The David Pakman Show - The economic meltdown is gaining momentum

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump escalates the conflict with Iran as a strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan energy facility sends global gas and oil prices surging -- FBI Director Kash Patel struggles through congressional questioning about firing Iran counterintelligence experts and basic voter fraud investigations, -- Donald Trump confuses economic data and makes a bizarre Pearl Harbor remark to a Japanese leader while misrepresenting the economic fallout from his Iran conflict -- Donald Trump faces rising political danger as surging oil, diesel, and fertilizer prices drive inflation across farming, transportation, and food costs that could define his presidency -- Republican donors and party figures quietly organize around Marco Rubio for 2028 as Donald Trump tests support between Rubio and JD Vance -- A Pennsylvania voter who supported Donald Trump three times now angrily denounces him over rising costs, signaling potential cracks in Trump’s loyal voter base -- A longtime conservative influencer who once backed Donald Trump declares that MAGA is dead and says she no longer recognizes the president -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The staggering costs of the war in Iran, and much more... 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/david -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:22) Trump Iran strike spikes energy(09:02) Kash Patel grilled in Congress(17:31) Trump Pearl Harbor economic confusion(25:07) Rising fuel costs threaten economy(32:36) GOP donors shift toward Rubio(38:39) Trump voter turns against him(45:31) Conservative influencer says MAGA dead(51:06) Friday Feedback segment   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are now looking at what some experts are calling the Armageddon scenario for global energy. This is after missile strikes hit a facility that supplies about a fifth of the world's gas. This is of course directly tied to the optional escalation happening under Donald Trump in Iran. Prices are spiking. We've seen shortages start. And this is going to ripple through the economy in a way that will affect every single one of us. Now we're also going to look at a moment where Donald Trump said something so bizarre to the

Japanese prime minister about Pearl Harbor that everyone looked stunned and the dementia question came up again. At the same time, Trump seems to be realizing that the situation is likely to get much worse, especially as far as gas, oil, diesel, and even fertilizer prices are concerned. And behind the scenes, there is an important shift where top Republican donors are moving away from J.D. Vance and towards Marco Rubio in thinking about 2028, this says a lot about how they see Trump's power significantly diminished. We'll also hear from some voters who voted for Trump, not once, not twice, but three times, but they are sick of him. How quickly things change.

We are now crossing into the consideration of a worst case global crisis scenario that, Experts have been warning about for years. This is optional. It's happening because Donald Trump has pushed the Iran situation and thus the energy situation to the brink. And the word Armageddon is now regularly being used. This is not a phrase that activists came up with. This was not MSNBC or some random socialist commentator.

People who analyze global energy markets for a living are looking at what's having. happening in Iran, what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, what's happening with gas, what's happening with oil, and saying that this may be getting to a point not of no return, but of no immediate return. Now, the latest escalation is that Iran has launched missile strikes on Qatar's Raslafen facility. This is one of the most important energy sites in the world, about 20% of global LNG. that's code for liquefied natural gas, 20%, one fifth of the world's LNG comes from this one place. So when that gets hit, it is a global issue.

It's not even regional. It hits the whole global energy system immediately. And that is exactly what we are seeing. Now, before even pricing that in, gas prices are now up. 44% in the last two months in the United States from 273 for a regular gallon of gas up to 392. We haven't even priced in this latest set of strikes. Similar situation in Europe where gas prices are up about 30% basically overnight. Oil is spiking and traders are now trying to figure out what is the,

What is the right price, meaning the market price, when this much of the world's supply is disrupted? And this is, forget about weeks. You know, we for a couple weeks now, I've been saying, even if Trump stops today, we're talking about months of disruption. And then we'll get into the summer high demand for gas period, et cetera. We are now starting to see a scenario take shape that could be a years-long disruption. I think a lot of people are missing this. This energy story could carry forget about into the midterms.

This could carry into the end of Donald Trump's term and play a role in the Republican and Democratic primaries of 28. Three to five years of repair is what some experts are talking about. Now, again, just like a reminder, optional. Armageddon scenario, as Trump loves to say, it never should have happened. It never should have happened. So what's next? Well, countries will have to start competing for diminished supply.

Europe needs gas. Asia needs gas. Japan, South Korea. They're all bidding against each other. Now I'm talking about liquefied natural gas, not gasoline. They all are going to be competing for more limited supply. Basic economics reminds us that that means prices go up even more. You're already seeing shortages in some places.

There are reports of factories and parts of Asia already slowing down or even shutting down. Some cases of countries actually raising the amount of coal that they are using, which is the opposite direction we should be going in. LNG is better than coal, but it's obviously much worse than renewables. And we're seeing some parts of Asia go backwards to coal. So we've got economic damage, environmental damage, political, Insanity absolute and total political insanity and it's all happening as part of this escalation that Donald Trump has chosen to do in Iran He should have known because basic foreign policy analysis tells you if you expand a regional conflict and you hit

strategic targets and you raise the stakes and possibility of a bigger confrontation at some point the response comes and when it's the response that is now affecting global energy it's no longer up to you to end it. Trump could go, it's over. And Iran will say, no, it's not. I spoke about this yesterday extensively with Steve Schmidt on his podcast. I think it was an interesting conversation. And the unfortunate thing is that energy infrastructure seems to be growing as the obvious target. And other countries, including Iran, certainly know that you can cause chaos.

You know, we talk about these scenarios. What if, what if a foreign country were able to taint our. water supply and the chaos that that would cause. Yes, and that would be extraordinarily chaotic. And similarly, other countries know if we start hitting American energy infrastructure more proactively, they are right to know and believe that that could cause a completely out of control situation here in the United States. Now, we're so far, everything I've told you right now is about this one strike affecting 20% of global liquefied natural gas production. Imagine if every other day there's a facility hit.

