The David Pakman Show - The White House has become as spectacle

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump approaches his 80th birthday facing statistical data showing that mortality rates spike on a person's date of birth -- Donald Trump posts an aggressive online tirade against Congressman Jamie Raskin after Fox host Mark Levin demands that he be expelled -- Marco Rubio defends Donald Trump by comparing the achievement of the Apollo moon landing to hosting a UFC event at the White House -- Donald Trump falsely claims that citizens had to travel to Japan to buy a Maine lobster while simultaneously falling asleep mid-afternoon -- White House staff actively structure official presidential events around seating arrangements because Trump increasingly struggles to stand -- Congressman James Comer accuses minority urban voting groups of committing rampant election fraud without providing any legal evidence -- The Department of Justice moves to strip seventeen naturalized citizens of their legal status over fraud convictions -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: A Fox host refers to Trump's "reign," a Newsmax guest says California's voting system is invasion-worthy, right-wingers attack Graham Platner, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🍴 Forkful: Get 50% off your 1st box + 10% off your next 3 boxes at https://davidpakman.com/forkful 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/david 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's 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 (01:26) People are more likely to die on their birthday (07:22) Trump melts down over impeachment (14:18) Marco Rubio compares UFC event to moon landing (23:46) Trump stuns reporters in Oval Office (32:58) Trump can't stand for too long (41:41) GOP rep claims minorities are rigging elections (48:44) Trump's DOJ is denaturalizing citizens (55:57) Friday Feedback segment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Performance Auto Group's three-day sale. 72 hours of savings. Shop now at performance.ca.c slash three-day sale. Driven by Performance Auto Group. Donald Trump turns 80 years old this weekend and he's going to throw himself a little party with a UFC fight on the White House lawn that we are all paying for, unfortunately. We're also going to talk about the strange but real statistical phenomenon that people are more likely to die on or around their birthdays, which links this weekend's events to some

pretty interesting scientific research. Trump then melts down over growing. for his impeachment and says that our friend Congressman Jamie Raskin should be expelled from the House of Representatives. Not going to happen. And we will hear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who embarrasses himself by comparing the UFC fight on the White House lawn to when man landed on the moon. A little bit is missing there in that analogy. There are also reports that Donald Trump can no longer stand for long periods of time and that this is why all of his His events are now sitting down.

And James Comer, the congressman, revives election fraud claims aimed at it's the blacks. What an old, reliable trope for them. We're going to break it all down plus the latest push to denaturalize 17 citizens. All of that today. Donald Trump's 80th birthday is Sunday. He is already the oldest president ever. Now, sometimes people say you were more. were more likely to die on or around your birthday.

Could that possibly be true? Many of you wrote to me and said, does Donald Trump need to be extra careful this weekend? Well, I don't know about extra careful, but it is in fact true that people are more likely to die on or around their birthday. It is true. The reasons why matter, but yes, Donald Trump should be careful. Now, this is all in good fun. Okay.

We're just chatting here, but it is an interesting thing. The average mortality rate on birthdays is 7 to 14% higher than you would expect based on people's underlying age and health. And it becomes more and more pronounced the additional risk of death around one's birthday goes up when people are over 60 years of age. Now different countries have looked at this. Different data sets have looked at it. They all find the exact same phenomenon.

Now, the exact size of the effect varies, like I said, are you 7% or 14% more likely to die around your birthday? But every study finds something. Interestingly, it's different for men and women. Men's mortality tends to peak in the days leading up to the birthday, including the day of the birthday. Women's mortality peaks right after the birthday. Now, the obvious question as curious people who want to understand the reality around us, why does this happen?

Why is it that this takes place? Imagine that it is a supernatural phenomenon and then put that completely out of your mind because it's not. We actually have some very specific reasons that have been proposed, which would explain why this takes place. First of all, people are, remember, these are averages. You might hear this and you go, I don't. don't do any of this stuff, fine, but we're talking about a population level analysis. People on average

do riskier things on or around their birthday. They drink more alcohol on average, which makes it more likely that you would fall if you're over 60 falling is more likely to lead the death than if you are under 60. Drinking more alcohol makes it more likely you could get alcohol poisoning. And drinking more alcohol makes it more likely that you would be in a car crash. You might also be doing travel that you don't normally do and having long exhausting exhausting travel days or changing behavior in other ways can slightly increase your risk. So that's number one. Number two, there is the stress of aging and getting a year older combined with the stress of planning or attending your birthday party and this can increase

the risk of heart attack and stroke. Now you might say that doesn't really make sense. We all get a day older every day. Of course. But, but. psychologically rolling over to the next year, going from 79 to 80 or 60 to 61 or whatever, that is psychologically more notable than simply, I'm 79 and 104 days old and now I'm 79 and 105 days old. So that's number two. Number three, birthdays can cause feelings of deep loneliness depending on one's circumstances, and that can slightly increase suicide rates on or around the birthday. And then finally, there is this idea of people holding on until a milestone.

