The David Pakman Show - The most dangerous phase of a presidency and a war

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Rick Wilson, longtime Republican political strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, joins us on Substack Live to discuss Trump's decline and Democratic midterm strategy -...- Donald Trump faces critical weapon shortages while Iranian forces maintain effective control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz -- Donald Trump fills his Truth Social feed with AI graphics before abruptly claiming that he called off an attack against Iran -- Rep. Max Miller releases a video denying domestic abuse claims filed by his ex-wife Emily Moreno, involving a child's broken collarbone -- Capital One reveals that its anti-money-laundering experts shut down more than 300 bank accounts associated with Donald Trump -- Donald Trump claims he personally earned $75 billion for the nation through Intel during a press brief on Air Force One -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashes out at Dana Bash during an interview about vaccines by accusing her of scaring the public -- On the Bonus Show: Three dead in Idaho In-N-Out shooting, Blanche assures skeptical senators the anti-weaponization fund is dead, Trump "wins" his Bedminster club championship, and much more... 📜 Trust & Will: Save 20% on your estate planning at https://trustandwill.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:12) Trump is running out of weapons (08:19) Trump keeps posting AI images of himself (19:13) Republican Rep denies abuse allegations (27:19) Capital One closes 300 Trump bank accounts (35:30) Rick Wilson Substack Live (56:17) Trump claims he made billions for Intel (1:05:12) RFK lashes out at CNN anchor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The Iran war is going so badly that the blame game is rampant and Republicans are planning to run away from the disaster that they spent months cheering or at least letting Trump do whatever he wants. Trump, meanwhile, is doing exactly what you would expect. He's glitching through questions. He's posting really weird AI slop. And he's trying to turn an apparent retreat because he's terrified into evidence that he's just so brilliant militarily. We're also going to look at Max Miller, the MAGA congressman accused of horrific domestic violence, who in a very unusual attempt to defend himself has made the situation even worse with a nearly 20-minute-long live stream. And then more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts have been closed after an anti-money laundering review.
Starting point is 00:00:49 Here we go again. And Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. melts down when challenged on CNN by Dana Bash. also talk to Rick Wilson about where this growing political collapse may be going. What a program today. Folks, Donald Trump is on the verge of straight up losing the Iran war and losing it really, really badly. This was going to be a two to three week war. We are months into this thing, week 20, whatever. I've kind of lost track. And Donald Trump, and I guess to a degree Benjamin Netanyahu as well, believe.
Starting point is 00:01:33 that this was going to be quick. This was going to be decisive. Two to three weeks won't even consider boots on the ground. And we are now months into this thing. None of the central objectives to the degree that Donald Trump is able to articulate them, which is a different question, but none of the objectives as we understand them have been achieved. Iran's nuclear program, it's been damaged. Sure. The ballistics missile program, it's been damaged, but none of these have been destroyed. Iran certainly hasn't surrendered. It has a new government, which is really just its latest version of the previous regime because it's still all in the same family, is more determined. It's more radical. American troops continue to be killed, injured. The United States
Starting point is 00:02:19 is now running very short on critical weapons. Remember Donald Trump when he took over in 2017 from Barack Obama said, the cupboards are bare. Obama left the cupboards bear. And that wasn't true then. And now we are actually running very low on munitions. And maybe the most just humiliating, pathetic aspect of all of it is that Iran is effectively in control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is, as I'm sure most of my audience knows by now, one of the very important strategic and economic waterways on Earth involved in about one fifth of all oil transit.
Starting point is 00:03:00 So now we get to a new report from the New York Times, which says that our own allies see that this is a defeat for the United States. Now, understand that to lose a war, you don't have to go, we surrender and we lose. It's you fail to accomplish your strategic objectives while doing economic damage to the country and eventually retreating. You never go, we lost. Good game, right? It's not good game. But you see the dysfunction exposed. You see growing American vulnerability, the United States can't convert what is admittedly overwhelming military power into an achievable and definable political result. And Trump's theory hasn't changed at all.
Starting point is 00:03:42 It's the same kind of simplistic fantasy he's had from the beginning, which is we hit him hard enough for long enough. They will give up, give us everything we want. And Trump even said, again, on just a couple days ago on Friday, Trump goes, we're going to hit him. We're going to hit him very hard. And they're going to say, we can't take it anymore, sir, with tears in their eyes. But Iran is not saying that. And instead, the United States is kind of learning a lesson you'd think
Starting point is 00:04:05 we would have learned by now from prior war of escapades, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, which is, yes, we do have the superior firepower, but it doesn't guarantee that these incursions are well-advised. And it doesn't guarantee victory against adversaries who may be way more willing than we are to absorb punishment and just kind of wait you out. And what Iran now has, remember Trump told Zelensky, you don't have the cards. Iran has some cards now. And card number one is massive leverage over global shipping. They're demanding control over the northern route of Hormuz. They want shared control over the southern route. They want the authority to put in fees, sort of like tolls for going through the strait. And if Iran can manage to emerge from this war with an intact government,
Starting point is 00:05:05 I hit my microphone and I apologize for that, with an intact government, with a damaged but operational weapons program and control, at least to some degree over the Strait of Hormuz, the United States lost. It's not we lose, we're going home, but effectively the United States will have lost. And this is why the blame game has started. Vice President, J.D. Vance and other American officials are saying Netanyahu sold this to Trump. And American and Israeli officials are blaming one another for what's going on. So this is the first stage of Republican flight from Trump's war. Everyone positioning themselves to say Trump was misled. People weren't sufficiently consulted. They never really supported the strategy to begin with.
Starting point is 00:05:56 And if the defeat becomes completely undeniable, you should expect the stampede away from Trump's decision to do this to accelerate because Republicans spent months to a degree cheering the bombing. They will discover I was concerned all along. Now, J.D. Vance was concerned all along. There is extensive reporting from inside the Ovaloff, inside the White House that Vance was against this. And he would basically go, I don't think this is a good idea.
Starting point is 00:06:23 But if you decide to do what I will support it and then publicly, he's. He supports it. So all of these kind of weak critics are going to be coming out when their election in November is at stake and going, I never supported this thing. Our allies have already drawn their conclusions. Middle Eastern governments are hedging. They're saying, well, we should improve our relationship with China, with Russia. European allies view us as unpredictable.
Starting point is 00:06:47 And Russia and China know that we have severely depleted our critical munitions. Does that make us strong or does that make us weak? I think it's obvious. Now, what were Trump's promises at the campaign level? Restore American strength to a new level. But he's antagonized our allies. He's depleted our weapons. He's damaged a bunch of different alliances.