If there's more shipping routes like the straight of Hormuz that become either unsafe or completely impassable, we are looking at, I mean, listen, I don't like to be hyperbolic. I'm going to try to stick to what people are really saying. I mentioned this economist who was talking about $175 oil. And $175 oil implies about $7 to $8 gasoline. There are others talking about $200 plus dollar barrels of oil without saying this will happen, just kind of like pricing out the scenario. If we saw $225 oil, that would imply $8 to $9 gallons of regular gasoline in California

for premium, you could be talking about $11 or $12 of gas for a premium gallon. Nothing that the United States has seen. I mean, it would sort of be functionally equivalent to the shortages of the 1970s, more than likely. But what we are now expecting and looking towards are higher energy prices, higher electricity costs, higher food prices, supply chain problems, scarcity and shortages. And that is how the optional decision, likely illegal by Trump to go into Iran, means we all are going to get screwed. It's a chain reaction that's very difficult to contain. It's sort of like a cascade. And what we're looking at right now is the nightmare, Armageddon scenario that experts have been warning

about. Trump would be smart to end this insanity now. That won't solve the problem right away. We're probably already at the point where even if Trump stops all hostilities against Iran today, which he's not going to do, if he stops today, we're talking about months of this. We are on the precipice of this being years to recover. You know, some people wrote to me and said cash Patel is playing dumb. But I think he's actually dumb. And we are now wondering, is Trump going to have to fire his deranged FBI director for this? This exchange happened yesterday when FBI director Cash Patel was testifying. Senator Cohen was questioning the FBI director about the firing of a bunch of FBI experts believed to be experts on the topic of Iran. Highly relevant right now.

Patel is asked, these were Iran experts, right? And Patel just plays dumb. Except I don't think he's playing dumb. I think he is dumb. How many days before we invaded Iran, did you know we were going to launch an invasion? We can get into those details on a classified setting, but I work with my colleagues across the spectrum here to give me advance warning so that we can reinforce. Was it two days, three days a month?

It was it was sometime before that, sir. time before that you had done. With that knowledge, why did you fire at least a dozen agents in counterintelligence unit 12 that specializes in Iran counterintelligence, which makes us much less secure and safe with this war going on from Iranian attacks potentially against our country? As I said earlier, Congressman, I don't work on timelines when these terminations occur. There are internal investigations conducted by the careers at the FBI that highlight unethical or inappropriate conduct, and it's up to me to make the decision. But our Iran threats mission center has never been more resources.

I've highlighted a 43% increase in counter-espionage arrest from Iran alone and 360 ongoing terrorism investigations with Iran-affiliated individuals. And the people you fired, those 12 people, they were experts on Iran, were they not? I don't believe so. They worked in counterintelligence, do they not? I'm taking you at your word, sir. I'm not familiar with every single word. You're the chief director.

I'm not. You should know the answer. He's got no idea who he fired. Fire the people. Where did they work? People were terminated for violating their ethical obligations and the high standards. Was the ethical violations that they dealt with the case of the classified documents that were found at the bathroom in Mar-a-Lago? Was that the ethical issue? As I said earlier, all those matters are pending litigation, so I'm not going to comment on them.

All right, the normal crop. I think my brain glitched, by the way, and I said Senator Cohen, this is Congressman, Congressman Cohen. Um, Cash Patel is playing dumb in the sense that he knows exactly what those people did. And he knows that their firings were political. And he knows that the decisions that are being made by the FBI are driven primarily by politics and loyalty and not by relevance or expertise. But he also isn't the brightest guy. He's playing dumb on this issue, but he's not a particularly smart guy.

Uh, we then have cash Patel. asked about whether the FBI agents were involved in the investigation into document handling by Trump and whether the entire their behavior is the problem is just a ruse. And Cash Patel is just focused on ongoing investigation. Can't talk about it. There was a report that came out in February from CNN that the FBI had let go or fired dozens of agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring. terrain Iran. And apparently the reason, at least reported in the press, was that these individuals

had been involved in the investigation of classified document handling from President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and that this was the reason why they were summarily let go. First of all, are you aware of those firings? And do you concur with the rationale or reason for those firings? I'm aware of that, and I know there's a pendency of litigation, so I'm not able to comment on them. Did you yourself order those firings? The FBI, every time there is someone who violates her code of conduct or ethical standard conducts an internal investigation with the careers there and they present a decision point to me. The Iranian threat mission center has seen an increase of 43% in arrest for Iranian spy actors.

So the Iranian threat mission center has never been stronger. So I'm not asking about whether those people were fired because they were involved in the investigation of the document handling by by president Trump, not for any behavior issues. Is that your understanding as well? Again, ma'am, I can't comment on them because those are impending litigation. So very much not a no, as you can tell. It's all political. Not only is this, you know, we can make it personal and we can just say, look, Cash Patel

is not a very bright guy. He has no business being FBI director. He's incompetent. He's a dofus. That would all be true. But the idea that that's as far as it goes is the problem because we are dealing at the end of the day with the FBI. And when the FBI is led by someone like cash Patel and people's jobs are being cut, not because of incompetence or lack of expertise, but because they don't necessarily share the cult like loyalty to Trump. It's not that they dislike Trump. It's just that we're doing our jobs.

We don't refuse to do something simply because it might hit Trump like investigating his hands. handling of classified documents, they are fired on that basis, extremely dangerous, does not make the country more safe. It makes the country less safe. Bonus clip here. This is a fascinating moment where Congressman Himes starts to get into it with Cash Patel about how many non-citizens have actually been convicted of fraudulent voting. This is one of their tropes.

