly, he has six days to step down while still allowing a different person to be made the Democratic nominee. There's a list of nine potential replacements after the 13th of July. He would be locked in completely as the nominee. And I believe that he would lose to Susan Collins if that were to happen. We have an interview that the accuser Jenny Racocott did with Jake Tapper yesterday. I'll play just a little bit of that. I remember specifically him like grabbing at my chest. and I like hit his hand and I said don't touch me. And I remember that during the altercation specifically.

And then he kept going. Yeah, and it was this weird mix of like coming in and out of, I don't think consciousness is a word, but like coming to and kind of falling back into that drunken, I don't know what I'm doing state. And yeah, and he just, he would apologize in those moments and then go back to doing what he was doing. He was aware that he was doing something wrong and saying sorry. I feel like he was in moments. Is there any way that he thought this was consensual or no, just because... I don't believe that you can think that that scenario was consensual.

You have to understand that that wasn't when somebody is repeatedly, I mean, when somebody in the middle of it says, don't touch me. Now, one of the things that has angered many Democrats is that there have been many opportunities where Platner was asked, is anything else going to drop? And one of the things that producer Pat and I talked about on the bonus show a while ago was that if we've gotten out the stories that have gotten out, we've received the stories that we've received just during the primary phase, there must be something worse that is potentially going to drop as the general election approaches. And Platner was asked about it and he said,

no, no, no, but it turns out it was yes, yes, yes. There I can just tell you there is nothing out there that that is going to be will run counter to any of the stories that I've talked about openly this entire campaign. And I know everyone continues to be like, oh, what else is coming? You know, ironically, the whole, what else is coming has essentially been the same thing the whole time, which is I've been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact I had a long list litany

of failed relationships for years because I myself was not in a good place. And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or a politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up. But it's all very much within the exact same story that I've told this entire time. Okay. So you say there's nothing out there that could be concerning. And this may seem a little bit rich.

There's nothing out there. There's one of making this clear. There's there's nothing out there that's actually concerning. People will make everything seem very concerning. So a lot of people very angry about that. Maine Democratic leadership has called for him to step aside. A whole bunch of different elected officials have said that they are revoking their endorsements. And I think that there is a very important lesson here, which is we have to actually look at who's running in primaries. If you have an opportunity to unseat a disastrous Republican senator, which we have that opportunity in Maine, you can't just go, oh, there's there's someone with a D next to their name, cool, let's make them the nominee. If you have a meaningful

primary in your state, don't just assume Democrat. Cool. I can look the other way. And from the beginning, you know, I know that a lot of people like to say, well, the Reddit posts where he was being sexist and racist, they were a long time ago. We should ignore them. And it turns out that they actually did relate to what ultimately came out. And I mean, listen, if you look at my Reddit history, you're not going to find stuff like that, even if you look 20 years ago, if you look at other people. So I do think there's an important lesson here. There's a report from the New York Times that Platner is already sort of trying to set the terms of his dropping out and that he would only drop out if he approves ideologically of the person who would replace him. I don't know

that he's going to have the cards to make that call at the end of the day, quite frankly. So that's where we are right now. And this could be even uglier as we go forward. We're going to watch it. Let me know what you think. I've heard from so many of my audience who say, we love this guy. And I've heard from so many in my audience who say, how on earth are Democrats thinking this is the person that should be the nominee. So we're going to follow it for all I know. By the time this even goes goes live, he may have dropped out. Or maybe he's trying to figure out a way to stay in. All right. Listen, something has changed. And Republicans and Trump are now very worried.

And Republicans down the ballot, I believe are realizing that Donald Trump has destroyed their party. Let me kind of set the stage, which is that for months, Republicans projected a lot of confidence about these midterms. And they are now having a very different sounding conversation. There's a new opinion piece by longtime political analyst Juan Williams, which says that genuine panic is now setting in inside Republican circles. And the fear that is being described in the article isn't just that Donald Trump could become even more unpopular between now and the election.

It's that he has tied the entire Republican party to himself. And so if his prospects decline, if his approval goes down, everybody is going down with Donald Trump. And Trump is currently polling 30% in terms of approval, even lower in terms of the election. economy in some polls and Donald Trump has sort of decided to make the entire election a referendum on himself by holding this midterm convention that is going to be held in September. Now look at Donald Trump's behavior. He is not acting like someone heading towards an easy victory. He is sort of endlessly campaigning for we need the Save America act and we need to do this and we need to do that and we've got to get rid of birthright citizenship.

But he is in a panic to try to do anything that he perceives might save Republicans in November. He's escalating his rhetoric. I think even the midterm convention is a miscalculation. He's so desperate. He's going, what can we do? Let's do a convention without realizing that the convention will actually put him at the center of these midterms, even though he's not actually on the ballot. Now, the question that I suggest you ask yourselves is.

If Republicans really believe they were comfortably ahead, would they be doing things like, for example, Mitch, not Mitch McConnell. We'll get to that later. Maga Mike Johnson saying, hey, listen, everything is at stake in these midterms. If we lose these midterms, it's going to be impeachment. It's going to be investigations. If they were confident, they wouldn't be playing that out. They would just be confidently saying we've delivered for the American people. Here's the list of stuff we've done.

