The David Pakman Show - Pentagon runs out of cash, Trump runs out of excuses

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Pat Ford, producer of The David Pakman Show, fills in for David -- Donald Trump hosts Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, avoids war timeline questions, and invents the phrase "kill them like they're candy" -- Steve Scalise cites Olive Garden's promotional pass rules for unlimited pasta to advocate for strict voter identification laws -- Donald Trump posts to Truth Social about travel to Lebanon while defending Benjamin Netanyahu from arrest warrants -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asks Congress for emergency defense funding as military conflict costs exhaust reserves -- Darline Graham Nordone, Lindsey Graham's sister, is running for a full Senate term with an endorsement from Donald Trump -- Laura Ingraham warns that the war in Iran threatens Republicans' chances in the upcoming midterm elections -- On the Bonus Show: A MAGA golfer threatens to get Trump involved in a penalty decision, Trump is sitting on a massive midterm war chest, and much more... 👔 Southern Gents: Use code PAKMAN for 10% off your entire order at https://s-gents.com 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.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) Trump avoids Iran war questions (17:14) Congressman says ID is required to buy pasta (25:31) Trump's latest social media tirade (33:26) Hegseth asks for more Iran war money (40:45) Lindsey Graham's sister wants a full Senate term (47:18) Laura Ingraham wants Trump out of Iran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Via rail, love the way. Hello and welcome to the David Packman Show. I'm producer Pat Ford filling in for David today. David is coming home from a big podcast appearance. He did yesterday. He's going to tell you all about it on the show tomorrow. But here I am today to present today's show. We have a lot of fascinating stories.

We're going to delve into. We're going to talk about this congressman who claims that you need ID to buy pasta at Olive Garden. We're going to talk about Pete Hegsef giving this disastrous testimony in front of Congress. And I want to start today by talking about Donald Trump, who hosted the Lebanese president in the Oval Office, and just how evasive, how deflective he was. So Trump fielded questions from reporters in the Oval Office. Obviously, these questions can be about any topic, but at the top of mind right now is the Iran War,

which has started up again in full force. We're seeing more American troops dead. We're seeing prices soaring. A reporter asked Trump how much longer he needs in order to ensure that the strait of Hormuz can be open, that ships can go through there without the risk of getting attacked. The reporter even provides the scenario that I understand you may not be able to get to a ceasefire or end the war anytime soon, but at the very least, when can you ensure that ships can start

going through the straight of Hormuz? And this is how Trump decides to handle the question. Thank you, Mr. President. If the Iranians do not make a deal, ultimately, how long will it take for you to stamp out their threats to the straight and enable full shipping. So if we left right now, it would take around 20, 25 years to rebuild. Okay? And we're not finished at all. But if we left right now, it would take them a long time, years, years to rebuild. But we're not leaving right now. So we've had a big impact on Iran.

Right. So notice how Donald Trump does not answer the question here. He was asked, how long is it going to take before ships can go through the Strait of Hormuz safely without fear of being attacked? And instead he answered the question how long before Iran rebuild its infrastructure. So Trump clearly taking liberty here on the question and answer session and answering a question that he felt a lot more comfortable answering, but not the one that was asked of him. Then Trump has asked what the plan is because it seems Iran doesn't have any motivation to stop the war effort, really. Things have been going more so in their direction than that of the United States. And here is Trump employing a few different logical fallacies, but the main one is appeal to ignorance. I'll play the clip here and then we'll see if we can identify it and then I'll discuss what exactly I mean.

Mr. President, there are no signs that Iran is ready to stop fighting. So, so what is the plan? Is the plan to just keep bombing until they give up? There are no signs? What, do you know something that I don't know? Well, they continue to attack our allies and kill America. what the dialogue is behind the scenes that they want to meet desperately to try and end it because they're getting decimated. You don't get that when you listen to your fake station, but you don't know,

you don't know anything. So talks are still possible? Like, do you know something I don't know? Well, tell us? I will tell you they want to desperately meet and until they're ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in even. So Trump is obviously in a corner here. He doesn't want to answer the question. So what does he do? He uses the fact that he's president and the idea that he must have access to information that this mere reporter doesn't have as a way to prove that he is right in his mind. Of course, this is logically fallacious. Trump is using the absence of the journalist's knowledge as proof that she is wrong. But of course, you can't even engage with the argument. You can't even engage with the claims that Trump is making if he just says, well,

it's classified and I'm privy to all this information that you're not. Next up, we have Trump being asked about the impact of the war on the midterms. And I think there are a few different schools of thought when it comes to this, a lot of different opinions about what Trump thinks about the upcoming midterms. So let's play the clip and then we'll explore some of those different ideas. Do you believe that Iran is trying to impact the midterm elections by threatening the street of horrors? They won't have any impact on me. I'm just going to do the right thing.

I don't view it as, gee, we're having an election in a period of time. You know, everyone says, oh, I'm doing something before. Now, the election, I can't think about that having to do with this. I think people are very impressed. I mean, we took over Venezuela. We now have a great relationship with Venezuela. We went to war with Venezuela, and the war ended in one day. So is Iran using the fact that there are midterms in the U.S. to their advantage?

Of course they are. Is this something that's a big disadvantage for Trump and Republicans who wage this war effort? Of course it is, especially because Iran doesn't have to worry about midterms. They don't have such a thing over there. So there's that aspect to it. But there's also the question about whether Trump even cares all that much about these midterms. Because we have to remember that at the end of the day, Trump's name is not on the ballot. And he's certainly not acting like someone whose name is on the ballot. But a lot of actions that he's taken as president, especially in the second go-around, have been via executive order. He knew at some point that he wasn't going to be able to get rid of the filibuster. So even though he had a control of the House and Senate, he didn't have enough votes in the Senate to do what he really wanted to do.