Non-citizens are voting. Cash Patel has talked about it. And of course, the answer is a sentiment. essentially none. And that is exactly what surfaces here with Congressmen. Non-citizens have been convicted of voting in U.S. elections in the last 10 years. The conviction stats were, were with the Department of Justice. I defer to them on that. You are the director of the FBI. Give me a guess. How many convictions in the last one year, five year, or ten year? Ballpark. I don't have that with me, sir. Again, it's with

the department. You don't have that way. Okay. Director Patel, how many active investigations does the FBI have into foreign individuals voting in U.S. elections? We have a number of investigations, generally speaking, ongoing about individuals across the country. Yeah, I'm asking for that number. I don't have that number with me, but I have a number of them. You have a number of investigations. Okay, is that number 10,000, is it closer to 10,000 or closer to 10? It's probably somewhere in between. Okay. Will you please provide the committee with that number?

Yes, sir. Okay. Director Patel would- All right. So as you can tell, there is just really not a lot there, but Cash Patel doesn't want to admit it. Since you don't have the numbers, would it surprise you to know that the Heritage Foundation, which is not exactly the Columbia University Faculty Lounge, found only 77 instances of not citizen voting in the 24 years between 1999 and 2023, each of which faced investigation

by the appropriate authorities. So Heritage has a number of 77 examples in 24 years. Does that number surprise you? Three people a year. No, because it's low. I don't understand your answer. Are you disputing that the number is in the range of 77 examples of non-U.S. voting in US elections in a 24 year period. I just said that number's low. You think that number is low.

Okay. Um, so why if this is, I think you guys get the point. This is just another instance of where this entire idea of non-citizens voting that they're rallying around and saying we need laws and we need enforcement and we did militarization and we need arrests and all this stuff. It's just not happening. It's just not a real issue. Cash Patel is a disaster. He never should have been in this position, should have been fired a long time ago. And rumors are that he may be next on the chopping block. Donald Trump stunned the Japanese prime minister. I have never seen anything like this immediately raising questions. Was this dementia? Was this confusion? Is Trump just a terrible person? Does he have no sense of appropriateness to which the answers are probably yeah to all of the above? A reporter

asked Donald Trump during an Oval Office meeting with the Japanese prime minister, why didn't you tell allies that you were going to attack Iran? And Trump goes, had to be a surprise. Like when they did Pearl Harbor, right? And we have the reaction video of the Japanese prime minister. She seems absolutely aghast. Very confused about we Japanese systems. Well, one thing, you don't want to signal too much. You know, when we go in, we went in very hard. And we were, you know, we went in very hard. And We didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor?

Okay? Right? He's asking me, now you believe in surprise, I think much more so than us. And we had to surprise him and we did. And because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days, we probably knocked out 50% of what we, And much more than we anticipated doing. So even by the demented bottom of the barrel expectations about how Donald Trump behaves, this is just outrageous in every single way.

Now, every time something like this happens, you know, his defenders come out of the woodwork. They slither out from their dark hole. And they go, hey, you know, I like that Trump is plain spoken and tells it like it is. And what bigger truth is Trump telling here about this? There's this is not in service of any greater reality that Trump is connected to telling it like it is. This is just moronic behavior, flat out moronic behavior. And once again, stunning, stunning our allies into looking at Trump and going, what the

hell is wrong with this guy? Couple other moments from this Oval Office kind of mini press conference with the Japanese prime minister. Trump insists that everything was awesome, just absolutely awesome, but he needed to do this excursion, still confused about the difference between an excursion and an incursion. And no one around him apparently has the willingness to go, sir. The word is incursion. All done.

Everything was going great. The economy is great. Oil prices were very low. Gasoline was dropping to, I mean, we had $1.99, $1.85. We had great everything. And I saw all was happening in Iran and I said, I hate to make this excursion, but we're going to have to do it. And I actually thought the numbers would be worse.

I thought that it would go up more than it did. But we're doing this excursion. And when it's completed, we're going to have a much safer world. And the prime minister agrees with me and then she considers it to be. You know what's fascinating. When Trump says, I expected gas prices to go up even more than they have, first, first, First of all, it's sort of like a, you know, hold the phone for a second because it's still got got a lot of runway.

Gas prices are already up 45% since mid-January. Trump is saying he expected gas prices to go up even more than 45% and he was okay with that. He decided that it's okay to sacrifice affordability because he really wants to do this thing. Now, Trump also trying to dump in that, listen, the Dow did hit 50,000 at one point. And do you intend to potentially put U.S. troops or more troops in the region? No, I'm not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you. But I'm not putting troops.

And we will do whatever is necessary to keep the price as well. I actually thought when I did this, look, the Dow just had 50,000 a couple of weeks ago. And of course, the Dow did not hit 50,000 a couple of weeks ago. A couple interesting things here. First of all, the Dow hit 50,000 now about six weeks ago. It was early February. And it has declined over 4,000 points since. So the idea of I kind of thought the timing was right because the Dow hit 50,000.

The Dow was three weeks removed from 50,000 when Donald Trump started the Iran incursion. But again, Trump's saying things were going well enough that. I thought it was a good idea to do something that would worsen the economic situation. He decided I think it's okay for stocks to tank and people's retirement accounts to lose value because I want to go into Iran because he says a couple weeks ago, it's now been six weeks. The Dow briefly hit 50,000. He's deciding that you will sacrifice. He will sacrifice nothing.

And unfortunately, this is often the case with everything from, you know, war harrow. draft dodgers who love military action, but they got a note about their bonespurs. That is emblematic of and representative of everything that is horrible about having someone like Donald Trump in charge. He's decided the sacrifice is worth it. The sacrifice of American lives is worth it. The sacrifice of American affordability for the average person is worth it. Do you agree with him?