Starting point is 00:07:13 And now Iran has so much leverage and Trump can't get out. If he stays in the war, resources keep getting drained. Troops keep dying. If he goes further and says, we're going to do that ground invasion I thought about. or talked about, that could be completely catastrophic. And if he just says, we won and we're leaving, but Iran still has all the leverage to create the exact same chaos that caused Trump to do this in the first place, then that's a disaster too. So Trump started a war. He didn't really know how to win. He can't figure out, figure out how to ended. He said he's ended it 50 times.
Starting point is 00:07:48 Iran can just outlast him and Republicans are going to have to race away pretending they were never on board in order to justify to voters, hey, this was Trump's thing. This wasn't my thing, which may help them in a way in November, but it risks turning Trump against them, which as we know can be a very bad and dangerous thing. So that's the situation where we have, where we find ourselves today. What about Trump on yet another deal that's coming? I don't think it'll surprise you how that went. Donald Trump is spending his days frantically, frantically shit posting as he is slowly realizing, I don't know how to end this damn war that I got into. Donald Trump's truth social feed.
Starting point is 00:08:33 I was looking at it over the weekend. Don't look at it if you're eating. It's pretty nauseating. But you might want to take a look at some point. I looked at it over the weekend. As Donald Trump is quickly losing the Iran war, he is posting endless AI slop to his truth social, Fake hero images, weird memes, nonsense, all made to make him look, I guess, like the most powerful person that's ever lived and then buried among all of the AI slop.
Starting point is 00:09:02 Trump actually did mention I'm canceling. I'm chickening out. I'm tacoing once again. So just a couple examples of the crap that Trump has been posting. Trump 2028 with Donald Trump with an adoring crowd behind him that says, oh, 2020. A yes, he's running again. Donald Trump in a hello Greenland kind of meme where he is looking over a mountain top down at a Greenland village.
Starting point is 00:09:30 Again, Trump wanting, I guess, to take over Greenland and a map with Venezuela depicted as the 51st state of the United States with an American flag superimposed over it. But if you knew what to look for over the weekend, kind of. buried in the AI slop was Donald Trump announcing, I'm chickening out. Here is Trump, quote, the USA is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military terror, strength, and power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran and other Middle Eastern countries to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.
Starting point is 00:10:18 The grammar is all over the place. This would include the immediate complete and total opening of the Hormuz Strait and an end to Iran's nuclear threat. Based on this request, they asked so nicely. Based on this request, I've agreed for the future benefit of the world and likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran to cancel the attack. It's canceled again, folks, subject to being able to rapidly make a decision. deal. The country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work everybody and get it done.
Starting point is 00:10:49 So first, the language is totally like comically overcompensating military terror and strength and power not seen since World War II. But then he goes, they asked me nicely and we've kind of agreed to the perimeters of a deal. This of course has caused a spike in the stock market as of this moment. The Dow is up 700. The NASDAG, as Trump calls it, is up over 300. So, So he got what he wanted there. And presumably Donald Trump meant not the perimeters of a deal, but the parameters of a deal. But after six months of this crap, maybe they are negotiating the perimeter. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:11:25 Trump says this potential agreement would include, of course, the very powerful reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, no more Iran nuclear threat. And based on that, he is going to wait on this attack. Now, if Trump has actually secured the complete reopening of Hormuz and we can verify this is the end of Iran's nuclear program and he's done it through diplomacy. Great. I mean, listen, avoiding an attack is good. I don't want more deaths on anyone's behalf. We don't want more depleted munitions. We don't want more escalation, of course. But Trump posting this doesn't establish that any of that has happened. He has posted stuff like this 50 times so far. And when he says only the
Starting point is 00:12:05 perimeters of an agreement exists, even if he means the parameters, that doesn't give us terms. It doesn't give us a timeline. It doesn't give us any mechanism to verify that Iran is doing any of the stuff. And in fact, and I'm sure many of you expected this. In fact, after Donald Trump posted this, Muhammad Miranda, who's an advisor to the negotiating team for Iran, said, that's not happening. He quote tweeted, I guess you would call it, uh, Trump's post and said by now everyone knows that this is fake news, Trump backed down. Trump regularly announces imminent breakthroughs. So I don't have to bomb. And then the breakthroughs disappear or they weren't really significant or they weren't as described. And the psychological structure of these announcements, you know, before calling off the attack,
Starting point is 00:12:55 Trump has to assure everybody, we are locked and loaded. We are standing back and standing by and we have levels of terror ready to go. He needs the. retreat to look like he's being merciful to his enemies. And what he wants us to believe is, oh my God, Trump had Iran cornered. He was moments from wiping them off the map and he's so generous. He's so good that for the benefit of humanity, he decided to wait. Now, let me bring you back from that fantasy. The war is in its, I guess, sixth month. Iran's government is still in power. Its nuclear program still exists. Its missile program still exists. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively under Iranian control and our weapons are being depleted. That's what's really going on here. And
Starting point is 00:13:44 Trump's officials are saying we don't have that many military options left. Of course, we can do a ground invasion and start a ground war. But that's very risky in and of itself. So Trump threatens another attack and then says, oh, we're talking about an agreement and I can cancel the attack. And Iran's like there's nothing. Nothing's going on. This is the new Trump Forever War, shit posting, threats, imaginary or temporary truces, all framed as I'm a genius. I know more than everybody. And then you sort of like drop the AI memes on top of it, which served to compare Trump to a superhero and a king and the savior of civilization.
Starting point is 00:14:23 He's stuck, folks. He cannot defeat Iran from the air. He cannot invade without risking a catastrophe. And he can't withdraw without exposing the entire thing as a complete and total. failure. So what is he relegated to? Synthetic fantasies about his power depicting him as Jesus and a doctor and all this crap. And again, canceling the attack is good. I don't want attacks. Diplomacy would be better. But just having some restraint, which is what Donald Trump is pretending to have, doesn't require this whole performance where Donald Trump threatens military
Starting point is 00:14:59 terror and all of this crap and then goes, get it done everybody. If he were, confident he would quietly negotiate an agreement, finish the agreement, presented in a verifiable way where Iran goes, yes, we did it. Donald Trump's behavior is not confident. It's terrified and it's desperate. And the AI shit posting is only more evidence of that. Now later on in the show, we're going to talk about what is actually happening behind the scenes within Trump's own government.
Starting point is 00:15:27 And to call it ugly, probably a big understatement. We'll get to that a little later. Let's be honest, estate planning is one of those things people know they should do, but keep putting off. I was one of those people. I have finally done it. Yes, it took a little bit of time. Yes, I had to think through who do I want taking care of my kids if the worst should happen?