So he did what he could and has been doing what he can with executive orders. But he also realizes that if Democrats were to take back control of the House or the House and Senate even, it's going to diminish his power, but he's still going to be able to do a lot of things unilaterally. And I think that that may just be enough for him and his ego. Now, of course, Congress is important. I'm not short-changing Congress and the importance of that. We need to make sure that we get control of the House and Senate because then we can have control of committees, we can have investigative. power. We can bring people in for testimony and subpoena people. We can stop Trump's judicial nominees. But I think that Trump has assessed that the ship has sailed when it comes to the midterms.

He's at the very least going to lose the house and he's going to feel content with the power that he still has. That's my take on it. If you think I'm crazy, let me know. And then of course there are also people who hear me say this and say, well, you know, of course he's acting nonchalant about it because he has a plan which is to suppress the vote and put in things in place that will make it so he'll be able to rig the election or at the very least cast doubt in the election if democrats end up winning so there's that aspect to it too and that very well may be the case um there's also this additional explanation that other people could uh raise which is that he's so far cognitively gone and so isolated informationally that he thinks that he's super popular and that this uh war

is super popular and talking about the 2020 election conspiracy theories is super popular. So no matter what he does, he's going to be a-okay and Republicans will just sweep the midterms anyway. I don't know if even he believes that at this point, but that's another take that someone could have. Next up, we have Trump coining a phrase. We may need to put this one on the soundboard, I think, because this is really an original one. Take a look at this one. I put a couple of them up today. Young kids, they kill them. They kill them like their, like their candy. It's crazy what they do. They treat them so badly.

They're just killing people just at random. Over 52,000 people, and nobody talks about it. Yeah, I've heard the expression, kill them with kindness. I've heard the expression handing it out like candy or I've heard what else, taking candy from a baby. But I've never heard this one. I've never heard kill them like their candy. That's certainly a new one.

I think a new one that Trump came up with. Next, Trump says that he's going to do it. to attend the dignified transfer of the two soldiers who were killed in the war. However, Trump can't bring himself to say exactly that that's what he's going to do. He alludes to it, he suggests it, but he doesn't actually say that's why I'm going to Dover. It's to accept the remains of the fallen service people who died because of the war of choice I decided to get the U.S. involved in. I'll be going to Dover for something that I feel is, is a good job. it's a great honor for me to do it.

These are people that want it and they feel like I do that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. It's a very simple dictum. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. And they won't have. They're not going to, they have no chance of having a nuclear weapon. And then here's Pete Hegeseth saying that he's also going to Dover.

Also Pete Hegeseth alludes to the fact that there's some business to be handled over there, but he doesn't say exactly what it is. Just how we're doing, generally speaking. Well, it'll be an honor as well to be. to join you at Dover to recognize these incredible Americans, committed to the cause just like you are. Something no president's been willing to do. 47 years, they build up a conventional capability like the North Koreans did. Remember that's how North Korea made their way to a bomb.

So much weaponry that no one was willing to stand up to them. You know, if Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth thought that this war was worth fighting in, they would be a lot more willing to just lay their cards on the table, I think, and speak plainly about what took place. they'd be a lot more willing to just say, yes, there are members of the military who are paying the ultimate sacrifice, but it's for a good reason because we have to accomplish our military objectives, and this is a fight that the American people support. But of course, they can't say all that stuff because the American people don't support this, and it's not a worthy cause. And deep down, they know it. They at the very least know that it's unpopular.

And so they can't even bring themselves to say what they have to go to Dover for because they, I think in Pete Hegeset's case, feel ashamed. And in Donald Trump's case, he knows that it's unpopular. And the American public don't want to hear about American service members dying in this thing. Next, we have Trump talking about the glory days, it seems, going back to the very beginning of 2026 when he was easily able to kidnap Nicolas Maduro and bring him here to the United States to face drug charges, essentially. doing regime change over in Venezuela. He's reminiscing on how that was so easy comparatively to the situation that we have now in Iran. I think people are very impressed. I mean, we took over Venezuela. We now have a great relationship with Venezuela. We went to war with Venezuela, and the war ended in one day. And we have now an incredible relationship with Venezuela.

We're taking out millions of barrels of oil. Yeah, it's funny how you can have a great relationship with a country after you take it over and essentially replace their leadership. Trump acting like that's a surprising thing. And then we have Trump talking about his decision to impose tariffs on Canada to the tune of 50%. Really just on a whim. Here is Donald Trump just saying, yeah, it's retaliation over not just the wildfires or not the wildfires specifically, but lots of things that have been happening. The Canada terrorists.

What are those a response to the wildfires in? No. No, no, no. That's separate. We're looking at that separately. And what, is there anything Canada can do? The only response to the way they've treated our farmers and our people. Canada's been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president's done anything about it. I love Canada. I love the people of Canada. Many friends that live in Canada, but their leadership from Trudeau to the current leadership, I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Oh, yes, that all sounds very, very thought out, very well researched.