If there are magas in the audience that go, yeah, it's worth it. me know. Monday, we are going to be releasing Trump's gas promo. We will be in order to try to do something, something to counteract the spiking gas prices. We are doing a membership drive starting Monday where each day you will be able to get a membership for the cost of a gallon of gas. It's normally seven bucks. If we did it today, it'd be 392.

So this will be a phenomenal opportunity. our big membership drive starting on Monday. If you want to be notified, I'll talk about it on the show, but you can be the first to know by getting on my newsletter at substack.davidpack.com. If you love having quality fresh breads and pastries at home with no hassle, our sponsor, Wild grain makes it easy. Wild grain is a bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, fresh pastas. Everything arrives frozen and bakes in 20. 25 minutes or less. No thawing required. Simple ingredients, slow fermentation process. It really improves the flavor and texture. I always keep wild grain sourdough bread and croissants on hand.

Convenient. Tastes like something you'd get from the bakery. Straight from freezer to oven. No planning required. The pasta's great too. I love having wild grain on the busy nights when I need something good, but without spending a bunch of time on it. And wild grain boxes are customizable. You can get the variety box. They've got gluten-free, vegan, they've got a protein box. Wild grain is offering $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life when you go to wildgrain.com slash Pacman. Or use the promo code Pacman at checkout. The link is in the description. We're starting to see something that I think is very important and it's going to change the dynamics of how this administration runs things and the way that decisions are made. And what the change is

is that Donald Trump is starting to realize that the situation is, one, not going to get better quickly economically. And two, it's probably going to get much, much worse long before it gets better. And the problem for Trump is that there really may not be a way out of it. Now, let me explain this in, in, let me be specific about it to explain what I mean. Trump's general approach to the gas and oil hikes related to the Iran war, to the job losses or no job creation to what's going on with affordability and pricing. It's been some combination of it's all fine and I fixed it after Biden screwed it up, which

of course isn't true combined with, okay, yes, gas prices are up, but it's just a brief little thing. Yes, the stock market is no longer, the Dow is no longer at 50,000, but this is just a brief thing. And we're going to get through it. We're going to get through the Iran stuff. And then it's all going to be better. We're going to fix it all up. And with every passing day, even as some ex supposed experts said gas will hit 370 and then it's

going to come back down. And now it's at 390 already. Trump and the people around him are realizing it may not even be possible for Trump to turn it around at this point in time. Now, let me give you the numbers. We've been talking about the rising gas prices. As I said, we are now at 389 a gallon. That is a 42% increase since mid January.

It's been just over two months and gas prices are up 42%. Meanwhile, oil from which gas is derived is also up 40%. Here's a report, brief report on that from MS now. Take a look at these numbers. We know that oil prices are up roughly 39%. pushing up diesel above $5 a gallon on average and nitrogen fertilizer which is huge for these farmers is up 25% to $579 per tonne. John Bolts owns this farm. He's also the president of the Arizona Farm Bureau. He says he and his fellow farmers take it seriously

that their responsibility is to feed American families and right now that's at risk. Take a listen. Heavily on diesel fuel, not only to produce the crops we grow, but also particularly to move them to market. Many of the crops we grow like the melons behind me, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower, but also, yeah, we have to stay in business and we have to function as America's farmers to produce and put food on people's tables. This is why we say correctly that there's a trickle down effect from high, oil, gas, and in this case, diesel prices to everything. Diesel powers so much behind the scenes.

Trucks often run on diesel. Shipping often depends on the price of diesel. Agriculture depends on it. Construction to a degree depends on it. And then they're also introducing this other element, which is fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is up 25%. That directly hits farmers where they need to now have to participate in the chain reaction where the higher fuel costs mean higher farming costs means higher food prices. This is how inflation spreads. This is why we talk about it as a trickle down process. Now Donald Trump is increasingly panicked because of this and he's trying to change the focus

altogether. He went on truth social and he said, quote, for all of the fake news out there, it's called the Save America Act. the Save Act. Nobody knows what the Save Act means. Completely unresponsive to what's going on. Part of the movement to insist that the Save America Act will fix all of the problems that we have. Now, there's a few underlying facts that are impossible to ignore. How you interpret them certainly varies, but you can't ignore them. This is Trump's watch, number one. The gas prices were flat from Biden into and through the first year of Trump. Trump invades.

are on gas prices are up 42%. The promises about affordability have not come true. And so the first thing is it's happening under Trump's watch, fine. But is it happening because of Trump? Yes. Jerome Powell said it. We talked about it on the show yesterday. Tariffs and Iran to optional choices that Donald Trump made, tariffs and Iran, are responsible for

a significant portion. a majority, according to Jerome Powell, three quarters or even more of what's going on right now. And this is not the type of inflation that reverses quickly. Even if oil stabilized today, before the market closes today, you've got these downstream effects that are locked in, but we're not seeing them yet. The farmers have already paid more for the fertilizer. They're now growing the food. So they are going to have higher food costs. And then when that food is transported, the transportation will have higher fuel costs as well. We haven't seen that yet reflected in food. So that is going to be a real problem. This is not like a one month thing. This could be a year. And if you consider that the

midterm elections are seven and a half months away, that could be a major problem. Voters look at prices. They go to the grocery store. They fill up their car. They decide how do I feel about this and who do I blame? For a long time, Republicans have been very good at getting voters to blame Democrats no matter who's in power and no matter what's going on. But that doesn't seem like it's going to time. Now, there's one other layer to this. Big picture. Trump said, I'm the economy guy. I know how to hire people and I know the economy. That was the pitch. You might not like me. You might not care for my taste in, you know, whatever. I don't know that Trump has tastes golf clubs. You might not care care for my taste in golf clubs and golf clothes, but the economy's going to be great. You're going to