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Starting point is 00:17:57 and get 10% off your first order with code Pacman at Zippixtoothpicks.com. The link is in the description. You must be 21 or older to order. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. The David Packman show is an audience supported program. You might be wondering what media conglomerate are we part of? Who are my seven layers of editors and executives that tell me what to do? of that stuff exists. We are a completely independent show primarily funded by the people in our
Starting point is 00:18:33 audience. I would love it if you supported this program through a membership. Our newest members are Davin Scruggs and Charmaine Miguel. Thank you to Davin and Charmaine. You can join them at join Pacman.com. We do an extra show every single day for our members. A bunch of other great perks come with it including the daily commercial free audio and video streams of the show. You can read all about it at join packman.com. You can also become a substack premium subscriber at substack. Davidpackman.com really appreciate everybody who's who stepped up over the last couple of weeks. Trump endorsed Republican Congressman Max Miller has been accused by his ex-wife of horrifying,
Starting point is 00:19:21 horrifying domestic violence. Released a 25 minute video trying to clear his name and it is extraordinarily disturbing. Now I want to be really precise. These are allegations made in court filings during a really ugly custody dispute. Miller denies abusing his ex-wife. He denies abusing their daughter. He has not been convicted of anything yet. The allegations are serious.
Starting point is 00:19:52 Miller's ex-wife, Emily, the daughter. of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, by the way, says that Miller held a gun to her head through boiling water at her and exhibited what she describes as dangerous physical behavior. There's a law enforcement investigation and it started when their two-year-old daughter suffered a broken collarbone under unexplained circumstances. And Moreno says that the child of that this is Emily Moreno, Emily Moreno says the child told her, Daddy's house is scary. records have a detective writing that bruising around the fracture makes it a suspicious injury. There's a child protection specialist involved.
Starting point is 00:20:33 It's very ugly. So Miller does a live stream and this is so weird. The live stream, it started like way before he started speaking and he's just kind of there with a snide look on his face, looking around. His eyes look dead. And it's very awkward. We're watching the beginning of the stream right now. I don't know if this was deliberate or just kind of like poorly calculated.
Starting point is 00:21:02 All very, very strange and unusual. And this is kind of, it's all very weird. Eventually the thing did start. And he says a number of different things. We're going to take a look at a video. He seems to glitch numerous times throughout the video. He speaks in strange emotions. There's weird slurring.
Starting point is 00:21:24 Sometimes he's barely able to get the sentences out. Now, I'm not diagnosing what's going on here. This could be exhaustion. It could be stress. It could be the emotions. I have no idea. But this is the video that he made to reassure people. He's stable.
Starting point is 00:21:40 He's trustworthy. He should be allowed to stay in Congress. And it is extraordinarily unsettling. My former wife has claimed that during a custody exchange at my home that day, I assaulted her. What actually happened, and I have the ring doorbell footage that backs it up. She came to my home in a good mood, and we have text messages to prove it, which you'll have, to pick up our daughter early for her friend's birthday party. She was inside my house for several minutes when she left.
Starting point is 00:22:11 The video shows her walking out, carrying our daughter calm, in the same good mood, showing no distress whatsoever, and as they left, you can hear me say, Goodbye, I love you and I love you, Ruthie, literally telling my ex-wife that I still cared for her. Does that sound like somebody who would just walk out and who have been violently thrown a wall and been abused? She didn't call the police after that. She didn't go to the hospital, ladies and gentlemen. Do you want to know what she did? She went straight to a child's birthday party.
Starting point is 00:22:47 The very next day we had a friendly phone call about our daughter's upcoming hospital. and I drove in from Washington to be there for it. Six days later, she offered to cook empanadas for me for dinner just two days later after this alleged incident. The day after that, she invited me and my girlfriend and which you'll have in text messages to join her and our daughter at a playground. And that day, I just went with my former wife to the playground to spend time with our daughter.
Starting point is 00:23:20 Wow. A week later, on 15th, February 15th, she wrote to me, in her own words, which you will see, I think it's great. You and I are in a friendlier place. She then offered me more extra overnights with our daughter, which I can prove to every single one of you is recently. Every one of these messages is time stamped on our court-sanctioned co-parenting app and is all in the packet. Only weeks later did the story of February 1st assault appears. So ask yourself, if I had assaulted her, would she had offered a cook meat dinner six days later?
Starting point is 00:24:00 I mean, yeah, maybe. There's a whole. I mean, listen, we don't know the answer to that question. But it certainly could be, yes. People often continue interacting with alleged abusers, especially if they share a kid or because they're afraid or because relationships are complicated or because they just want to maintain some sense of normalcy for themselves. Offering to cook dinner days later doesn't disprove an assault. Let's just watch a few more seconds of this. Would she have invited me to spend
Starting point is 00:24:30 an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter? Would she have written that we were in a friendlier place? No, she wouldn't have. All right. This is the strangest live stream. He spent a lot of it attacking his ex-wife's mental health, accusing her of lying. He uploaded a dropbox containing what he said was exculpatory evidence, but then quickly had to delete it because the metadata suggested that taxpayer resources might have been used to produce this defense video. And it's all just completely wacky. Now, even Bernie Moreno, who's a MAGA Republican senator and Max,
Starting point is 00:25:13 Miller's former father-in-law is saying, this guy's dangerous. This guy's dangerous. He put his family through hell. He needs psychological help and he certainly shouldn't serve in Congress. And by the way, whenever he has custody of my granddaughter, I'm holding my breath. Now, none of this, these things get really ugly. None of this proves the underlying allegations. But this is not a liberal activist attack on Max Miller. This is a Trump-aligned Senator Bernie Moreno publicly warning, there's another Trump endorsed Republican here who is a threat to my daughter and my granddaughter. Now, Miller has had this history of violent incidents. He had a DUI in 2011 way before Trump endorsed him. Trump nevertheless hired him, endorsed his campaign, attended
Starting point is 00:25:58 his wedding, endorsed him again and saying he will not let you down. Now, Miller says he is staying, all members of the House are up for reelection every two years. So Miller is up in an election campaign right now and he says he's not going to leave. There are these other allegations I mentioned involving a gun and boiling water and all of this stuff. Now, Trump was asked, what do you think about this? What do you make of this? We'll look at the video later. It won't shock you that Trump went, well, these are just allegations. And of course, Trump has to say that because Trump has 46, 48, something like that, allegations against him. And if Trump were to accept the allegations against Max Miller as evidence of actual wrongdoing, Trump would be in a very difficult position because there
Starting point is 00:26:38 are 46 or 48 or maybe even 50 instances of similar allegations against Donald Trump, not exactly the same stuff, not involving boiling water, not involving a gun that that I've heard, but of various forms of assault and harassment. So this is a wacky situation. Republicans, the political question is that Republicans are increasingly worried that Miller's staying in is going to drag down the entire MAGA cohort. I actually don't know that that's likely to happen. It's sort of probably not, quite frankly, but there is that concern. And Max Miller, I'm not finding this video convincing. Let me put it that way.