It sounds like something that Trump is not going to talk a one in two weeks time after he has a very good and productive conversation with Mark Carney. And after he and his friends have made enough trading on this news that he ultimately backs off from, this of course sounds exactly like the type of thing that Trump is going to taco on. So we'll follow up on this in a little bit because it does seem like he's not going to stick to these 50% tariffs with Canada. Next we have Donald Trump talking about that primetime address that he did last week about so-called election integrity and the midterm elections. And he made the claim during that address, of course, that China interfered in the 2018 midterms in the 2020 election. And he uses that as justification to push the Save America Act. Well, a reporter asks, you know, given this information about China interfering supposedly in our elections, are we using, and we're using that as justification to do all these things that you want to do with our voting systems, are we going to hold China accountable in some way? What's our response going to be, given the fact that they essentially attacked our sovereign electoral process? Well, Trump, we know, is a very vindictive guy, right? I mean, he just decided to slap tariffs on Canada for seemingly no reason, after all. So you have to expect he's going to do something severe against China, right? Well, no.

It turns out that Trump thinks that this happened a long time ago, so we don't have to worry about it anymore. Mr. President, are you planning on putting any pressure or consequences on China for what you announced about them meddling in the 2020 election? Well, we're going to talk to them about it. It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then. But look, they do things and we do things to them. I'll be honest. We do things to them, too. It's not a one-way street. But we'll be talking to them. Yeah. Yes, so according to Donald Trump, this election integrity issue is the most important issue facing Americans. It's more important than housing and affordability. And Americans have it backwards when they think it's those other things like housing and affordability that are actually the top priorities.

It's actually election integrity, according to Trump. We need to overhaul our election systems. We need voter ID. We need to make it so that the federal government, not the states, are in charge of elections, all these things that they want to do. but also the underlying basis for all of these things happened a while ago. They happened in like 2018, 2020. That's too long ago to even pay attention to. So we're just not going to go after the perpetrators.

We're not going to sanction them. We're not going to investigate any of that any further. Certainly not in a criminal context. We're just going to implement all these changes and we'll be done with it. Yeah, that doesn't sound very believable to me. And I hope it doesn't sound very believable to many in the American public. But you never know. They did, after all, decide to elect this guy president two different times.

All right. That'll do it for this segment of the show. But we have so much more coming up right after the break. Let's talk about suits for a moment. Guys want to look sharp for weddings or work or dinner or just you don't want to wear jeans one day. But finding menswear that feels classic, modern, and comfortable is pretty difficult. This is why I like our sponsor, Southern Jents. Southern Jents offers refined menswear. They've got suits and blazers, trousers, dress shirts, loafers, all the finishing touches. They've got a great suit collection with single-breasted and double-breasted options. Maybe you need something polished for business or you've got a summer wedding. Southern Jens has what you need. I got a great single-breasted blazer and pant combo. Perfect for a summer wedding I'm going to. The ordering is really straightforward.

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And I've had it for years. It's in perfect condition. I'm far from needing to replace it. Go to HelixSleep.com slash Pacman for 27% off site wide, a discount they are only offering to my audience. The link is in the description. How in the heck did this member of Congress think this was a good argument? I'm Pat Ford filling in for David Pakman today.

David is coming back from a trip he did to California to do a podcast appearance that you're all going to be hearing about on tomorrow's show, I'm sure. And for today's show, I'm the one filling in. I'm usually behind the scenes. I'm also on the bonus show every day with David. So we have a lot of show still to get to. I wanted to talk next about Steve Scalise, long-time member of Congress. In fact, the House Majority Leader who has just about the dumbest argument imaginable when it comes to this voter ID issue. He, I guess, thinks this is a good one.

He says that you have to show your ID to get pasta at Olive Garden. Therefore, we should have ID for voting in the United States. That's what Steve Scalise believes. He says that when you sit down and you get your Fetuccini Alfredo at Olive Garden, or you get maybe your lasagna or your chicken and shrimp carbonara or whatever the hell you're getting for your pasta, maybe just your spaghetti with meat sauce and I don't know. I like the pesto myself. He says that you need to show ID in order to do that.

Here is Steve Scalise making an absolute fool of himself saying that that is how it works over at Olive Garden. Show and picture ID to vote. Not a complicated subject. Again, anybody that gets on an airplane has to show a picture ID to vote. Nowadays, if you want to go to Olive Garden and get unlimited pasta, you got to show a picture ID. This isn't complicated stuff. Yet every Democrat is against these basics. things. Why? The only reason you can be against that is if you want voter fraud. Yes, I'm sure the next

thing that the Democrats are going to do is make it so that you have to show ID to get dessert over at Chili's in order to get the chocolate molten lava cake or the, you know, that chocolate chip cookie they put in the skillet. You're going to have to show ID before you can do that. The Democrats are going to be all in support of that. Yeah, this is a really bad argument made by Steve Scalise here. I don't think a very convincing one. He must have thought it was a good one. but maybe there was the possibility he realized after it wasn't such a great argument. No, actually, he decided to say it again on national television. Here he is on CNBC making the exact same point that you have to show ID in order to get pasta at Olive Garden,

therefore you should show ID to vote. When you think about something like Save America, which is at the heart of democracy, just saying show picture ID to vote, for God's sake, you can't go get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID. Why not be able to show a picture ID to vote the franchise of American democracy and the Senate can't get 60 votes to move it? So what exactly is going on here? Where did this come from? Well, Olive Garden brought back a popular promotion offering 10,000 lucky customers, 13 weeks of unlimited pasta for $100, which I've got to say sounds like an incredible deal. No wonder they have to limit it to 10,000 customers. When a user on social media asked if the single pass, could be shared among the whole family, Olive Garden replied that the passes are personalized. So no, they're non-transferable passes. The pass holders must also show a valid ID along with the pass in order to show that it's you who is the owner of the pass.