do great. That was the pitch. That's gone. What, what is left of Trump when that is gone? If you take away the economic confidence, you've got chaos, conflict, and desperate decisions that make no sense. And this is why it gets very dangerous because, as I've said before, cornered animals sometimes lash out, a president who realizes that the economic ground is collapsing underneath him, that's not going to be a calm president. It's not going to be a measured president. He's going to look for a quick fix. Can I distract or can I say something that'll get me one day of the stock market, the Dow going up a thousand points. What can I do? This is how terrible decisions get made. And so when we look at these numbers, gas prices matter because of what people pay for gas in a practical sense. But there's a bigger

question, which is what does this signal for the next year? And we are now deep enough into this thing that there's no easy or fast off ramp. Is there a realistic way for Trump to truly turn it around? I don't think there really is. Certainly getting out of Iran is a good first step. But even That cat is out of the bag and the effects are going to continue. Hey, this is this is very, very interesting. It seems increasingly like Marco Rubio, not J.D. Vance is potentially going to be the heir to the maga throne. Now, I've already told you how Donald Trump's lack of confidence in who the air should be is

already notable. Normally Trump is like, this is what it is and I'm the most, I'm the best person at hiring and choosing people. Trump has been going around kind of going back and forth. J.D. is good. Marco's good. Marco's getting great marks and all of this different stuff. If you go back a year ago, the assumption, the conventional wisdom was that Trump's successor was going to be J.D. Vance. He's young. He's loyal. He's backed by Trump's family. Trump's sons love J.D. Vance. He's plugged into the donor network. There could be this clean handoff of MAGA from Trump to J.D. Vance. And that's it.

That is completely slipped over the last three months. And what is fascinating is that there is now reporting that behind the scenes, Republican donors are talking about we want Rubio. We want to start making the donations, making the money flow point away from J.D. Vance and towards Marco Rubio for 2028. They're not waiting to see if Trump gives the green light. They don't seem to care what Trump is ultimately going to decide. They are just saying, this is what we need to do.

After 26, we're going for Rubio. They are preparing for a future where Trump simply doesn't get the final say. Now, you might remember in my interview with a gov gav, aka Governor Gavin Newsome, aka Newscum, nasty guy. I asked Governor Newsome, do you even think Trump will be in a position to pick his successor by the time it's all said and done? And Yusim said it's not clear that he will because he is so increasingly diminished. I think Trump senses this.

And Trump is not announcing a successor. He's going around asking people what he should do, which is not a sign of confidence. But at the same time, the donor base seems to be moving clearly and decidedly in the direction of Marco Rubio. Now, Vance is a disaster. Marco Rubio is far more capable. I'm not saying I like Rubio. We're comparing that these two people.

Vance couldn't be less charismatic. He's just terrible. He's so unlikable. He's part of this Peter Thiel kind of allegiance, which I don't really know that that's what Republicans want either. And the donors see that Rubio's profile is rising. Rubio's competent. Rubio doesn't embarrass himself when speaking to dignitaries from other countries.

He says things I completely disagree with, obviously. He embarrasses himself regularly trying to defend Trump. But in this way that is sort of more narrowly focused, Rubio seems to be the one that is a calming presence to those concerned about the future of the Republican Party. So the structure around Trump, then Vance is getting very, very loose. Now, I think the Iran situation has made this way clearer. Rubio was next to Trump, very visible, shaping the messaging. Messaging, I think, is terrible and wrong.

And Vance kind of faded into the background. Where is J.D. Vance on Iran? He's been, you know, just yesterday we covered that they sent J.D. to a factory in Michigan to speak to no one. 30 people in the crowd silent as J.D. spoke. And Marco Rubio, a secretary of state, is highly involved. So that sticks in the ecosystem of Trump. And I believe that once it sticks, it spreads.

So the early stages of a power shift look exactly like this. It's not super loud. It's not even really feeling coordinated, but it's just the sense that JD's kind of floating more into the background and Marco Rubio is coming to the forefront. And the donors seem to care. The donors seem to proactively be thinking. Rubio is the better future of the party than J.D. Vance.

Now, if Republicans don't do well in the midterms, which seems likely. overnight, Trump's even weaker. His endorsements will matter even less if Republicans get crushed in November. The donors will get even more leverage. And at that point, it will be they, not Trump, who get to decide about the heir to the MAGA throne. So I think that this is absolutely fascinating. We often get into this thing of who's the worst candidate if they become president, but

who is more likely to win in a general election? It's so early. I couldn't even begin to deal with that. But where we need to focus right now is make 26 as bad as possible for Republicans. See how that affects donors. And this could sideline Trump in his own administration, which would be a delight. Trump needs control over the base. That's what authoritarian's need desire and seek.

If Trump loses control over the base, loses control of the narrative, loses control over whose stock is higher or lower within the party, you are going to see a very angry Trump sidelined and donors pushing for what they want. Ultimately, what we care about is defeating all of these people. But the fact that Trump is so diminished and growing more diminished in his power within the party every single week that this goes on, it's a pretty interesting thing to see. The David Packman Show is an audience supported program and the best most direct way to 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. We're going to look at two different groups that are turning against what they previously supported. We're going to look at some Trump voters. And then we're also going to look at some pro Trump MAGA influencers. And I think the analysis has to be a little different for each in terms of what's going on here. We have in a sense arrived at kind of a moment that Donald Trump has feared, which is that his own voters start publicly and brutally turning on him and saying, I made a mistake. There is a Pennsylvania voter we're going to hear from.