Starting point is 00:27:17 You tell me what you think about it. Capital One is now revealed why it shut down more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts. The bank says it made the decision after months of analysis by its anti-money laundering team. And they identified transactional patterns flagged by federal banking guidance. involving 300 accounts associated with Donald Trump. Now, let's be very precise here. The Trump administration, the Trump organization, rather, is very litigious. Capital One is not accusing Trump of committing money laundering.
Starting point is 00:27:55 What it's saying is there was an investigation done, a review of transactions, and it triggered anti-money laundering sort of alerts, and we've decided to shut it down. They are not coming out and saying the Trump organization is laundering money. Specifically, they are not saying that because Trump is extraordinarily litigious. But that is the reason for why the accounts were closed. Now, it's an important legal distinction, but it's also a devastating detail here because Capital 1 notified the Trump organization in March 5 years. years ago, we are going to close more than 300 of your affiliated accounts. This is not a single
Starting point is 00:28:38 checking account because, you know, Eric tried to Venmo done $14 for lunch or something like that. We're talking about 300 different bank accounts. The Trump organization sued and they said, what you're doing is political. You're debanking us because you're woke and because of the political environment after January 6th or whatnot. Capital. So the reason we are now learning why the accounts were really closed is because of Trump's lawsuit. So Capital One has now come out and said, no, we didn't close the accounts because we dislike you. We didn't close the accounts because we are angry about January 6th. We closed 300 of your accounts because we had an anti-money laundering investigation done and our experts reviewed the activity and there were suspicious banking patterns. And they said
Starting point is 00:29:28 that the whole were persecuting you theory of the Trump organization. is straight up completely wrong. Now, the lawsuit from Trump against Capital One has already had two complaints thrown out. But the court allowed the Trump organization to try again. And Capital One is saying it's the there's the same problems here. There's no truth to what they are arguing. And it is an extraordinary irony here because Trump has spent years saying, oh, banks are conspiring against right wing people. And he signs this executive order saying you can't do discriminatory debanking. And he pressures financial institutions not to do what he sees as discriminatory banking. But when the Trump organization sues Capital One to prove, look, we were the victims of woke
Starting point is 00:30:19 discrimination. Capital One goes, no, no, no, no. This was about money laundering. You're the, the transactional pattern of these accounts was so concerning for money laundering that our experts said, we're going to shut down these accounts. Trump's attempt to prove I'm being prosecuted, persecuted politically has produced a formal statement from the bank where they go, they're anti-money laundering. The pattern was a dead ringer for money laundering. Now, that alone, think about prior presidencies. There are prior presidencies in a different era, a bygone era in the United States. were such a declaration from a bank, 300 accounts were closed because of money laundering rules, patterns.
Starting point is 00:31:03 That would have wreaked complete and total havoc on prior presidencies. Imagine a Democratic president's family business having more than 300 accounts closed after a review like this. Republicans would be 24-7 on Fox News for months. They would be holding a hearing every six minutes. And with Trump, you probably didn't even hear about this. control the House, Republicans control the Senate, they control the presidency. They have a judiciary that has been transformed by Trump into an arm of revenge. They haven't solved a single damn problem
Starting point is 00:31:35 for ordinary Americans. Their policies have failed for the majority of people. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's accounts are being closed for anti-money laundering rules. And if you look at who has succeeded under the second Trump term, it's been the wealthy. It's been the wealthy. It's been the connected. It's been criminals who get pardons and get excused from all sorts of wrongdoing. Now, none of this proves Trump laundered money. But Trump demanded to know why did they shut me down? And now the answer is public and it is a disaster. Now, this is a reminder of why a lot of these Trump lawsuits can backfire. And we've talked about the one against BBC, which might 180 on Trump and lead to Barron being deposed. If you move forward with these lawsuits, the opposing party can put out information
Starting point is 00:32:30 that is bad for you. And also the opposing party can end up in a situation where they get discovery and they can depose you or people affiliated with you. Trump doesn't want that. It's a disaster. And I wouldn't be surprised if after this, the BBC lawsuit potentially does a 180 as well. We'll keep an eye on it. Most scams do not feel random. Scammers may know you're name, your city, a relative where you work, and suddenly the message that you get sounds a lot more believable. And a lot of that information is found online and it's just sitting there waiting for bad actors to use it against you. This is why our sponsor Incogni works to remove all of that information from hundreds of websites and databases that have it so that scammers have nothing
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Starting point is 00:35:23 30 days is a long free trial. Go check it out. The link is in the description. Rick Wilson is here joining us again. Rick, of course, is a longtime Republican political strategist. He's an author. He's a commentator. He's a co-founder of the Lincoln Project.
Starting point is 00:35:41 Rick, good to see you. Hey, man. Thanks for having me on. I'm super interested in all the stuff you've been writing about and talking about recently. I'm really interested in, you know, as we get closer to these midterms, it seems that there are a lot of Republican candidates that are in this position where they have to say, okay, Trump seems to be a drag because economically he hasn't delivered. And my constituents know that. And the Iran war is unpopular. It's making things more expensive, et cetera. Fine. But I know that if I just
Starting point is 00:36:12 straight up say, hey, this is not the, I didn't do any of that stuff. That's Trump. It really, risks Trump trying to hurt them electorally and politically. If you were in the position of advising candidates as a strategist right now, what would you be telling them to do with regard to, are we talking up Trump or are we ignoring Trump or are we attacking Trump? They're in a really, really tough spot, David, because the Republican Party has apoxied itself to Donald Trump. I mean, the number one thing about being in the Republican Party today is that you don't represent your state or a district. you represent Trump if you're in Washington. If you're a congressman or a member of the Senate, you represent Trump. And so the way they get through these crazy Republican primaries is to say,
Starting point is 00:36:59 I'm the Trumpiest of the Trump guys. I'm super Trumpy. I'm the most Trump guy ever to be among the Trump guys. The problem is, as you pointed out correctly, Trump is a failure at so many things now. And the polling has just weighed down on these Republican candidates. he is underwater by nearly 50 points on inflation and prices. He's underwater by 35 points on the economy. He's even underwater about 15 points on immigration,
Starting point is 00:37:24 which used to be the core of the Republican thing, right? The problem for them is if they say, listen, we tried it, but Trump has blown it. I can't support him anymore. I'm going to do my thing. They know that he'll come after them. Even if they're out of their primary, he'll hurt them in some way. And if they don't say that,
Starting point is 00:37:44 The voters are going to make the correct decision. They're going to say, this guy is just another guy who cares about Trump but not about us. And we're seeing this in all these Republican swing seats out there where, you know, in districts where Kamala or Joe Biden won, these Republican candidates are trying to have it both ways. You know, a guy like Mike Lawler in New York is like, oh, I'm independent. I don't follow Trump. But he votes with the guy 97% of the time. It's really tough, David, for these guys to square that circle. One of the things I've been saying is, you know, there's these polls you always see where people are asked, do you approve of the job the president's doing? And they go, no, I don't. Okay. Do you approve of the job Congress is doing? And they go, no, I don't. Congress is like 9% approval. And then do you approve of the job your representative is doing? And the number is much higher always. And one of the other thing that I'm talking about talking about moderate Republicans here. They may not understand.