So this is not just like a standard dining thing where you show up and you want to get your chicken parm and they say, where's your ID, sir, as if you were buying like a Manhattan cocktail. You know, this is for a specific promotional deal and Olive Garden wants to make sure. sure that people aren't taking too much advantage of it. They want to make sure that people aren't abusing it. So this isn't the first time that right wingers have taken a grain of truth and blown it up way out of proportion to the point where it's so clearly a lie. And it's also not the first time that Republicans have made outrageous comparisons when it comes to this voter ID issue and what you need an ID to do versus not do in this country. Trump on a number of occasions has said that you need an

ID to buy groceries. You go to the grocery store, you go to the gas station. They ask you for ID. Here's one such example of him doing that saying that you need an ID to buy bread at the grocery store in this country, but you don't need an ID to vote. I saw on a television, one of these characters, there shouldn't be voter ID. You know, you have voter ID to buy a loaf of bread. You have, you have ID to buy a loaf of bread. You have everything. You have pictures. When they had. So, right-winger's love to make these arguments about how you need an ID to do everything in this country. You need an ID to drive, to buy alcohol, to get on a plane, to even get bread at the grocery store, according to Trump, and to buy pasta at Olive

Garden, according to Steve's police. But what they don't tell you is that those things, whether they be driving a car or buying pasta at Olive Garden, are privileges. They're not rights. They're not rights that the government is duty-bound to not infringe upon, like the other rights that we have in the Constitution. Driving is a privilege, flying on a plane is a privilege. all these things are privileges, voting is a right. In the Constitution, you cannot be denied the right to vote based on race, color, gender, or age if you're over 18. There can't be poll taxes, which, by the way, this issue of voter ID overlaps with to a great degree because you often need money in order to get that ID in the first place.

Or if you don't need money to get the ID, you often need money to get the documents in order to put yourself in a position to get that ID in the first place. So the Constitution doesn't mention Olive Garden, I hate to say it, but they do mention voting quite a lot. And if Steve's Glees wants to stay consistent on this, another way to go about doing that is to push for a constitutional amendment to make it so that Olive Garden can't do this sort of thing. So I am going to hear and now present a possible 28th amendment to the United States Constitution. I shall read it for you. It goes as follows. Congress shall make no law, nor shall any state or private enterprise enforce any regulation abridging the right of the people to freely order or consume pasta, nor shall any person be required to present a photo identification to access breadsticks or the never-ending pasta bowl. So I'm hoping that in 200 years time, people aren't debating over the commas and the specific grammar things that I've put in this amendment.

I hope it's as clear as possible. can get this thing through Congress. It sounds like it's a big priority for Steve Scalise, so maybe he'll support this and we'll get it through the Senate and the House with the two-thirds majorities we need and then the three-fourths of the state legislatures in order to make this a constitutional amendment. Little bonus clip for you all. Here is Steve Scalise calling Democrats communists, which is what Republicans always do. I was going to say, well, this is what Republicans do when their backs are up against the wall when they know that they're going to lose in the upcoming elections, but really is what they just always do, whether they're winning or losing.

Let's take a look at Steve Scalese talking about how communism is on the ballot this November. The Bolshevik takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing. And communism is on the ballot this November against freedom. Make no mistake about that. The lines have never been more clear in an election. It's got to be so easy to do this job, right, of being a right-wing politician. All you do is you talk. about these culture war nonsense issues you blow things up out of proportion you

make dumb arguments like this calling Democrats communists and do you pay attention to the needs of working people in this country no you totally ignore those and just accept whatever your rich buddies tell you and then if you want to leave Congress one day well then they'll give you a seven eight figure salary in order to give you a thank you for all the things that you did while you were in power so Donald Trump we know wants to pass the Save Act to ensure that we have voter integrity in this country. He says that that's a top issue. Steve Scalise and congressional Republicans are doing everything they can in order to accomplish that.

But we know that the people actually care about housing and gas and food and health care and Republicans have largely been silent on those things. They'd rather talk about ID for Linguini. Donald Trump absolutely exploded today on Truth Social. And I gotta say, it is remarkable how much this guy posts, how much time he must waste posting all. all this nonsense to social media, even if he's just doing a lot of reposting or it's actually someone else who's typing up the post.

It's like this guy is just wasting so much time. If it was the average person you would want to have an intervention with them to tell them to deal with their social media addiction. Here is the president of the United States just spending hour after hour posting to truth social and stuff that's not even all that important either. Stuff about how, you know, the World Cup was so great, and he posted this video where he edited out the awkward moments of him presenting the World Cup trophy. He tweeted out some endorsement of Mike Pillow, who's running for governor of Minnesota. Of course, that candidacy is going nowhere.

And he's also tweeting out policy changes like this troth here. Here is one of the posts from Trump. After meeting with the president of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, who has done a remarkable job working to transform his country. I am hereby directing my administration to allow U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land. Hopefully other countries will do the same. Enjoy President Donald J. Trump. So Trump is encouraging Americans to visit Lebanon, but the State Department still has a level for do not travel advisory for Lebanon. There's obviously the active conflicts going on there at this moment.

And the U.S. has had a ban on direct flights for the past 40 years. Trump deciding that now is the right time to reverse that. And obviously Trump can't force U.S. airlines like Delta or United or Americans who schedule routes. And I'm not sure they're going to be all that willing to do that, especially knowing that the policy may just change again in two years when someone else is president. But here is Donald Trump saying that he is doing this thing. And it's very, very important. Next, we have Trump comparing Iran and the casualties that we've seen there thus far to other wars in America's history, basically saying that this one, isn't as bad as the other ones. Afghanistan war 20 years, 2,000 dead. Iraq war, nine years, 4,600 dead. Vietnam War 19 years and five months, 58, 220 dead. Korean War, three years and one month, 36,574 dead. Venezuela War, one day, zero dead.