It's not, this is the reporter that's on screen, but this is we're going to, you're going to see the voter in a moment who says, uh, that after voting for Trump, for Trump three times, the realization came to them that they are an idiot. That's the word that they use, not the one that I am forcing into this. So let's take a look at this and then we'll talk about it. Trump, let's take a listen to one more woman who we spoke with. If you could say something to President Trump, he was going to hear you right now. What would it be?

You are a worthless pile of sh- And you voted for him, how many times? Three times. That was my bad. Apparently, I'm an idiot. Okay. That's really good stuff. I got to tell you. So let's kind of like break this down socially, politically and and think about the different

aspects to this. If you go back to the beginning of Trump as a political figure, his power was always really about loyalty. It wasn't just do you support me? Do you vote for me? Am I the least bad option and you're voting for me? It was about cult like loyalty. And the idea was I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, which he famously said, and I wouldn't even lose any support.

No matter what happens, the voters stay with him. That was the premise for a long time. Issues are hitting voters so directly right now that that is changing. People look at what they're paying for gas. This interview was at a gas station, interestingly. And they say, wait a second, he promised me A and I'm getting the opposite of a food prices. You go to the grocery store. We had that video from earlier this week of I paid $150 for nothing really, just for some basics.

And so people say, well, I was promised this thing and I'm getting something very different. Cost of living, affordability, all of this stuff. And then meanwhile, if you zoom out from the immediately tangible financially, you still consider, even if you're not a big foreign policy person per se, you still presumably, or at least some voters remember the promises Trump made about none of these stupid endless wars and all of this. And then Trump's in one. It's not clear how quickly he can end it, how quickly it will end. And it does affect you directly anyway.

You can't just look away. There are some international conflicts that might have no real effect on you. But this one is part of why it's tariffs and Iran, why everything has gotten so expensive, including gas prices. So the political rhetoric stops working. The populist sounding rhetoric from Trump stops working. And so I believe that these individual vignettes that we're seeing are part of something bigger.

It is not enough anymore to simply say, I believe that this is the best choice or this was the best choice in the face of all of the evidence showing that it wasn't. But it also is really difficult for people to say I was wrong. And so I think we should acknowledge when people say, I made a mistake here. We should say that's great. It's great that she's owning it. But we also, and I've talked about this before, have to make clear that this stuff was predictable.

We're so shocked he's not really doing the anti-war thing. Well, I'm not. I was telling you all along that as soon as Donald Trump saw it as convenient to his ego or convenient to his politics or simply acting out of desperation, he was going to do the opposite of the anti-war stuff. We all knew he wasn't really going to lower prices on day one. We all knew he wasn't going to end the Russia, Ukraine war on day one or on day 100 or who knows if it'll even happen on day 1000.

I don't know, which would be into the fourth year of this presidential term. We all knew it. So it's great when people can revise their perspective and say, I was an idiot. That's, it's extraordinarily important to be able to own up and admit that you made a mistake. But we also should not pretend that this was unpredictable and unknowable because we all were predicting it. And it turns out that it worked out that way. So as far as losing support in a bigger way, you might say, well, he this most Trump supporter are not going to change their minds and acknowledge it like this woman did. Yeah, that's true.

I just don't know that he needs a complete and total collapse. He needs a percentage of his supporters to peel away and a few more peel away and a few more peel away. And then the math gets very difficult for Republicans in November who say, hey, we all went with what Trump promised. And then now they want us to vote them back in. Now, let me say one more word about that. We need to reinforce this idea that Trump and the. the Republican Party outside of Trump are not two completely separate things. There are some Republicans like Rand Paul who have an ideological difference from Trump, and that's been clear and that's fine.

But for the most part, the Republican Party, even if they haven't specifically said they love everything Trump is doing, is responsible for decades of setting the stage for Trump coming to power. So it's really important that we link the two and we don't allow Republicans to go, well, listen, we're on the ballot in November. Trump's not on the ballot. Trump's only president because of what your party has done over the last 20 years, as by the way I outline in my book, The Echo Machine.

I talk a lot about that. So we don't want to allow the Republicans in the House and Senate or those running for it to be able to distance them, distance themselves from Trump such that they can convince voters that they They had nothing to do with any of it and vote for them anyway. They had a lot to do with it. And the party had a lot to do with Donald Trump coming to power in the first place. So the issue now that we're dealing with, the price prices being sky high and inflation job losses, all this stuff.

No matter what Trump tweets, it doesn't go away. No matter what Trump says is a rally, it doesn't go away. The problem is there. Voters are peeling off. But some influencers are peeling off as well. Let's talk about that. A hardcore MAGA influencer who I don't know. even want to name because she doesn't deserve any respect whatsoever. She is turning on Donald

Trump. She went on the Pierce Morgan show and she laid it out. I've been a loyal supporter of Trump for a long time. He's a friend. I don't recognize him. Maga is dead. The leader is dead as far as what they were promised. Anyway, take a look at this. This is coming from inside. the movement, okay? I've been a loyal supporter of the president for almost 20 years. This goes back to when I was 21 years old and I was Miss California at the Miss USA pageant. And I've known him.

I consider him a dear friend. And I will tell you right now, I do not recognize our president. And MAGA, let me tell you right now, MAGA is dead. It is deader than dead. And Americans are furious. We do not recognize President Donald J. Trump anymore. Okay. Okay.

Um, she was totally bought into the whole thing. She helped to build it. And she is declaring it dead. Expectations. Reality have collided and exploded. The bigger the promises that are made and Trump's promises were big, very big. And the more that the results don't match the promises. For some people, that gap becomes way too big to ignore.