It's so good for everybody we're going to win. So we have a backdrop that is terrible for Republicans. Now, even though there have been individual scandals in different Democratic primaries and other races, in general, Democrats have maintained the advantage in a lot of these generic congressional ballots. And that is happening as Trump's approval numbers keep getting weaker and weaker. And in general, just structurally, history is pretty unkind to the party that controls the White House during the midterm election.

And I believe Trump knows it. And I believe that Republicans know it. Now, over the weekend, Trump referred to Democrats as animals. He described communism as a cancer spreading through the country, even though there is no communism. And I don't really think that that rhetoric even motivates voters. Maybe it doesn't turn them off, but I don't know that it's really a motivator. It's a sign of a campaign that's going, we need to raise the stakes and the temperature as

high as possible. And the ways that they're figuring out to do it is to use terms like, cancer and communism. The larger problem for Republicans, I think is the one Trump created for himself, which is that for a decade, the Republican Party has stopped being about conservative policy, restraint of the judicial, restraint of the executive branch. It's simply become about Donald Trump. And if getting involved in private business is what Trump wants and believes he benefits from, then Republicans say we'll abandon our small government principles and we'll do that. If blowing up the deficit rather than reducing it is what Donald Trump wants to do for his pet projects,

then Republicans go, I guess we don't really care about fiscal restraint anymore. And we've had a number of election cycles now where candidates have not really been judged in terms of whether they adhere to conservative principles. Like it's almost a joke when I say that. Candidates have increasingly been judged on how loyal are you to Donald Trump. And the party has really become identified with one person. That is a really effective political strategy. strategy when that person is strong, when that person is well liked, when that person is delivering

for the population. When they are not delivering, when they are unpopular, when their numbers are slipping, having a party that is identified with one person becomes a huge liability. And so now you've got all of these Republican candidates inheriting Donald Trump's baggage. There's baggage on the economy. There's the Epstein story. There's other controversies. There's corruption nepotism, cronyism, a free plane and all this other.

stuff. And the investigations that are likely to happen if Democrats take the House are going to expose even more of it. So on the one hand, you do have Democrats as usual stepping in it. The Platner situation in Maine has become a huge fiasco. The odds of Republicans holding the Senate have ticked up a little bit, in fact, as these Democratic controversies have grown. But if voters decide that they're unhappy with Trump and they go out there and they take control of the House of representatives away from Republicans. It's only going to do more damage. Now, in his opinion piece, Juan Williams also argues that Trump's growing focus on election procedures and voter fraud and maintaining control of Congress is all related to. I don't think we're going to win by convincing

people we've done really well. If you think that the will of the people is going to be to reelect your party, you don't try to make it even more difficult, particularly for Democrats to vote. And that, I think, is a sign that they all know that they're in trouble. So there's a level of anxiety here that political observers say is indicative of where November is likely going. And regardless of whether you agree with every single prediction, there is a big picture here that we can't ignore, which is Republicans are acting like a party that knows they are likely going to get crushed.

You don't hold an unprecedented pre midterm convention and crank the rhetoric to 11 and spend months talking about election fraud and say, we won't even pass a housing bill. Trump said he won't sign the housing bill unless they get the Save America Act on his desk as well, which is going to clamp down on voting. You don't do that stuff unless you think there's a dangerous situation. Now, the biggest irony of all of this, I think, is that Trump deliberately wanted to turn the Republican Party into the Trump party. That is the very strategy that could backfire in November.

Trump can't run again. He's a lame duck. So the consequences are going to hit the Republican Party. And if we do a good job, if we don't have, you know, Democrats put ridiculous nominees up there and this sort of thing, it could set up for a massive blue wave. Forget about 26 for a second in 2028. Republicans could quite literally not recover for years if this all plays out in the way that it might. But we've got to make it a reality.

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Davidpackman.com. This is a real show. I know that since I'm still doing it out of my mom's basement, as the haters like to say, That's a joke, by the way. I know that since I'm still doing it out of my mom's basement, you might think this is not a real show. But we have a whole team. We have a staff. We have actual employees.

I'm not doing the contractor game where you use contractors to avoid paying people benefits. I'm doing the best I can to build this in the right way. And that's supported by people in the audience. So we do an extra show every day for our members. I would love for you to sign up at join pacman.com or on substack. I will say a very quick hello to our two newest members, Denise Lindstrom and Dorothy Pope. Denise and Dorothy, thank you so much. You can also pre-order my forthcoming book, pay attention anywhere books are sold, signed copies

available at David Pakman.com slash attention. And if you would like to be in the raffle to get this specific copy of the book, the one that's on the set. This is copy number one. One person who pre-orders any version of the book could be the audio book, could be the e-book. It doesn't matter. Whatever, send your receipt to info at David Pakman.com and say, David, get me in that raffle. And one person on the day that the book comes out will win this particular copy. I will dedicate it and send it to you along with copy number one of my first book, The Echo Machine. We're doing what we can. We're trying to make it interesting. We have some really extraordinary breaking news about Mitch McConnell. I was able to exclusively report

yesterday and this instantly went viral that we have a source that says Mitch McConnell has been unconscious for three weeks, the former Senate majority leader who has been hospitalized for weeks. we were told essentially is on life support. Some people banding about the term brain dead. That is not a call I can make. What our source told us is that he has been unconscious since going to the hospital. Now, for weeks now, people have been asking the same question, which is where the hell is he and what is wrong with him?