And the Iran military conflict, four months, 18 dead. Mind you, when he says dead, he's only talking about American service members. He's not talking about the civilians who are losing, their lives over in Iran. So of course, these were very different types of wars. You have a lot of examples on this list being ground invasions and peer-to-peer combat type warfare, whereas you have targeted strikes and drone warfare

in this scenario. But also the argument that this Iran war is just a few months old, therefore you can't criticize it. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because at one point, those other wars also were just a few months old. And obviously they went on for way too long, and they became quagmires that we couldn't so easily

get ourselves. out of. Next up, there's this story about New York City Mayor Zora Maldani wanting to see Benjamin Netanyahu detained if he decides to go to New York to speak at the UN because the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against him. Now, it's a very legally dubious thing because under U.S. law, the mayor of New York City doesn't have the authority to carry out such an arrest and, in fact, federal law prohibits local enforcement from cooperating with the international criminal court. However, Netanyahu is really not the guy that you want to go to bat for and Trump is willing to defend him in this truth social post saying that no he doesn't belong in prison here is Trump saying that you know even though he tricked me

into this war in Iran even though he fooled me into going into this thing that I'm having a very difficult time dealing with politically and otherwise I'm still going to back up Netanyahu and say that he's not going to get arrested if he decides to go to New York to speak at the UN. So this is the truth social post. Donald Trump saying, Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested in any way, shape, or form while in the United States of America. He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protesters and has spent the last 47 years killing American soldiers and others. The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented spiral of death and destruction and something that should have been dealt with years ago by previous president's

President Donald J. Trump. Next up, we have some fearmongering from Trump about rich people leaving blue cities, as if that's supposed to have us shaking in our boots, this idea that, oh, no, what if all the rich people leave? And then, what, I don't know, housing will become more affordable? Here is Donald Trump saying that it's going to be a big disaster for the blue cities once all the rich people leave, because then you're just going to be left with the ghettos. He says, rich people and companies are pouring out of Democrat run blue states at levels never seen before. If this trend continues, these states will become the, quote, ghettoes of the future.

No people, no money, no hope. Make America great again, President Donald J. Trump. So, of course, this is Donald Trump's way of being racist, not so subtly. It's him saying that once all the business leaders leave, well, then you're just going to be left with a bunch of ghettos, which is Donald Trump's way of saying black and brown people, essentially. Finally, we have this final truth social post from Trump here, and he actually manages to get something right, which is to troth out something positive about making daylight saving time permanent. Trump said in a truth social post why permanent daylight saving time might be better for your health,

linking to this New York Post article. And yes, I got to say it, it's very rare, but I do agree with Tunnel Trump on this one. We should make daylight saving time permanent. There are so many benefits to it, and certainly I think the benefits outweigh the downsides to it. We want to make it so that during the winter months, it's lighter out later into the day. I don't need it to be light out when it's like 6 a.m. And I'm not even up yet. I need it to be light out when it's like six in the afternoon.

I don't like when it gets dark at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, whatever. So we want to make daylight saving time permanent and Trump is in support of that. That's a good thing. The House passed legislation to do so. The Senate is still sitting on its hands, but maybe they'll get around to it. We'll see and then Trump can sign it into law. A rare moment of me agreeing with something that Trump is pushing for on truth social. All right, let's go to a break, but we have plenty more of the David

Packman show coming up after this. I'm Pat Ford filling in for David today. If you get scam calls, texts or emails, you know, people just trying to sell you stuff or sending you sketchy messages. This isn't happening by accident because your name, phone number, email, home address, relatives, job history can just be sitting there in a public database and then marketers can get access to it, scammers, different companies, and then they target you. What our sponsor in Cogni does is just get rid of all that information. from the corners of the internet where scammers get it. And this includes people search sites, online directories, data broker lists. Incogni will send removal requests to hundreds of notorious

sites and they'll keep just following up. And if your data comes back, they'll get it removed again. What I think is the best is the custom removals feature. This is with the unlimited plan. Sometimes you might find your information somewhere else. Some one-off directory or a search result or a business database. You can paste that link into Incogni and they'll get to work right away to get it taken down. Removing your info from these databases means it's harder for scammers and identity thieves to reach you and you can get 60% off an annual plan at incogni.com slash Pacman with the code Pacman. The link is in the description. Welcome back to the David Packman show. Everybody, I'm Pat Ford filling in for David today. He'll be back with us tomorrow. Well, the US Defense

Department, they say that they're running out of money. Despite the fact that they have this $1.5 trillion annual budget, they can't seem to afford this war that's also not a war with Iran. The ongoing conflict with Iran has severely depleted military funds, leaving critical operations at risk of running out of money within a matter of weeks is what they tell us. Apparently, they are running out of money and we have to give them $67 billion in emergency defense funding, although the House is willing to apparently give them even more, $73 billion. So lawmakers from both parties, but especially Democrats, obviously, are frustrated by the Pentagon's failure to provide an accurate cost assessment of this war. We were told that this was going to cost a fraction of what it's already cost us, and we know that this thing could end up going on for not only months and months, but years and years.