Now, the part that again, we have to remind them of and this could be uncomfortable. This was predictable. She's acting all shocked. I've supported him for so long and I was right there and I don't recognize it anymore. The movement was built on emotion and identity, scapegoating others, loyalty type slogans. And that only lasts for so long. All of these people fell for it. And that was predictable.

And so we can decide for ourselves with how much charity do we approach these maya culpahs. Oh, again, it's sort of like with the voter. She's revising her views because of what's taking place and good for her. Yes, good for her. But it was predictable. How do we know it was predictable? Because millions of people predicted it. And so to go from he can do no wrong to I don't recognize.

recognize him going from the language of total loyalty to the language of complete and utter rejection. It can happen slowly or it can happen quickly. But the fact that it is happening is really the important thing. Now, I know that every time we do this, it can be easy to sort of get out ahead of your skis in terms of what it means. Oh, they're going to get crushed in November and all these influencers will abandon. No, especially influencers that are still tight with Trump and the administration, you know, the Benny Johnson's and these people, they have a lot to lose personally if they were to turn on Trump. This particular woman who we heard from, I don't think she has much to lose at this point from turning on Trump. But the Benny Johnsons of the world,

you know, the Sean Hannity's who's friends with Trump to the extent Trump has friends and they're flying around together and all of it, they have too much to lose to see and acknowledge or admit Trump for what he is. But you have a combination now of voters as we looked at it. in the first clip and influencers as we looked at in the second clip, where when they start going, I was an idiot for supporting him. Maga is dead. This is the people in the movement that are saying it. Now, this is what led some in the audience, as we talked about earlier this week, to ask the

question, is Trump going to quit? Is Trump going to bail out on the presidency if he loses big in November? And I said, I don't think so. Ego-maniacal, narcissistic, authoritarian strongmen always believe that they can person. severe, that they can come out on top, that they're the smartest person in the room so they can convince whoever that they didn't commit a crime, that they did everything right. So I don't think that Trump is going to leave. But look at the totality of the picture. If we already see some Trump voters going, I was an idiot when I voted for him. And we see some Trump influencers saying Maga is

dead. I don't recognize Trump. They haven't even lost in November yet. If they get crushed in the house, which is likely, Senate looks like it's 50-50. right now, but either way, imagine what Trump's final two years in office look like. Not only if Democrats take the House and start the investigations and the oversight and sending out the subpoenas, which will drive Trump totally nuts. But if in addition to that, if Trump and Republicans take a big loss in November, way more of these influencers are going to abandon Trump, we could be seeing the most isolated and failed final two years of a presidential.

term ever, which to be frank, I would love to see. 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. If I'm not personally willing to go and fight in Iran, does that mean my criticism of this war or commentary about it is invalid?

I got to tell you, that sounds very stupid, but that's exactly what came in on Friday feedback this week. We're going to look at a bunch of feedback, some negative, mostly positive. You can email info at David Pakman.com or leave comments, questions, trolling, etc. on any of our platforms. This came in via Instagram and user Brats of War on Instagram said we should send David to the front lines. That'll show him.

And then sort of similarly and relatedly, Rick Raddicks on YouTube says, you wouldn't know logic, David, even if I guess he means it came up and kicked you in the groin. by your own logic Trump would of. I'm sure he means would have. But what's a little grammatical abomination between friends? By your own logic, Trump would of deported you for being a naturalized citizen. So listen, a couple different things here. First of all, I am against the war in Iran.

So I don't know what it would prove. It's more logical to go, hey, if you love this war so much. much. Maybe you or your kids should go fighting it, right? Like, oh, if this is such a great thing, Trump should send Baron. Oh, but Baron's too tall. They said he's too tall to go and fight the war. Okay. I'm against the war. So I don't know what it would what purpose it would serve to send me to fight it. And secondly, I'm, I think too old anyway to be drafted or whatever. It's a very stupid comment. Now, as far as by my own logic, Trump would deport me for being a naturalized citizen, I don't know what you mean by my own logic.

I've said I'm worried this administration is indeed going to deport naturalized citizens. So none of these arguments really make any sense. Criticize me for things that are logically consistent. Criticize me for things I've said. Criticize me for things I've done. Criticize me for things I believe. But David, you should be sent to fight the war or by that logic, Trump should deport you for being a naturalized citizen.

Doesn't really make any sense. Please try to be responsive to the subject matter of the show. Speaking of which, this is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite ones. We posted clips, of course, of my interview with GovGav, Governor Gavin, Gavin Newscom, he's a nasty guy. And someone on Instagram really liked the interview, but thought that I was Aaron Parnas doing the interview. Great interview, Aaron and Governor Newsom is 100% correct. I sent that to Aaron Parnas. He got a kick out of it.

I guess I should be flattered to be mistaken for a 26 year old. I don't know what else about the interview would suggest to people confusion between Aaron and me. But listen, at this point, given the nasty stuff that I'm getting in the email, I would take any compliments. Whether you think I'm Aaron Parnas or Brian Tyler Cohen or Brian Tyler or Tyler Cohen or Brian Cohen or Cohen-Brienson or Tyler, Tyler Cohenson or whoever you think I am, if you saw it and you liked it, I appreciate you.

Let's put it there. All right. Dick wrote in on Facebook and said all of my 401k is in Latin America. I made 45% last year and 18% already this year. This year, the S&P is even. This is such an instructive message. It is so common that people go on the internet and they read, oh, I bought 30 grand of Bitcoin 30 years ago and now it's worth 11 billion dollars or some other number.