Back on June 14th, Mitch McConnell was rushed to the hospital. We later found out he was found unconscious. We didn't learn that detail until weeks later. And ever since then, his office has been basically silent. They go, oh, he's continuing his recovery. He's receiving excellent care. He's working closely with staff on Senate business. If it is indeed true, what my source says that he has been unconscious for three weeks,

working closely with staff was a lie. continuing his recovery was a lie. And that's where the story gets really, really significant. The public has not been given anything close to a complete picture of Mitch McConnell's condition. When we are told he's recovering and involved in Senate business, that gives one impression. But remember that we have not even received basic answers as to his medical condition, why he was hospitalized or his prognosis. We have not even really heard from anyone who spoke to him directly. There was some congressman who said or a senator, oh, he texted me that he's doing well.

But it's like, okay, so they're not even claiming it could be a lie that they got a text from his phone, but it could be true. And the text was written by somebody else. None of that proves everything. What is remarkable is that since we reported this yesterday, it is now. breaking through. First of all, just separately, the Hill accidentally published basically his obituary. They accidentally published a story that said, do not use, like it was marked, do not use.

So no one would accidentally publish it, but it was accidentally published. A look back at Mitch McConnell's time in the Senate. Oops. They very quickly retracted that. We have even MAGA people demanding proof of life from Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell's daughter has reportedly deleted her. her ex account. And neighbors of Mitch McConnell in Washington, D.C., have said no one has come or gone since he was hospitalized. And you might say, well, what about his wife Elaine

Chow? We learned yesterday that Elaine Chow, three days after the hospitalization of Mitch McConnell was meeting with the Chinese vice president in Beijing. Oh, boy. So you take the totality of this story and you've got a way bigger issue than, oh, we're curious about the health of an elderly senator. If a United States senator cannot perform the duties of the office for an extended period, what happens? And the answer we are learning is maybe not that much. Senate seats don't usually become vacant unless the senator resigns, which if you're on life support, you can't really do, dies, which if you're on life support, you're alive, or is expelled by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. There isn't really a mechanism for declaring someone medically unable to serve

and replacing them, not to mention that Kentucky doesn't allow anymore, doesn't allow gubernatorial appointments. They would have a special election to fill an empty seat. So we have a constitutional problem here. We have a political problem. Now, a lot of, there are some people who are going, oh, you're trying to violate HIPAA. You want to demand private medical records. You have no, you're not entitled to, public officials still get medical privacy. First of all, HIPAA applies to medical providers. It doesn't apply to reporters, his family, his staff, or whatever. That's number one. They're free to say whatever the people in charge decide should be said. If Mitch McConnell is incapacitated and has been for three weeks, he certainly can't be part of that. But maybe his wife could

be. But she's in China. It's all wacky. The point here is Republicans made medical transparency The issue when Joe Biden was running for reelection. And they don't want it to apply to Donald Trump. And I guess a lot of them don't really care whether it applies to one of the most senior senators, one of the most powerful hundred people in the country. The public, without violating HIPAA, the public is entitled to know can one of the hundred most powerful people in the country carry out the basic responsibilities of his job? And right now, we don't have definitive answers.

They in Mitch McConnell's office are giving us carefully crafted talking points. But even we are now getting sources saying he has been unconscious for three weeks. And I am increasingly convinced that there is a deliberate cover up going on here. Now, is anybody with direct knowledge going to level with the American people? If they are not, these questions are going to get louder and louder. And what has been interesting is that Laura Lumer, this right wing provocateur, she posted a sort of very kind of in a sense, crass, I guess I would call it statement about Mitch is not coming back.

He's brain dead to social media yesterday. And it did not generate that much reaction. But then our source fundamentally is telling us the exact same thing, which is he was found unconscious and he has remained unconscious the entire time that he has been in the hospital. So when will we find out the truth? It's starting to feel like one of these situations. Well, we will, we will find out much later what is going on. But the pressure is mounting.

And to a great degree, it's mounting because of a lot of you. When we published the story yesterday, close to a million views on YouTube, close to a million views on Instagram, and very quickly, a lot of additional reports started going, coming out. A lot of additional calls to Mitch McConnell's office. What is going on have started surfacing. So ultimately, I think we're going to find out what happened. Will it be too late? Will it be a sort of disgrace in terms of transparency to the American people?

I believe it will. But eventually we're going to figure out what happened here. One of the most important economic numbers that almost nobody pays attention to, unless it's convenient, is now flashing a warning sign that we need to talk about. You know, a lot of people obsess about the unemployment rate, but I have a different number that could be more revealing. And it is called the labor force participation rate. Now, I know a lot of you are going to go, oh, wait a second, David.