And who knows how many trillions it could end up costing us when it's all said and done. So in comes Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News weekend host turned defense secretary, turned, I guess now war secretary as he wants to be referred to. He is there to do Trump's dirty work and to beg Congress for more money so he can ramp up the war machine. Here is Pete Hegseth opening up his testimony by presenting the idea of giving the Pentagon more money as something that's really an existential question. for the United States. We face the greatest threat today to the nation if we decide not to give the Pentagon more money is what Pete Hegeseth argues in this clip. Let's take a look at it. We know what that means, that that means $1.5 trillion, given the world that we live in and the disaster of what the Biden administration budgets gave us, not funding this department at $1.5 trillion,

I believe, is the greatest threat that our nation faces. Either we invest in our warriors at this moment of step change on the battlefield and growing threats, or this is all just talk. Yeah, so Hegsteth feels as though if we talk a bunch of crap, we got to be able to back it up. Well, you know, regardless of if that's the case, Trump and you certainly didn't have to talk all that crap to begin with. Maybe we could have just not done that,

and then we wouldn't have to follow through in your view with military action. Next up, we have Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossif, just absolutely tearing in to, Pete Hegseth using his own words against him because Trump and Hegseth and all these Trump administration officials love to have it both ways. But if you just play back their own words from a few weeks ago, a few months ago, then they end up looking like fools because they're constantly contradicting themselves. Here is John Ossov putting on a masterclass, really cornering Pete Hegseth here.

But their case, Mr. Secretary, you stated that on day 14 of this conflict in the second week of the conflict. You stated that Iran's military had been, quote, destroyed and, quote, made combat ineffective. Was that an accurate statement? Yes or no? Iran's ability to challenge the United States of America at the level of which we're capable of. That's not what I asked, Mr. Secretary. You said on day 14 Iran's military had been, quote, destroyed and, quote, made combat ineffective. Yes or no, was that an accurate statement? What the American military has done to the Iranian military is a historic military defeat. Will you answer the question?

Under oath? So Pete Hegseth is so obviously in a pickle here because he can either decide to stand by his statements from before and go along with this narrative of we're crushing Iran and they have no Navy left. They have no Air Force left. And we're just completely dominating them and they're begging for mercy. He can stand by all that stuff. but then it's really hard to make the pitch that you need $67 billion to fund the war effort. So that's why he's trapped between a rock and a hard place. And so he's trying to get as clever as he possibly can with it.

But John Ossuff is just not letting him get away with it and making it clear that it's obvious that Pete Hexeth is not answering the question. And then there was this glorious moments from the testimony involving Connecticut's Chris Murphy, who asked about Trump's private jet that he got from Qatar, the bribe that he got from, guitar really because this thing is supposed to end up in Trump's presidential library once he has a presidential library. And here is Pete Heggseth being asked about it. Chris Murphy has a bunch of questions about it, including can we ensure that this does not just end up being something that Trump privately owns? And Pete Heggseth scurries around this question yet again. I think there are two really important questions here. One, will you make public the amount of money that you are

spending to upgrade this plane? And two, can you commit to this Congress and this committee that the president isn't going to take this plane with him when he leaves office? The only thing more insulting to the taxpayers of spending money on a jet they don't need would be for the president to take it with him, to take it out of our military inventory when he leaves office. say the air force has done an incredible job making that a capable jet that ultimately but its capabilities and investment are classified and shouldn't be talked about it's not what i'm asking considering the amount of money will you disclose the amount of money publicly i would i would imagine as part of the regular budget process that's something that we would look at and will you commit that the

president will not but you have to look at the classification level of certain things that are not devolved for reasons of national security. Will you commit that the president will not take this jet with him out of federal inventory when he leaves office? That's not a decision for necessarily me to make, and ultimately, we're grateful to have it in the fleet with the Air Force to protect the President of United States. That's a deeply unsatisfactory answer to the American public. Yes, of course. It's a matter of national security, whether a president can take personal ownership of a plane that was gifted to him from a foreign government once he's no longer president, whether he can take that military jet with him, that the taxpayers put a bunch of money in to make it so that it

could be used as Air Force one to begin with. Yeah, that is convincing to absolutely no one, but this is the get out of jail free card that they often use the its classified excuse. And, you know, it's perfect for these Pentagon officials who are trapped in a corner. They act as though, oh, I'll tell you about this later, Senator behind closed doors, but just not right now, not in this very public setting. It's a national security issue whether Trump can take private ownership of this plane when he's no longer in office. He can't answer the question, folks. He can talk about trans people and how he doesn't want them in the military. He can talk about all these things, DEI and testosterone levels for young men in the military and how they should be on TRT if they need it.

But he can't talk about anything having to do with the Iran War and he can't talk about Trump's new Arab Force 1. He doesn't have the answers to those questions, but all those other culture war things he's willing to talk about. We told you last week about how the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham was chosen to fill his Senate seat until his term ends in January. And we were saying, you know, this is just straight up nepotism. Obviously, the only reason that Darlene Graham Nordone was chosen to fill the seat is because she was Graham's sister. And the idea is this is a way to pay homage to Graham and to honor his legacy by allowing his sister to serve out the term. But if there was any silver lining to the nepotism, it was that it was just for a few months, right?

It was between now until the term ends in January. And then Graham was actually supposed to be up for re-election in November. So the idea is Darlene will finish out this term. And then Republicans in South Carolina will have an opportunity to have a contest to choose their next senator. Maybe it'll be Ralph Norman who they go with. Hopefully they don't go with someone crazy like that, but maybe they'll go with someone more reasonable. Who knows?