Starting point is 00:38:41 that the Congress person they're happy with has been effectively rubber stamping all of the stuff that they don't like that Trump has supported or has been saying to Republicans, you guys should do this stuff. I'm not seeing that as a prominent part of campaigns, but it seems that that would be potentially a problem if that became a story. Absolutely. And look, what you have with the, with the Democrats right now, they've got a beautiful opportunity here. They know that the message of of accountability and affordability go hand in hand. That corruption in Washington is what's hurting people at home. And that corruption comes from Republicans who will not fight for their own constituents,
Starting point is 00:39:23 who will hurt the people they represent. I mean, when you are a Republican running against or a Democrat running against any Republican right now, you go home to your district and you say, or you go to the district and say, listen, I'm not going to cut your Medicare Part D funding. I'm not going to let the tariffs continue that harm every business in the community. I'm not going to let Trump continue to collect billions of dollars
Starting point is 00:39:47 in this crooked scheme of his in Washington. We're going to stop this. There are more Republican voters out there who will also go with that message, even from a Democrat right now. There's, and look, it's not the majority of Republicans. Majority Republicans are still with Trump. It's a much smaller majority.
Starting point is 00:40:06 It was 90% last year. It's about 65% this year. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a lot in polling. And so all those people that have been winning these races, all these Democrats have winning these races in the special elections, the off-year elections, they get it. You go after the corruption and the affordability. You link them together.
Starting point is 00:40:26 And there's no Republican out there that is comfortable being able to say, yep, Trump did it wrong. He's crooked. I'm not going to keep, I'm not going to keep carrying the water for him. They can't do it. They just can't. Do it. One of the funny things I sometimes see is these polls that say 98% support with MAGA Republicans. And it's like, yes, among the group that supports Trump, they mostly support Trump.
Starting point is 00:40:51 It's sort of like out of everybody who breathes air, 99% also breathe oxygen. Like it's, it's a really way. But I think it's the best number they have, I guess is why he keeps talking about it. Yeah, he always goes back to that of like a self-identified super conservative Maga Republicans who voted for Trump three times. support Trump. It's a miracle. It doesn't make any sense. Hey, you've talked about like the cover-up of the decline of Trump, which I think is really interesting because, listen, whether you use the word cover-up or not, with President Biden, there was an effort to structure the presidency, his schedule, and his day to his best moments of the day and to make him seem as robust as possible, probably with every presidency, but it was like more acutely necessary with Biden.
Starting point is 00:41:37 We are now seeing, I'll just list what I see and then I want to hear from you as how you define this cover up. Trump is increasingly restricted to 12 to 5 sort of like local time, wherever he is to the extent that he's on that time zone. When he does the Oval Office gaggles, he's usually seated when the press comes in and then they're escorted out and he's still seated and it's shorter. The speeches are shorter. The media appearances, which were famously uncontrolled in 24, which was like, spend three. hours will the Nelk boys spend their tighter and more controlled. These are some of the things I'm seeing. What are you seeing? Look, I think all those things are absolutely part of the current corral they put Trump in. And they have had to do this because they recognize if they do
Starting point is 00:42:25 things at the wrong time of day, he's going to fall asleep. I mean, the guy just passes flat out in some of these meetings. They recognize he's got a very limited amount of energy every single day. And so they are, and did the same thing happen with Biden differently, but yes. And there was a gigantic national brew ha-ha with the mainstream media every day. What's wrong with Biden? Was he sick? Is he dying? Is this?
Starting point is 00:42:50 We see less of that with the media with Trump. And we could, that's probably a show for another day. That's a five-hour conversation. But he is clearly unhealthy. He's clearly gained quite a lot of weight in recent months. he continues to have this this inability to stay awake he continues to have this inability to um to focus when he is doing remarks and discussions i mean that speech he did on on voter fraud in the in the east room a couple weeks ago he was a clinging to that podium like it was a life raft and b hammering that
Starting point is 00:43:28 teleprompter as hard as he could because he never he doesn't have that old ability to riff like he once did. And when he does riff, it goes into these weird rabbit holes and it is nonsensical. So there's been a very obvious decline physically and intellectually and mentally. He couldn't decline more morally. He's already been in that gutter for a long time. But no one in the White House can pretend that this isn't happening. They'll come out and say, he's got so much energy. He's the healthiest. We all know what's happening. And the clock is ticking. And whether he, whether he you know, whether he drops dead tomorrow or drops dead in five years, this is a guy who's decline.
Starting point is 00:44:12 The latter part of his life is going to not be anything better than it was yesterday. Do you have a sense of, or would you guess? I'm guessing you don't have any sources on this, but maybe you do. Are there honest conversations with him about how they are? No, so he's not even in the know about how this is being worked around him. The one source that I spoke to a few weeks ago about this, and I wouldn't did this, I used to have people in the White House in the first administration, but I don't need more, but I still talk to people around those circles. And one person said to me, not even Susie Wiles knows what's really going on. Natalie Hark and Dan Scavino, apparently, are the only two that he trusts to have around him during some of these things.
Starting point is 00:44:58 So I don't think that most of the White House staff is fooled. I think they see it. I think they're not tricked by the party line. But I also think Trump's own character is so weird about this stuff that he's not going to tell anybody he's, you know, got X or Y condition. I mean, probably the White House movie has some idea. That's really interesting. But I actually met the opposite, which is, do you think Trump is clued into the fact that, they are trying to play to his strengths with his schedule or Trump's kind of like a backseat guy.
Starting point is 00:45:34 No, I don't think he is. I think he is, I think they give him a lot of bright and shiny toys to play with during his off time. Here, Mr. President, here's new drawings for the arch or here's a new plan for the reflecting point, whatever. Because as, you know, Maggie's Haberman said the other day, she thinks that about 70% of his mental bandwidth is about the, all the, all the projects around the White House. and around DC, which, you know, in some ways, that would be better if that was the case because he would be less dangerous to himself and others. But, you know, I think that, I think that he's not that acute anymore
Starting point is 00:46:13 in the way that he can, I think he can be moved around a little more than he could be in the first term. One of the things I wanted to run by you is, I've been thinking about this whole 2028, Vance Rubio thing. Yeah. And I am of the belief that Trump wants the next Republican candidate to fail. And what I mean by that is the following. If you think about Trump's ego, does Trump want to retire to Mara Lago and see his replacement be more popular, more vital, have a higher approval rating?