I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing here. And if you've been listening to the show for a while, you probably do. The labor force participation rate measures something really simple. What percentage of American adults are either working or actively? looking for work. That's what the and then you divide it. So if you've got a hundred million adults and 50 million are working or actively looking for work, that is a 50% labor participation rate. Cool. Here's the trick. If someone gets so discouraged that they stop looking for a job altogether,

they are no longer counted as unemployed. That's not a big shock. That's the way unemployment has worked for a long time. They disappear from the unemployment statistics. And so you can all, also look at labor force participation and look at what is happening right now. Labor force participation is dropping and it's dropping bigly. Now before we go any further, the segment I'm doing right now is a little bit tongue in cheek. And the reason that it's a little bit tongue in cheek is that really for years or really decades, Republicans have loved using labor force participation as a political weapon. If a Democrat is president, they take out the labor.

participation rate and they start swiping like it's a cudgel. And every time the number goes down, the talking point is people are dropping out of the workforce. The economy is collapsing. And as I've told you before, labor force participation can go down for reasons of economic concern or it can go down because the economy is actually really good. I'll give you an example. If people can afford to retire, they go, you know what? I'm comfortable enough.

I don't need to keep working. I'm going to retire. Labor force participation goes down, but it's a sign the economy is good because people can afford to retire. Or if parents say, hey, you know what, we don't both need to work. We're okay enough financially that one of us will stay home with the kids and the other will work. Labor force participation goes down, but that's because the economy is good. On the other hand, the labor participation rate can go down because there's no jobs to be found. And there can be other bad reasons, concerning reasons that the labor force participation rate goes down.

The point is I've explained for over a decade that the labor force participation rate going down by itself is less important than why it's happening. Now, let me make one other point. You will often hear politicians brag. More Americans are working than ever. Trump, in fact, said it a few days ago. Or they will say the opposite. It more Americans are not working than we've ever seen not work before. It's important to remember that the population of the United States for now keeps growing.

It's expected to peak and start to decline 20 years from now or something like that. But for now, the population keeps growing. So when the population keeps growing, almost every raw number eventually becomes the highest ever. If your population is bigger than ever, you can simultaneously have more people than ever working, and more people than ever not working because the number of people is bigger than ever. This is why percentages are often more useful than when Trump goes more people than ever are working. Now, having said all of that, what you see is that labor force participation climbed for several years after the pandemic recovery reached almost 63%. Trump took office

and it steadily has moved lower, June down to 61.5%, which is the lowest level of the lowest level since 2021. Now, am I claiming that this proves Trump destroyed the labor market? No, just like Republicans were, you know, overselling the metric under Democrats, I'm not going to do the same thing. I don't, I don't, I'm not playing politics with these metrics. But if Republicans spent years insisting that labor force participation was the best indicator of economic health, they can't suddenly pretend it doesn't matter right now. Either it was important or it wasn't. And they really can't have it both ways. My request, it's a humble request. If we are going to talk about labor force participation when Democrats are president, let's talk about it when Republicans are president

too. Let's just apply the same standards regardless of who's in the White House. And if we do that, this is a trend worth paying attention to. If the economy is supposedly the greatest in history, like Trump says, why are fewer Americans participating than just a couple of years ago? It's a very fair question and it's one Republicans have taught us to ask. Now, if you go to Trump and you confront him, he'll just go to stock market's better than ever. Or he'll say, look this way or look that way or think about this other thing. But much like I say, you know, Trump's promise to end the Ukraine Russia war in a day was an unreasonable one. But he made it many times and so we should hold him to it. Trump's promise to get energy prices down 50% was completely unreasonable as a promise during

the campaign. But he made it so we should hold him. to it. And if Republicans and Trump have told us labor force participation is a really important metric for evaluating the economy, then we should hold them to it when they are the ones in power. Just a humble little request from me. There isn't one mattress that's perfect for everybody. Some people want firmer. Some want softer. Some are side sleepers, back sleepers. A mattress that's good for one person might not be the right one for somebody else. That is the idea. behind our sponsor Helix Sleep. Instead of one generic mattress, hoping it works for everyone, Helix sends you a mattress

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Go to helixleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Before heading off to the NATO summit at which Trump humiliated himself, Trump stunned a full oval office with terrifying incoherence branded as disturbing by many who were there. Now, the topic of Trump's meddling in the World Cup, which by the way, backfired completely. We'll get to that later. Boy, what an embarrassing game last night. Trump asked about sports. And Trump makes everything about himself.

and not only was he good at playing sports, he also understands sports really well, which, okay. We call it soccer. It's called football, I guess, but we can't really call football because it gets a little, there's a little confusion. So yeah. They said it's a little bit confusing what do you call. Now, I do want to say one other thing. I hope people will understand what I am and I'm not getting involved in here. Let me see how to say this. I'm aware that there is a woman standing behind Trump who others are saying has botched plastic surgery. It's not really part of my analysis. I'm aware of it, though.

And what happens sometimes if I ignore something like this completely, everybody will just write in about that and they'll ignore the substance. I'm aware of this woman's appearance. Others have weighed in on it. I'm acknowledging it, but it's not part of the analysis. So let's continue. Call it soccer. We're the only ones to do that, but we are football and football's great.

but I've never seen anything like it. No. So I saw the play, and I'm a person that loves sports, and was a good athlete, and I understand sports really well, really well. This is like a full-blown dementia rant about the World Cup. And that wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction.