Maybe they would go with someone like a Nancy Mace who had just recently lost the governor's race there. But now it looks like the next senator is going to be, drum roll please, Darlene Graham Nordone herself. It is likely going to be her because not only has she announced that she's going to be running for the full six-year term,

She also has received the endorsement from President Donald Trump, and so that could mean that other candidates who were considering getting into the race are not going to do so anymore, and this is obviously going to challenge Trump's position as Kingmaker. We'll see how it all plays out, but ultimately, Darlene Graham Nordone, saying that, I don't want to just stay in this position for a few months to honor my brother's legacy. I want to become a senator myself. And what is qualifying her to be senator? Well, the fact that she was the sister of a longtime senator.

She also does have some resume, of course. She was the South Carolina Commission for the Blind Commissioner and Agency head for a good period of time from 2019 to 2026. And obviously, that's honorable work. There's no doubt about that. But it's not something that you necessarily associate with a, stepping stone for a U.S. Senator. I'm not trying to, you know, gatekeep who could be a lawmaker and who can't be and all that stuff. I think people from all different walks of life should

be willing and encouraged to run for office. I think we need more teachers and firefighters and fewer lawyers and venture capitalists running for office. I just don't think that the place to start is with Darlene Graham Nordone, who is only in this position in the first place because her last name or one of her last names is Graham and she's of course the sister of the now deceased Lindsay Graham despite the experience gap despite the fact that she's now likely going to be the next senator representing South Carolina Sean Hannity is trying to gas her up and say that she is actually quite qualified and she has a lot of relevant experience you've had your own life and success and Friday you have been the commission of South Carolina's commission

for the blind. He's held this position since 2019. It's a 130-person agency. $90 million budget you ran. Ten offices across South Carolina. Agency committed to helping individuals that are blind or low vision, find employment, support their families, live independently.

The leader in this field who were elected, you know, as I guess the national upcoming leader of the president of the association, the National Association of agencies will bind. You have a lot of experience because that's a serious budget for any one individual. A lot of employees. Very important work, absolutely.

Oh, yes, of course, Sean Hannity just completely beside himself talking about Darlene's level of experience. This is the same guy, mind you, who 20 years ago, I remember, was talking about how Barack Obama didn't have the experience to be presidents of the United States because, sure, while he was a U.S. and he was a state senator in Illinois before that, and he was a community organizer before that.

That just wasn't enough experience to be president in Sean Hannity's mind, but Darlene, she has enough experience because she was the chief of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind. Give me a break. Now, another thing that's interesting about Darlene is that it's only been a few days we don't fully know what she's going to be all about as a senator,

but she certainly doesn't seem to have the same foreign policy focus, policy focus that Lindsay had. She seems to be a lot more focused on everyday domestic issues. In fact, during this same interview, she said, quote, Lindsay, I used to talk, I used to see him on the talk shows. I would watch him and I'd be like, Lindsay, are you just talking about national security all the time? And I understand that's important protecting our borders, national security. But talk about also what matters to the average person, the price of groceries, the price of gas, health care insurance, those kinds of things, that's what I'm worried about. So all that stuff sounds good, especially because the American people say that that's their top focus right now, all those

things that she mentioned. But does that mean she's actually going to do good things and support actual changes that are going to make people better off when it comes to those different things? Not necessarily, we don't know, because Republicans never seem to have any solutions for any of those issues. And when they do pretend as though they have solutions for them, they're really just ways to bring about tax cuts for the rich and deregulation. So we'll see what ends up happening if indeed she gets elected senator there. First, she has to get through the primary. Democrats are putting up an alternative, of course. That's Dr. Annie Andrews. So it's good to know that there are alternatives to voting for Lindsey Graham's sister and any other crazy right-wingerers who may end up

entering this race. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program, and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. Welcome back to the David Packman Show. I'm producer Pat Ford filling in for David today. He'll be back with us in studio tomorrow.

Fox News is Laura Ingraham is apparently sick of covering for Donald Trump's disastrous war in Iran. She must not be wanting to talk about it all that much anymore, especially night after night on her Fox News program. But it's kind of one of those things you have to talk about when the president decides to wage a war in a foreign country that is capable of resisting for a long period of time. So we have Laura Ingram saying that we got to get out of this thing. It's time to wrap it up because we have the midterms coming up. And this could be the type of thing that costs Republicans the midterms. She says that the clock is ticking for Trump to get out of there and resolve this thing. So will Trump take the message?

Probably not. But here is at least the argument that she laid out. And with the midterm elections a little more than 100 days away, the clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls. It's making a lot of Republicans nervous. It's already, as we know, unpopular. According to the New Washington Post, Ipsos polls, 69% of Americans disapprove of the handling of this conflict. Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction, especially if they want to win in November. So I can't believe, first of all, that 29% of American support Trump's Iran policy.

I can't believe it's that high because, yes, I know that Trump's approval rating is somewhere in the 30s, But you'd have to imagine that this Iran war is among the most unpopular things that he's done in his presidency. So even the people who generally support him maybe wouldn't support this war, but it still has 29% approval, his handling of the war. And that is just absolutely surprising to me, especially given the fact that you'd think there'd be a lot of people who supported the war, but are upset with Trump that he hasn't been aggressive enough, or at the very least that we haven't been able to achieve the military objectives that we set out to achieve. including regime change. You think there would be some people in there who are otherwise Trump supporters and warhawks, but disapprove of Trump's Iran policy for that reason. But nevertheless, 29% is still enough for Laura Ingraham to say that it's time to bring an end to this Iran war,

Donny boy, otherwise it's going to cost you the midterms. And, you know, at this point, we've gone through basically every iteration of this war. It was a hot war, and then it was cold for a while. There was the ceasefire. There was the opening and closing and opening and closing of the Strait of Hormuz and all the global disruptions, the stock market going up and down and up and down. We've been through it all at this point, it seems. And we've also gone through a period of time where everyone was saying that Trump lost the war, even Republicans who were upset that he didn't continue it. We're saying that this kind of looks like defeat.