Starting point is 00:46:50 A normal person might go, look at the great state I left my party in when I transferred it. For Trump, it's I want to prove to them I really was special. And I'm the only one who could do this. So I actually think that Trump is not incentivized to turn this over in a way that will be good for Republicans. What do you think? Completely agree with that. I think there's, I think one of the things Trump wants to do in the 2028 election is to, first of all, I suspect he's going to drag it out as long as he can. He's going to keep teasing this.
Starting point is 00:47:20 I'm going to run. I'm going to run. Even though it's illegal, even though it's unconstitutional. he'll still tease that out there. It'll delay all the other Republicans from getting in the race. He's going to weigh in any time any one of them is in any way off agenda at all.
Starting point is 00:47:36 He's going to constantly churn the water. And the one thing I think that would make him get behind one person is if he thought, okay, they're all weak enough. I'll put Don Jr. in there so I can keep up the grift. so I can so I can still run things from from Mara Lago. And again, that's that's to get out, to get into the Republican primary after Donald Trump is to have a target on your back from your own former president every single day. And I think that's a terrible place to be.
Starting point is 00:48:15 Is there a movement inside the party, the Republican Party right now, that obviously doesn't want Trump to. to be the next candidate, but also isn't into the kind of Peter Thiel, techno-libertarian J.D. Vann-style thing, who wants to go back to like a McCain-Romney-type Republican. Does that movement exist? And do they have any power? No. Not right now. Look, the tech guys who are who are behind Vance right now. They see Vance as a guy who gets their interests, will let them build out their AI data center universe thing. And will cause. a, they're going to try to cause enough money to flow his way for him to win. I think that the fights inside of Maga, the purity checking and the internal cat fight is going to be unbelievable. I think we have no, we've never seen a Republican primary like this since probably 1988 when, you know, even though George W. Bush was the vice president, or George H.W. Bush, my old boss, was the vice president, there were still 25 people in that race.
Starting point is 00:49:31 Even in 2016, you had, you know, four or five serious candidates, but, you know, 10 more not so serious and Trump. But this is going to be, all of these people have had such a, have had such a, have had such a, a, the press desire to run. So you are going to get Rubio and Vance and Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis and Nikki Hale. They're going to have be a cast of thousands in this fight.
Starting point is 00:49:59 I'm interested in you saying that you'll have Rubio and Vance because Rubio supposedly told Vance, I won't run against you. It's full of shit. Oh, is that right? I've known Marco a very long time. He's completely full of shit. They are planning his run. I know the guys that worked for Marco at that level.
Starting point is 00:50:16 They are all talking to the money people. they are all talking to the press. They are all talking to political, you know, power brokers in the various early states. They are planning a run. Do not be fooled for a single minute that Marco Rubia, because he will come out and go, while I did not want to run against my friend J.D. Vance, I believe it is time for new leadership that breaks away. Whatever it is.
Starting point is 00:50:40 You know, I mean, I can see the speech in my head because I've written it a thousand times. But this will be a very big. field. There will be a lot of people. The other thing, David, I think I'd love to get your opinion on this. You know, we saw over the weekend this thing about Tucker and Marjorie and Margie and all these other people forming another, what they're calling a movement, but it smells and looks like a political party that is going to be a, for those of you who for whom Maga is not crazy enough, let's have something more crazy. I'm curious if you think that, where you think that's going to go.
Starting point is 00:51:20 Well, I mean, listen, I hope it goes somewhere in general because so here's here's my thoughts. I actually do think that right now there are people nominally on the left or maybe the better word is ostensibly on the left. There are people who claim to be on the left who are sort of into like, hey, I don't know, Tucker kind of makes sense on some of this stuff. I've noticed that too. It's kind of moving. Yeah. Nick, Nick Fuentes kind of makes sense on some of this stuff. So I actually think if they created such a movement or party, I think they'd pick up a little bit of support from the fringe left. But I think mostly it's going to come from people that either would stay home or would vote for the Republican candidate right now. So I think the math of it overall is favorable to the Democratic Party.
Starting point is 00:52:07 But I actually, I think it's going to struggle to really get off the ground, to be frank. I would love it if it did, but I think it's going to be tough. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, even if it, but even if it only dragged one or two percent off the top of MAGA in 2028, I encourage Tucker to work very hard at this. Absolutely. My thought, my thought exactly. Last thing, a guy like you, forget about who's running, but as you look around at the names that are out there,
Starting point is 00:52:37 are you more likely to support a moderate Republican? Are there any of the Dem governors that you see? You're like maybe that's, what do you think? I, as a, as a, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, there is no party that I, there's no element in the Republican Party that can win a presidential election right now or any election right now. So, you know, I'm looking at, I'm very excited about the farm team coming up in the Democratic Party. You know, I think, I think there are a lot of governors, as you said, that are very, that have, are already putting together. a good argument for why they'd be effective. And there are going to be a lot of scrapping back and forth on that.
Starting point is 00:53:22 You're going to see the fights between that, let's win big elections nationally wink, and they're going to see fights between the DSA wing, which is growing and sort of influence. You're going to see fights between the traditional old school party types. It's going to be, I think, actually a meritorious process. I think it's a good process for Democrats to air out. We've had a decade plus where Trump is the overarching story of everything. Even during Biden, the reason Biden was elected was because of Trump. Even though he, Trump deserved to lose, Biden wasn't about Joe Biden.
Starting point is 00:54:06 It was about an antidote to Trump. Right. But I think the Democrats in 28 are going to have a really bigger. assignment, they've going to show America something leaning way into the future. They've got to look way beyond this 15 years, 10 years of chaos and say, we're going to face up to AI. We're going to deal with the things that have been shoved under the rug for the last decade and hurt Americans so much. And they're going to have to deal with the mess that he made. But they're going to all have to come out with an argument of why they can win and why they deserve it. You've got to deserve victory in this
Starting point is 00:54:39 world. And I think that that's really going to be manifested mostly by which one of these guys or women come out of the gate as a fighter. You got to fight for people who have been screwed by this era we've been in. You've got to fight for big, big ideas. You've got to show that you're going to take on this hate machine around the right and the alt-right. It's exciting. But yeah, I'm, I always like a governor. I think governors, you know, have a have a, have a, have a good angle on a lot of things because they've had to be in executive positions where it's tough to do that job. And you can't get away from filling the potholes and fixing the bridges. No matter what you'd like to talk about, you got to talk about the real shit when you got,
Starting point is 00:55:22 when you're a governor. So we'll see how it goes. We will see. It's going to be an interesting one. Rick Wilson, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time. We'll do it again soon. We'll talk soon. Take care. Bye. Yeah. Hey, if you're hearing this, that means you're listening to our podcast on one of the many podcast networks that we stream to. And first, I just want to say, thank you for being a listener of this show. It really means a lot that you're tuning in here. I would love to ask you for a quick favor. We are so close to reaching 4 million subscribers on YouTube. YouTube is where we post everything you get through the audio podcast and a lot more stuff. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick
Starting point is 00:56:06 second to pop over to YouTube, search up the David Pacman show, and hit subscribe. Every bit helps. I would love to have you as a subscriber there. Donald Trump spoke to reporters on Air Force One and glitched badly. This did not go well for him. Donald Trump not understanding questions. Donald Trump preferring to attack reporters for who they work for, who you with, rather than substantively asking questions.