There was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can't take your foot and properly place it on somebody else's foot when you're going, no, these are. were two great athletes that got tangled up. Right. And this referee, who is a little bit suspect? Nasty guy.

He voted for Sleepy Joe. If you check his past, I don't want to say that because I don't like to create controversy. No. But very suspect. If you'd like, I'll provide you with the past. He made a call that nobody could believe. You know, even people on the other side, they say, oh, we got lucky.

Wow, that's, and it's very interesting. They say they don't show them in slow motion. And I never realized that. I never heard of that before. Total dementia round. But they're not allowed to review in slow motion because it's so different. Because you'll take one little quarter of a second, and you'll see that a hand is touching a neck or you see something. Right.

Whereas when you see it in fast motion, it will look like two guys collided, which is really what happened. They got sort of entangled. He didn't do anything wrong. And he's our best player or one of our best players, a very vital player. And he gave him a record. Who, by the way, he shouldn't even be here under Trump's beliefs about birthright citizenship. The player he's talking about Flo Balligan, nasty, shouldn't be allowed in. But now Trump's defending him because it's convenient.

I didn't know what that meant. I didn't think it meant much. Then I started hearing that that means he can't play in the next game, at least the next game. I said, boy, that's a big, you know, if it happened to another player, it would have been unfair, but when they take your best player or just about, they have some great players, but, and they say you can't play, that's very unfair. That's, you know, it's one thing to penalize somebody for the game. Right. But how do you penalize them for a game that hasn't been played yet?

These are just the rules, sir. You can't do that. So, yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to a man who's highly respected. And by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold. The guy he's talking about created the FIFA Peace Prize to give to Trump. So just a completely whacked out, whacked out dementia rant by Trump. And by the way, it backfired.

He got Flo Balagan back on and then the US lost 4 to 1 and the Belgian team mocked Trump by doing the Trump dance on the field. episode for U.S. men's soccer. Trump then talking about Ticktack. Ticktacks like the breathmans. No, he is talking about TikTok. He calls it Ticktack and he says he is number one, number one on TikTok. Now, there's a thing called TikTok. Have you heard of it? I was watching a show this morning. Maria Bardo Roma. She's fantastic. And on her show, they were talking about the dangers of TikTok and Chinese, you know, a whole thing with. with spying and what they're doing with that.

Well, except it was announced about two days ago, the new numbers just came out. You know who the number one person in Tick-Tac is by far? The number one person on Tick-Tac? Trump, me. I just got the, they, I'm number one. Like Taylor Swift was number 11. Right. I'm number one.

Trump, of course, completely and totally lying happens to be untrue like most of what Donald Trump says. You actually look at the numbers. Now this is number one. Headquarters is number two. Our friend Aaron Parnas, a nasty guy is number three. And so on. And in fact, the David Pakman show Tick-Tac is ahead of the Trump Tick-Tac.

So just lies all the way down. Trump then says, hey, you know what? Let's promote a company I own stock in goes Barron loves Dell laptops. You got to get Dell laptops. Remember that earlier this year, we reported that Trump purchased over a million dollars in Dell stock. He just can't stop trying to line his pockets. And millions more will be getting additional contributions from generous owners, like, as I mentioned, Michael and Susan Dell. They are truly incredible people. Go out and buy a Dell computer. He's not doing it for that.

Buy it. But I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten even bigger. His son that loves their, they loves their laptop. I have to tell you, no, I wonder, Dell. Barron turns it on. He turns it off. It's crazy. He's tip, tip, tacking on it. They get him that money back one way or the other.

And then I'll ask for another $6 billion 250. We'll start the whole process all over again. No, he makes- And of course, as Donald Trump was saying this stuff, Dell stock spiked dramatically. Just a coincidence, just a guy lining his own pockets. Trump then making the unbelievable statement that every crypto guy whose investigations are being dropped should be lucky that Trump is president, just brazen cronyism.

But he has no idea what crypto is. He had no, he didn't have a clue, but they were very violently against it. They were putting people in jail. What they were doing to the crypto was horrible. It's amazing it survived that onslaught. It was a weaponization of government. So when I went very much for it, and I must have gotten, I think I got 100% of the vote, but what happened is I think it was 100 million people.

That's a big industry, and that means some pretty good things. But what happened is Biden then, after he was getting killed, he was down so much, all of a sudden they became pro-crypto. And their head of the SEC was horrible, unlike Paul who's really good. I mean, he's the best man for the job. Everybody wanted him. But he was horrible. What he was doing to the crypto, they were putting people in jail.

Oh, you know that better than anybody. Good people, great, prestigious people. They were putting them in jail. And I said, you're going to be kidding. And they were trying to destroy the industry. Okay, ready? So now I'm killing Biden, I'm winning by so much. And all of a sudden, he becomes totally pro-cropto.

They dropped all investigations of everybody. They allowed people to come out of jail. Jail. And every time I see a crypto guy that where they dropped an investigation, I said, you're lucky I'm president because they, you know, I don't know if you know, the Biden administration became totally pro crypto. They let him out of jail. Trump made $1.2 to $1.4 billion from crypto in the first year of this second term. And the spending priority. Trump also saying he's going to build a helipad. People are struggling to pay for their heating bill and gasoline and groceries.