It looks like surrender. We're not, at the very least, ending up at a better situation than we were in when we had the Obama. Iran deal. So a lot of people were saying this is a big L for Trump. Laura Ingram has taken a look at all these different iterations, right? She's taken a look at the possible outcome of this war being Trump holding up this big L for the Republican Party. And she says that that is actually preferable to Trump getting stuck in this forever war in Iran, just continuing this thing forever. She says that that's ultimately going to be worse for Republicans. And I think she's absolutely right with that assessment.

I think that that's what she's thinking about when it comes to this. And I don't think it's really having all that much of an effect on Trump because he was asked about it in the Oval Office, not Laura Ingraham's commentary specifically, but this idea about whether he's considering the midterms in his Iran negotiations and what he plans to do next there. And he says that he's not considering that. But that's also kind of what you have to say. I do think there's maybe the possibility he's considering it. as we talked about before, but Laura Ingraham says that he should be considering it a whole lot more. Meanwhile, over at Fox News, we have Maria Bartaromo, who is still just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

It seems she is so confused because she recognizes that, on the one hand, Trump says that he wiped out the Iranian military, but yet she also sees that the war is continuing. So she's like, what's going on here? How come we need more money to fight the war if we are. took out their Navy and their Air Force and all that stuff. Here is Maria Bartaromo just confused as can be. I don't understand how it's possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases because the U.S. has obliterated Iran's military and the president continues to reiterate that. So there's a short answer to Maria

Barteromo's question and then there's a longer answer. The short answer is that Trump lies about really just about everything and he lied about this he lied about the extent to which we've been able to decimate the Iranian military but then there's also the longer answer which is that when it comes to these Middle Eastern forces like Iran like Afghanistan and Iraq before Iran they're not known for their navies or their air forces or these things that Trump likes to brag about taking out they're known for their effective ability to embed in civilian populations to network with proxy groups to disrupt supply chains and the global economy like that that's what these Middle Eastern forces are more known for that's why they're more effective military forces

so we've seen the example of them for example draining US resources by using these $20,000 drones that require two million dollar interceptor missiles to shoot down it's a way to make the war more expensive for the United States and it's something that barely costs Iran anything so it's just one example of how Trump and these Republicans miss the mark when they talk about how Iran's Navy is destroyed, their air force is destroyed, yeah, but let's actually take a look at how the war plays out and what the conflict is like day to day, and you'll see that that doesn't really seem to be all that relevant. And then finally, something that should send chills down everyone's spine.

We have retired General Rob Spalding, who appeared as a guest on Fox News, and he said that this war could go on for 20 years. Now, is he saying this as a warning? is he saying this like in the same way I do, which is that this Iranian conflict could end up going on for 20 years. So we have to make sure that we put a stop to it now. So it doesn't get to that point. No, he's nonchalantly saying, look, our other recent conflicts like Iraq, Afghanistan, they lasted something like 20 years. So what's the problem with this one lasting 20 years?

Get a load of this. No, I don't think, you know, the Pentagon has done a great job of restocking the munitions. I don't think that's an issue at all. But I do expect that we're going to be there a long time. You know, Operation Northern Southern Watch went on for, you know, almost 20 years, I think. So I think this is going to be something similar. We're going to have to stay there. Those guys aren't going to change their behavior.

We have to adapt. And I think, you know, we're going to have to get the Gulf states. And those that rely on the oil coming from the Gulf states to help pay for this. All right. So this guy is acting as though this is no big deal because we had the 20-year war in Afghanistan. We had the 20-year war in Iran. So this is just another one of those, right? It's just another 20-year conflict. Well, no, the American public, they're not used to these wars. They're not okay with these wars. They're sick of these wars. We're sick of these forever wars and Donald Trump himself campaigned against these forever wars. He said that he was going to end all the wars, but instead, of course, we've seen the exact opposite. And this is how it happens, right? It's the same pattern every single time. It's just supposed to be a few week conflict and then a few weeks turns into a few months and then that turns into a few years. Then we're talking about a few decades and you know I don't often agree with Laura Ingram but on this one I certainly agree with her

over Rob Spalding I know she wants to get out of the war to bring about a favorable result for Republicans in the midterms I just want to see peace I just want to see the tragedy over there stop obviously no matter how it ends at this point it's going to be an embarrassment to the United States but hopefully we can prevent it from getting a whole lot worse all right that's going to do it for today's episode of the David Packman show but the show continues if you a member. If you want to become a member, of course, sign up at joinpacman.com. Then you'll get access to the bonus show. On today's bonus show, we're going to be talking about the MAGA golfer, Bryson D. Shambo, who tried to get a penalty overturned. He threatened to call up

Trump to persuade the league, I guess, to overturn a penalty that didn't get, that didn't go his way. clearly inspired by the decision that Trump made to call up the FIFA president to get him to overturn the red card against the U.S. player ahead of U.S.'s game against Belgium recently. So there's that story that we're going to talk about. And then we're also going to talk about how Donald Trump is just sitting on the war chest that he has. He has this massive war chest that he should be using to spend on 2026 candidates to help them win in their midterm races. But instead he's just hoarding all the cash. he's probably going to direct it to his presidential library or something like that. So all of that and more on the bonus show today.

I'm Pat Ford filling in for David Packman. Thank you so much for watching today, and we'll see you on the bonus show.