And you get FOMO and you feel like you can't make the right investment decisions or you hear you look at the collapsing stock market under scrumps and then you go look Dick put all of his money in Latin America and was up 45% last year and 18% this year and I'm losing money. You got to consider a few things whenever you hear this stuff. Number one, oftentimes it's just liars on the internet. It's people who have no money in these funds or they have no money at all, which is not something to make fun of. It's sad that they go online and they go, oh, this is what I'm doing. So a lot of times these people are just straight up liars. They're not even doing the thing.

Number two, sometimes it may be true, but it only reflects a particular time period. And you go, well, I don't know. Listen, maybe Dick did make 45% last year and 18% this year. I've been in a total stock market index fund for the last 18 years. And I've made, you know, my 7% a year or even more. And Dick was down dramatically in some of these years. You don't know what Dick's cost basis is. You don't know exactly when Dick bought in.

Dick might just be a dick and is trying to make you think that your strategy doesn't make sense. In my experience, people love to flout their wins. I'm sorry, flaunt. There I almost made the thing flunt their wins. And it's often absent any real accounting of the totality of their investment return. What makes sense is for you to figure out your risk profile and your time horizon and just keep buying dollar cost averaging. And don't don't fall for this crap.

It'll rot your brain. All right. cauliflower own posted on the subreddit about my interview with Gavin Newsom and said, good interview from David got Gavin to be pretty candid. I know I know Newsom is polarizing, but can he win? I encourage everyone to listen to the interview in full. Whether or not he's the nominee, he's incredibly plugged into what makes people tick and what can win elections in a post 2016 America.

I personally want to see a who's who on that primary stage, have him duke it out, but I wouldn't hesitate to vote for Newsom if he gets the nod. Yeah, this is basically my view. I found Gavin Newsom extraordinarily candidate and forthcoming. There are a lot of good potential candidates. And regardless of who I end up supporting in the primary, there are a lot of people who even if they weren't my choice in the primary, I would still end up voting for. Now, on the can he win thing, there's a lot of people are mixing up two questions.

Can Gavin Newsom win a Democratic primary and can he win a general election? I think the answer on can he win a general election. I think Trump has proven the answer is almost anyone can win. Do you activate the right voters? Do you hit the right issues? Is the timing right? But I think just about it. Once Trump won, just about anyone come in. You know, there used to be these sort of rules of thumb. Oh, Democrats need to run a red state governor to win. like Bill Clinton. That's the way Democrats win. You can't win with someone from New York or California. I don't know. I mean, maybe. Joe Biden's from Delaware slash Pennsylvania. He won. Or another one is if you are a northern Democrat, you need a Southern Democrat in order to win.

Okay, I don't think that's necessarily true anymore. So on the can you win the general election, a lot of it is circumstance. Can Gavin Newsom win the Democratic primary is a a much more interesting question. I don't know the answer. I recently did see a ranked choice poll where there's a bunch of people ranked, ranked choice, okay, ranked choice poll. In the first round, Gavin Newsom is ahead of AOC by like six or something like that. But as the lowest vote getter is eliminated, Gavin Newsom ends up winning very easily against AOC with 60 something percent. That's one poll. So I don't know. I think the most interesting question here is can Gavin Newsom win a Democratic primary. And maybe we will find out. Michael commented on YouTube.

Usually the president isn't responsible for oil prices. But this time, yeah, he is. Yeah, this, this is astute in the sense that I've said for decades now on the show, I don't want to place more agency in a president than they deserve. And this could be credit or blame. And so when gas prices were up under George W. Bush or when they were down under Barack Obama. Obama, when they were up, down, whatever. You know, I'm pretty careful to say there's very few things presidents can do that impact oil prices. But Trump has done the big one, which is you go to war with a country that either is a big oil producer or is a mediator of oil supply, like for example, by having say over access to

and through the strait of Hormuz. And that's exactly what Donald Trump did. So normally, You really can't place too much credit or blame. For example, COVID led to a spike for it led to both spikes and declines in oil prices. Demand collapse, demand increase. Okay. COVID wasn't any particular president's fault. Different presidents were responsible for dealing with it better or worse. But the spike and drop in oil and gas around COVID wasn't the fault of any particular

president. Trump did the big thing you can do to mess with gas and oil prices. And so therefore, he does deserve blame in this particular case. Gorman M.A. left a beautiful comment on Spotify. This is such a nice comment. Left-leaning political commentary is a dime a dozen. Your stands out because your speaking style is paste, well-worded, and insightful.

I wish I could speak more like you. You know, I don't have too much to say about that other than thank you. I really appreciate that. That's a really nice comment. And I also got a nice comment from Thangalang, also known as Joseph P, who wrote, hey, David, I started listening to this podcast around the beginning of 2026 after discovering it on other platforms. The direct approach is welcome. The vocabulary used to craft your points is natural.

And the interviews that are conducted with other professionals is, I think they mean, are a breath of fresh air. Every week, this effectively balances other creators that report factual information from other sources that to me are more left leaning. In fact, this has opened my mind to new perspectives. Thank you. Well, Joseph, I'm glad to be one of whatever number of voices you have in your repertoire. One of the differences between a lot of us on the left and some of the whack jobs on the right. But some of the leftists also do this is, I don't claim to be the ultimate authority on anything. And I don't claim to be the ultimate source of truth. Like Trump goes, oh, if ignore everything and just listen to me.

Fact check me. Trust but verify is what I believe and it's what you should also believe. We have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. But next Monday, we will be unleashing Trump's gas. These are going to be nasty discounts where we will discount our memberships down to whatever a gallon of gas costs next week. And it'll adjust Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Friday, wait.

Oh, no, Thursday. It goes between, of course. If you want to be notified of Trump's gas discount on membership, it's a one week membership drive. Go to substack. Dot davidpack.com. Get on my newsletter. You will get beautiful emails telling you all about it.