And Trump's building a ballroom and he's redoing re retrofitting a Qatari jet and doing an Iran war that's optional. And listen, we can't have the helicopters landing on grass. Are you building a helipad? Yeah. That's a hell. Yeah. For 50 years, we've been landing helicopters on grass. Grass is wet, soggy.

The helicopters sometimes miss their little mark. You know, they send people out Marines. I watch them do it. They march out so beautiful, great guys. They have a piece of metal that he put down. And except for the fact that these pilots are so good, they almost hit the mark all the time. But sometimes they miss their half the size of this desk. Yep.

Think of it. You're landing a big chip. You need a new helipad. And nothing communicates that you really identify with the plight of affordability for the average person than to saying, listen, we have a soggy grass problem for where the helicopters are landing. We need a helipad. The entire room, you couldn't tell necessarily because some people's smiles were frozen in place, either by fear or plastic surgery.

But the entire room stunned. But then Trump goes to the NATO side. summit and it gets even worse. Donald Trump left the White House yesterday and went to the NATO summit. He was slurring badly. He stunned world leaders and he struggled visibly to understand the questions. Now as it is, you put Trump and NATO together. Trump's disdain for NATO is palpable.

And it's sort of edgy, risky to put Trump in such a situation. But one of the more notable things that happened was Trump really. was struggling to understand questions. And this seems to go even beyond Trump's difficulty hearing. By the way, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, whose new book regime change, I'm almost done reading. They're going to be on the show. They write about my speculation that Trump's having hearing problems. They documented extensively. It is happening. But this seems to be confusion with the substance of the question. What does that mean? Third party? What is the third with respect to what?

There's our concerns about the Russian missile defense systems. Do you have those concerns about the system? I have no concerns at all about anything. I mean, he's a leader of a country that he's made a much better country, much more. Trump's being asked about a law that was passed in 2020, which bans the United States from selling F-35s to Turkey unless they give up a particular missile system. That's what the question is about. Trump has no idea. It's not a question of he can't hear it. He doesn't understand it. Trump then weighs in on Greenland.

And he goes, you know what? Here's the thing about Greenland. Denmark really shouldn't have it. It should be ours. Nothing says NATO, really in the spirit of NATO, to go, hey, we should have the territory of other NATO members. With respect to what? But?

Well, that's what hurt my relationship. ship with NATO because Greenland doesn't help Denmark. Denmark doesn't spend money to really help. Slurring really badly, guys, slurring really badly. Greenland, but it's an important part for the United States. And it's surrounded by China ships and Russian ships. And that's not going to happen. The ships is not going to happen.

It was Greenland that in my, and it continues to be, that should be controlled. That should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn't go along with it and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia, and we don't have to spend any money. We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe. Because as you probably noticed, Europe's a very different place than it was 20 years ago. A lot different, much different. Nothing says collaboration with NATO than saying, actually, we should have certain land that is currently

governed by a different NATO member. Oh, boy. Now I understand why they're so hesitant to send stuff, to send Trump to these places. Trump talking about the war with Iran, the war with Iran. And he again plays this game where he's like, it's not even really a war. It's Schrodinger's war. It was a war when Trump was able to claim to end it. But now it's only a special military operation. Including trying to end the war with Iran or whatever you're going. It's not even a war. It's a military operation. It's a denuclearization.

That's really what it is of Iran because I don't think he wants to see them have a nuclear weapon either. I'm pretty sure of that. Really tough and Trump continuing to slur. Now, substantively, Trump says he spoke with Putin who greatly respects Turkish president Erdogan and that yesterday he spoke. for a long time with Putin. And the war is very soon going to be ending. Now, remember, Trump said he would end that war within a day. A day of getting elected, a day of being sworn in

didn't happen. I do. I do. I had a very good talk with President Putin, who by the way has a lot of respect for President Erdogan, a lot of respect for him. We had a long talk yesterday. It lasted a long time. And I also spoke with President Zelensky. you right after that. I think they both want to make a deal. Right. It's too bad it took so long, but I think there's going to be something's going to come out. And the president's also helping us with that. But I think there's something, you know, I settled eight wars. And I think we're going to be settling a ninth. It does. Very soon we're settling a ninth war. Now, of course,

eight of those, some of those eight weren't really wars and some weren't really settled. But what's a little bit of a lying? between friends and allies. And then finally, Donald Trump wildly claiming this is the best ever year for any American president with the best economy ever. Say that to the tens of millions that are struggling. Yeah, we're going to be having meetings. I'm very friendly with many of the leaders. Some of them are new. We don't know them. But you know, I've been doing this for now, sort of a long time. Sort of. If you count the four years where we had a rigged election, you know, it was very much into politics then too.

but I spent the first four years. I spent four years in a little different state. And then we've had an amazing, probably the best year maybe ever had by an American president. When you look at the economy, we have the greatest economy we've ever had. We have $19 trillion, $19.2 trillion to be exact, being invested in the United States. That's seven or eight times more than it's ever happened. It's also a complete and total lie. Anyone with the modicum of common sense would realize, wait a second, 19 trillion were invested

in the U.S. That's ridiculous given the size of the American economy. That doesn't sound right. And of course, your instincts would be completely correct. It is not right. It is completely fabricated. Trump plus NATO summit equals very, very scary and a very bad idea. If you like this show, I would love for you to get my substack writing.