Starting point is 00:56:33 But maybe the lowest energy, the real. made a moment from this gaggle was Donald Trump saying, listen, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, and Iran basically convinced me not to attack them. And of course, we all remember, damn, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar all have business ties to the Trump family. None of this is normal. But Trump goes, no, they convinced me not to do the attack today. It was asked by Iran.
Starting point is 00:57:07 We were all set to go just about at this time right now. And it would have been a massive attack. We're all set to go. Would have been. But when the allies ask to call it off, you got a sort of saying, well, let's see. And the reason they ask is I think there's a deal. There's a deal on Hormoz and then it will be a deal.
Starting point is 00:57:31 Hormose. On the nuclear. Or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran. I call it the denuclearization of Iran. So we're holding it. We'll just say we can do it anytime we want. But we're asked by the three primary groups. We're also asked by Iran, very strongly actually.
Starting point is 00:57:54 Super strong ask they made. They said we'd like to make a deal now. You know, I don't know what they say because a lot of times they'll say that to me and then they'll go out and say, we don't know what he's done. obviously they don't want and that's exactly what they did to be attacked and they knew they knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming so basically other countries didn't like it and therefore trump canceled something he other otherwise thought was good for the united states hmm now i'm against attacks as much as anybody uh i don't even think we should have been in this war but you do have
Starting point is 00:58:25 to ask yourself if trump genuinely believed that that attack would have been good for the united States, which he claimed to. He was using that we're going to hit him so hard and then it's going to be great for us. If he really believed that what he was doing militarily was so good for us, why was it so easy for other countries who, by the way, have business ties to Donald Trump and have a general interest in stability in the region? Why was it okay for them to just go, yeah, don't do it, please. And Trump goes, all right. Trump was asked about the anti-weaponization fund. Remember the $1.8 billion slush fund that was apparently canceled? Trump says it's back on the table and Trump's asked about it. He just goes, oh, these people were treated so unfairly.
Starting point is 00:59:04 No one's been treated as unfairly. They rioted, sir. I like BBC better than ABC. The anti-weaponization fund is back on the table. What are your plans? No, if they don't improve. Look, we have a man named Dr. Ledge. He's outstanding in every way. Most of you know he is. You're not going to find a better person and everybody. And it's because I backed one his opponent and his opponent, that his opponent won in a landslide. This is the only reason it's happening, but I will say there are a lot of people that like.
Starting point is 00:59:34 People were hurt so badly. 22 suicides and they would destroy, their families would destroy. There's never been an attack on any group of people in this country. And I apologize for the glitchy audio and video. It's on the, it's on the, it's there at the source. In my opinion, maybe one is one group that was attacked by them. like these people were attacked. And this would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffer.
Starting point is 01:00:04 A lot of people like it. If they don't, if they don't approve time, I put it back on the table. A lot of people like it. Yeah. What a surprise. The people who would get free money from your anti-weaponization slash fund like it. What does? No, we hate that you might give us cash after we committed crimes.
Starting point is 01:00:23 Give me a break, guys. Now then we just have to acknowledge that Donald. Trump very much struggles to understand questions that he's being asked. Trump was asked about this recent hack involving AI and Anthropics, uh, AI models, their chatbots. Trump doesn't know the first thing about this crap. He has no idea. And this is an example of where Trump is asked something and he just does not even know what he is being asked.
Starting point is 01:00:53 Sir, I used to do anything to address open AI and in the products, models hacking others. It could be. Yeah, we're very much involved in that. We have a big stake in that. So does the world. So we look. He has no clue what he's being asked. He heard AI and what he thought of immediately was, oh, we have a stake in that. I have a stake in that. That's really the only thing he cares about. Now, this is my favorite moment from the entire gaggle. Trump bragging about communism. He goes, you know, with Intel, by taking a stake in Intel, we've made 75 billion. Sir, state ownership of private business? Where do we see that historically? On that deal, uh, on Venezuela, we make hundreds of billions of dollars. I make good deals.
Starting point is 01:01:39 Intel. I made $75 billion for the country. I didn't make for me. Not me. Of course not. I made for the country. Intel. I back Intel. It's the hottest stock right now on the New York So we made about 75 to 80 billion dollars. Do people realize that this is the supposed communism that they claim to be against and accused Democrats of being in favor of and carrying out private businesses forcibly having stakes sold to the government from which Trump then brags, hey, we're profiting bigly. But it's the, it's the Biden's a communist.
Starting point is 01:02:20 Biden never thought to do. this crap, Trump with one of his Who You With moments and he thinks that the reporter's from BBC, she's from ABC. It's just a combination of confusion, authoritarianism and hearing decline. Everybody wants help from our country. You said the anti-W weapon. I'm with ABC. You said the-BC? ABC. Oh, ABC. That's worse.
Starting point is 01:02:44 You said the-I-I-B-B-C better than ABC. BBC is better than ABC and B comes after A in the Alpha. I really would prefer XBZ because that's almost at the end. Who are you with? Any question he doesn't want to answer who you with? And then finally, earlier we spoke about this deranged video from Congressman Max Miller attempting to but failing to defend himself against very serious violence charges from his ex-wife. Trump asked, should Max Miller resign?
Starting point is 01:03:14 And of course, Trump goes, well, these are just accusations after all. A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like him. Mr. President, there's been the best that would be a sufficient against him. I just learned about he should resign. Well, I'm going to look at it. I've been so far. It's accusations.
Starting point is 01:03:33 I'll be looking at it. Now, of course, we know that Donald Trump has nearly 50 accusations against him. And he has long insisted. Anybody can just make accusations, but that doesn't mean that they reflect any underlying truth. I didn't do any of this stuff. Even when he's been found civilly liable of sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll or he never did any of. He never did any of it. So of course, Trump goes, it's just allegations.