Each day, I'll send you a rundown of what's on the show, what's happening, what matters why. It's free. No spam. Substack is also the only place where we own our data. So if we get censored on social media or on any platform, substack's going to be the only way I can tell you what is going on. Sign up now at David Pakman.substack.com.

The Trump curse has struck again and Donald Trump has dragged the United States World Cup men's national team into the humiliation. I don't know whether we're ready to officially recognize it as a scientific phenomenon, but we have to ask the question, is there a Trump sports curse? Because the evidence is getting really ugly. Trump has this habit where he'll attach himself to a major sporting event because he loves being in front of the camera and he loves attention. He loves photo ops, you know, the whole thing. He wants everybody to know he's involved here. And it keeps ending badly. And the latest example is

the World Cup. Now, this one, I think is especially funny because Trump didn't just say, oh, I'm rooting for Team USA. He got involved. We talked yesterday how before the US match in the round of 16 with Belgium, there was controversy because the American player, Flo Balagan got a red card in the previous game. Now, it wasn't a very good red card. It shouldn't have been a red card. But this is sort of the way sports work. Referees have available to them different tools that can be used during the game. And a decision is made. And sometimes the decision is wrong. And that's it. You move on. As I said yesterday, there have been baseball pitchers that lost perfect games because of bad calls from umpires. There have been in this World Cup,

penalty kicks that shouldn't have been penalty kicks, situations where there should have been a penalty kick, but there wasn't all of this stuff. So the Trump administration gets involved. Trump calls his friend Gianni and Fantino, who created the FIFA peace prize for Trump and pressures FIFA to overturn the suspension. And they do. And Flo Balligan suits up and plays against Belgium. Now, this is highly unusual. Instead of saying, I wish the team good luck. They're down a player, but I have confidence. They try to influence how a sports governing body, an international one, by the way, not even an American one, although that would be bad enough, tries to pressure them to change the outcome of what is at the end of the day, an internal disciplinary decision.

And supporters, some of them celebrated, some others said, hey, you know, listen, the president shouldn't be getting involved in this. The red card was overturned. The U.S. got its player back. And the sort of story or narrative became Trump delivered for the United States. And then the United States lost anyway. Belgium beat the United States 4 to 1. And in fact, after one of the goals, Belgium mocked Donald Trump with the Trump dance and a post after defeating the United States. Now, the United States may have lost either way.

If they lost with their good player, it stands to reason they would have all. also lost without their good player, even though, you know, sometimes it's, there's dynamics at play where the whole game would have been different. Who knows? But needless to say, Belgium is a very good team. So after all the pressure, all the headlines, the drama, Trump getting himself involved, it ultimately didn't matter. And within minutes, social media was once again saying this is the Trump sports curse.

Now obviously, it's sort of a joke. Trump didn't make Belgium score for goals. But if you're keeping track at home, we've got a pretty damn long list here. We've got the Super Bowl where Trump made a huge point of attending. He praised the Kansas City Chiefs. He made it clear that he wanted him to win. He said all of this different stuff. And they got blown out.

Then there was the New York Knicks. Trump made sure everyone knew he was backing the Knicks and he's going to game three and inconveniencing everybody in order to be there. And the Knicks lost game three. And people said, oh, well, he cursed them. 2. And now we've got the World Cup on the list. We have the incident where the commanders hosted the lions and lost at home.

And Trump watched from a suite as Miami fell in the college football national championship. And then Trump went to the Ryder Cup where Europe defeated the US team. And so this is not like a serious analysis. Trump is not controlling the outcome of these games through, you know, some kind of supernatural force. But Trump has this knack for showing up demanding attention, inconveniencing attendees, embracing a team getting involved. And then it just all completely falls apart. Now, I do think there's a political parallel here. Think about it this way. Trump endorses businesses and they collapse. He appoints officials who resign in scandal. He launches products that disappear because

they're terrible. He starts companies that lose massive amounts of money. He starts charities, which are legally forced to disband and he gets banned from running charities in certain states. He promotes events that then flop. And now we're pulling sports into it. So I don't even really think the story is about sports. The story is everything Trump touches seems to become about Trump. And then a lot of it dies. The spotlight moves on and there's a mess left behind. And what is now left behind with the World Cup is this humiliating situation where the United States, along with Canada and Mexico, play host to the biggest global sporting event that there is billions of people watch.

And then Trump gets involved in humiliating fashion and immediately the US team loses and now is left as a losing team with Trump having gotten involved and generating negative attention. So if my favorite team were about to play what was arguably the biggest game in franchise history for the U.S. men's national team last night, I would be hoping Trump is staying far away. Now, my favorite irony of the entire story is that by Trump's opinions about birthright citizenship, Flo Balligan shouldn't even be on the U.S. team because he shouldn't be a citizen because Trump doesn't want birthright citizenship.