Starting point is 01:03:56 But I want to call your back, call your attention back to something else. I'm old enough to remember when at the beginning of Donald Trump's 2015 candidacy, the evangelicals and the sort of moral majority would insist, the most important thing is character. And as Donald Trump slowly stayed in that primary and advanced due to the attrition of the twos and threes, the people polling two and three, the evangelicals sort of are like, well, we don't really care that much about his various affairs. And we don't really care that much about the fact that he's been pro choice his whole life or not religious his whole life until now. They were willing to throw it all aside because he was like, oh, I'm against abortion now. And if you go back even further to, oh, Obama or before that you go to Bush or before that you go to Clinton. They, but the evangelical right would argue that morality and personal character are the most important things. Think about how laughably pathetic it is to think about that after 11 years of Donald Trump
Starting point is 01:05:03 in politics. So not a surprising response from Trump, but even wilder, the evangelicals just sort of seem fine with it. All right. RFK Jr. lost his mind when CNN reporter Dana Bash confronted him about vaccines and about measles and about all of the things going wrong under his watch of HHS. And he looks terrible. Now, I'm going to give you my disclaimer before we watched the first video. Sadly, Dana Bash was not really prepared for this. RFK comes off like a lunatic prick here. But she also sort of seems
Starting point is 01:05:41 is unprepared. Now, the counter counter is how can you possibly be prepared for someone so comfortable just making stuff up and doing personal attacks? We're going to watch it and sort it out. But RFK rapidly escalating when the topic of vaccines and measles come up. Data. Let's talk about the measles, please, because this is something that is happening as we speak. The cases in the U.S. protected children. I think that what I have talked to scientists and doctors about, Can you look, can you show me one study? Yes, I can. It shows that children were protected by the COVID vaccine.
Starting point is 01:06:18 I can tell you that there are... That vaccine did more good than harm to children. Can you show me one study that shows that? I can tell you that when it comes to the vaccine, there have been studies that show that because of vaccine disinformation, disinformation, there could have been 100 to 200,000 lives in the U.S. saved, because people didn't get the vaccine. That's why I'm not saying that it entire, let me finish. You are saying nonsense. You are saying something that you cannot show me a single
Starting point is 01:06:49 I am not saying nonsense. You are talking what somebody told you. Excuse me. And you let me, cite me the study. What study? No, what studies are you talking about? You're talking about studies that actually don't exist. I want to talk about. I am not, I am not here to defend. I am not. I mean the study. This is not productive. I am not here to defend all of the practice. You're talking nonsense. You're making assertions you can't support it.
Starting point is 01:07:16 And then when I call you on there, you're telling me, I'm arguing. Okay, do you want to talk about, you want to talk about assertions that you can't support? I'll get there in a second. Let me just say, for the record, that I am not saying that the entire way that the COVID reaction was accurate. It was a scary time and people made mistakes absolutely. They're scaring people. Why are you saying that? Because that was the job of CNN.
Starting point is 01:07:41 Okay. Was to put the chiroans up about how many people are dying. We were trying to be, we were listening to the leaders in this country, including the president who had a daily press conference, explaining what was going on and trying to listen. Were you listening to the scientists? Actually, were you reading the science yourself? The measles. The measles case. All right.
Starting point is 01:08:01 So listen, he's a prick, but she is not as prepared as I would like to see her. But then they get into this, well, you're not a scientist. Well, neither are you. And it just keeps escalated. So you are using, you are actually looking at your starting new studies to try to link autism. But you're also telling me- I'm not trying to link autism to anything.
Starting point is 01:08:22 I'm trying to find out why has autism gone from- Are you also trying to find out how it interacts with people's DNA, what's predisposed, to, to have an autistic child? Are you doing both? Yeah, but Dana, you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist, but genes don't cause. Gene's don't cause epaise. I understand genes epidemic.
Starting point is 01:08:47 A gene provides a vulnerability. A gene provides environmental. That's what I'm asking. Are you studying the environmental exposure? We're looking at all the different environmental exposures. One of the funny things that he slips in there is genes can't explain autism because genes don't cause epidemics. And there's two issues with that.
Starting point is 01:09:06 Number one, the idea of autism as an epidemic, he's using the term colloquially. Like, we're just finding a lot of autism, but epidemic actually means something different in scientific terminology. The other thing is, you know, when you talk about epigenetics, which is how genetics interact with the environment, you can have a genetic cause for something that becomes more common because of how it is interacting with a change to the environment. And there, by the way, I'm not asserting any of this stuff, but there are people out there who go, no, the explanation is our genes interacting with microplastics in the environment
Starting point is 01:09:44 are coming together for more autism. That's not my explanation. This is just one of the things that's out there. He just is sort of messing with all of the different terms. Here he is flipping out more. All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say, trust the experts. That's what you during COVID. now we know that Andy Fauci, who was the expert,
Starting point is 01:10:05 was lying about everything, about mass, about the social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. He was lying, and you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the experts again
Starting point is 01:10:23 to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of. Okay, well, guess what? That is my job to talk to people. Your job is to talk the American public. Yes. Yes. And my job is to get as much information as I can. And to maintain a posture of serious skepticism. What we were doing. I think you get it. He's flipping out the entire time. One of the things that is really important to do when you see a highly emotionally charged piece of media like this is to really try to slow down and think about what are the actual assertions that are being made. made and how can I fact check them. So there's part of this is about measles or the interview was supposed to be about measles. Isolate that and figure out where are there more measles?
Starting point is 01:11:12 How many of the people getting measles now are vaccinated? Almost none. Isolate that. Second, what do we and don't we know about vaccines? We're not allowed to study them. That's not true. They love going to it. They, we should be studying the vaccine. Well, we have. Next week, I'm going to do. a deep dive into autism and vaccines. And it's going to be hopefully useful to people who don't believe that there is a connection between vaccines and autism, but aren't exactly sure what is the factual basis to make that assertion. So we're going to get back to that. RFK, just flipping out on Dan Abash. It, just a complete and total mess. I don't think anybody who watched that would have learned anything. Now on the bonus show today, we'll talk about the Idaho in and out
Starting point is 01:12:01 burger shooting, which is getting really mysterious. Todd Blanche rescinds Trump's anti-weaponization fund, which is what a bunch of Republican senators wanted to do if he wanted their support. And Donald Trump is sparking outrage for blatantly cheating. Cheating on what, though? We will talk about all of that and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join packman.com to get instant access. And remember that my forthcoming book, pay attention is a very important. available for pre-order at David Pakman.com slash attention. Signed copies of the book. Limited
Starting point is 01:12:37 number still available. All the information is there. David Pakman.com slash attention.

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