It is remarkable that Donald Trump has been lobbying all the way up to the Supreme Court, which fortunately decided against Trump, that people in flow-balligan situation shouldn't even be citizens. But then when Trump thinks it's convenient and it'll make them look cool and it'll make them look good, he goes, oh, no, we got to overturn this red card so that this guy can represent the United States. And by the way, if I were the boss, he never would have even become. a citizen in the first place. Truly pathetic, embarrassing stuff. Donald Trump described

Nikki Minaj as so hot during a Rose Garden lunch so bizarre that people believe Trump was suffering paranoid delusions and left people speechless as he was barely able to coherently synthesize words into ideas. Listen to this. It never happened before. We also have a woman that is so respected and so hot and so great and such a great friend of, I don't say conservative, I say of common sense. He's not conservative or liberal or, as they say now progressive. Liberal became so tarnished, but now it's communist. You know, they say social democrats.

No, social democrat is a communist, all right? Just so, you know, there's no, so. If you look at the people that are running, it's crazy what they're doing, but we won't. We'll never let that happen to this country. It can't happen to the country. You can't have, there's no appetite for it, especially since we've literally, you're going to see numbers coming out over the next six months.

I think that nobody will have ever seen before. And also a new health care plan, of course. But she's a fantastic person and she's a woman that's respected by everybody and she's got real talent. Nikki Minaj, Nicky, stand up, please. Please. He's such a great person respected by everybody. Today, 38%.

Trump describing Washington, D.C. as a place where there used to be stickups at restaurants like an old Wild West bank stickup. A lot of people struggling to remember that. You can't get if you're an entrepreneur or a restaurateur, you can't get a restaurant. There's nothing available. The restaurants are packed. They used to go in and rob the restaurants. You know, you'd feel safe in a restaurant.

It was like the old Wild West. It'd say stick them up. Give me your money. The whole restaurant is handing them. money. And now if that, if that ever happened, those people would be in deep trouble, deep, deep. We, we had a very hard. Now, as if this weren't wacky enough, Donald Trump stunned the Rose Garden crowd into silence when he said that he can tell whether an immigrant is good or bad based on how they look.

Oh, boy. I wish someone could have said, sir, please give us the characteristics that tell you whether they are good or whether they are bad. An open border. Nobody checked. They just walk in. And you could look at some of them. You can say, this is trouble.

And they'd walk into our country. We remove them. Trump can tell just by looking, are you trouble or aren't you trouble? Can we finally call this racism? Like, this is not a show about everything is racism. And Republicans love to go, oh, there's nothing worse than calling someone racist. But are we at the point where you can say that? that sounds pretty damn racist. As far as social democracy goes, Donald Trump goes, there's no such

thing. These are communists. Liberals became so tarnished, but now it's communist. You know, they say social democrats. Social Democrat is a communist, all right? Just so, you know, there's no, so. If you look at the people that are running, it's crazy what they're doing. But we won't, we'll never let that happen to this country. It can't happen to the country. You can't have, there's no appetite for it, especially since we've literally, you're going to say, you're going to You know, Exhibit A, I am a social Democrat and I am against communism. I am not a fan of government owning all the industries, for example, or industries, as Trump calls them. Social democracy is not communism. And in fact, one of the most, to go from exhibit A, which is I'm a social Democrat and not a

communist, go to exhibit B. Northern European countries that are socially, socially democratic countries, They are some of the best business environments for private business. Would communist countries be good places for private for profit industry? I don't really think so. Trump then confused about children. That if we have good markets, if we have smart presidents, if we have people that know what they're doing like Scott and all of the people that are so, that work so hard, uh, you know, All of these child, so children, so many of these children are going to be involved with

the Trump account. They're going to watch all of these childs will be involved. And then Trump with one of these desperate pleas, I wish Gavin Newsom would call me. I wish J.B Pritzker would call me. I wish the governor of New York whose name, I guess he can't remember, would call me because of crime. Now remember that crime is declining precipitously in a lot of these places, including California. We remove them. And I wish Los Angeles. I wish Gavin Newsom would call me. Call me. I wish Governor Priscoe would call me. Call. I wish the governor of New York would

call me. They have tremendous crime and all of them. And they would have, they would go just like Washington. We have the men. We have unlimited number of great men. You know, one. You know, if I were Gavin Newscum or J.B. Pritzker or Kathy Hokel, I'd be saying keep Trump and his troops far away from my state. The further away they are, the better we're going to do. And then Trump wrapping up in a very cool way, I think you probably know what it is. And again, thank you all very much. Have a good lunch. Should we put on a little music? Yes. This way you don't have to talk to each other. You just have to listen to music. So we're going to put on a little music, the Trump playlist, okay? And we'll have a little fun. Again, thank you all. This is really a very,

I think a historic moment in a sense, but it's going to be really great. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. What a what a great event, huh? Dear God, we are really in for it. If we can't excise this protuberance that is Magatrumism, when this whole, horrible thing is finally over. He is barely able to communicate and it's getting much worse. Now, on the bonus show today, speaking of excising this fiasco, we're going to talk about the cash hoarding that is happening by Trump. And Republicans are like, we need that damn money to get ourselves reelected. Give us the money. A man also sues DHS after agents tracked him down for an email. And Trump says 500,000 children are receiving their first $1,000, $1,000.

Trump account deposits. All of that and much more on today's bonus show. I'll see you then.