And sometimes that milestone can be the birthday, sort of a once I've achieved it, right? And then mortality can go up. So for the most part, this phenomenon is because of lifestyle choices around the birthday. and preexisting vulnerability. It is interesting. We have to acknowledge it is interesting that Donald Trump is throwing himself this massive birthday party on the White House lawn at your expense and at my expense, replete with a UFC fight, F-list celebrities attending. And it is a big milestone birthday of 80. If we just separate ourselves from Trump and we just say, hey, listen, based on the data, if you wanted to design yourself a birthday with maximum stressors, you might choose

a huge public event with an enormous crowd, intense media attention, late night activities, public appearances, and extremely bright lights. And I think also explosions is part of the entire thing. So Trump's doing a lot here that actuallyarily we might look at and go, gee, I don't know about this. So this is a, it's a just for fun segment. We're looking at scientific phenomena and applying it to the world around us. But I know many of you are curious about this. You wrote in and he said, all these people are saying you're more likely to die in her birthday. I am very much interested in these phenomena. And it turns out that this particular one is true.

Now, what does it mean for this weekend? Probably nothing, right? I mean, remember that a seven, 79 year old man, big picture is still likely to live for many more years. Now, if he's obese, if he only eats fast food, if he doesn't exercise, if he's increasingly struggling to stand, which we'll get to later, certainly those are risk factors. But even if you take someone who is expected to live eight or nine more years and you say, well, their mortality rate goes up 7 to 14% on their birthday, they still are most likely to live. And so I continue to believe that Donald Trump is going to. to serve out the full remainder of his presidential term.

Donald Trump did suffer a thermonuclear meltdown on truth social because our friend, Congressman Jamie Raskin, nasty guy, correctly believes, hey, Trump should be impeached. Now, as an important reminder, there are many new reasons to impeach Donald Trump, but as I covered within a week of the start of Donald Trump's second term, just in his first seven days of his second term, he had been involved in a number of impeachable acts. Forget about the first 500 days of his second term. So Donald Trump launches a hundred and ninety five word truth social tirade against Jamie Raskin. Now, it's also notable that what triggered Trump to do this was Fox host Mark Levin also attacking Jamie Raskin. We'll put, I'm not going to read this whole thing to you, but Trump was

reacting to this brutal wall of text that Mark Levine posted. to X. It's a nasty excretion that he put put up on X where Mark Levin argues, well, Jamie Raskin should be expelled from the House of Representatives. Expulsion from the House of Representatives is very rare. We're going to get back to that in a moment. But it's a nice idea, I guess, for MAGA people. It sent Trump into a tailspin where he posted to Truth Social, quote, Truth central. Jamie Raskin, a loser in life who worked endlessly during my first term to impeach me and failed miserably, wasting the country's money, time, and effort will guaranteed be trying to do it again

despite one of the most successful presidencies in history. The last one that went after me on impeachment was a pathetic soul, Al Green, who just lost his race in a landslide to an unknown candidate. But in my opinion, one that had more talent than Raskin. He spent time on the unselect committee of political hacks and thugs and was rebuffed on that, just as he had been rebuffed on impeachment and many other things. If Biden didn't give him a pardon, he'd be in jail right now. Something should be done about people like this who do bad things, but always come up on the

short end because of their illegal or unscrupulous behavior and hurt our country in the process. I agree with Mark Levin when he says. to expel the bum. Congress can never be great with people like this who suffer massively from Trump derangement syndrome casting their vote of hate. Now, it's a very interesting thing. Trump starts with a personal attack. Raskin is a loser for life. All right, that's not very substantive. And then he says Raskins impeachment goals or behaviors or actions waste the country's money, time, and effort. Remember that impeachment is a congressional duty. Members of the House of Representatives must, I believe this is their duty. If the president has engaged in impeachable

behavior, they must bring forward articles of impeachment. Meanwhile, if you want to talk about wasting money, Trump is wasting the country's money on a UFC fight at the White House, a ballroom, the war in Iran, and I could go on and on and on. Jamie Raskin appeared on Chris Hayes MS Now show last night. And here's what he had to say about the entire thing. I have to ask you about this because the president is, is rage posting about you specifically. He's just got a new post up in which he, it's too long for me to read and honestly too boring. But he calls you a loser in life and he's mad that you wanted to impeach him and he's endorsing some cockamamie Mark Levins scheme to expel you from Congress because you want to impeach him

and says expel the bum and that you have Trump derangement syndrome. Do you want to respond to that? Well, he obviously is having a nightmare flashbacks about impeachment, and I'd like to tell the president that he apparently is listening to me this week, there's a very easy way to not get impeached. Stop committing impeachable offenses. Stop committing high crimes and misdemeanors. Don't go to war and usurp the powers of Congress to declare war.

That's up to us. Don't spend money in a way different from how, Congress has appropriated money. Don't impose illegal taxes and tariffs on the American people without congressional consent. That's up to us. So the president needs a basic constitutional primer. There are a lot of lawyers around him, but he should find one who actually understands what the Constitution. You know, one of the, it's such a funny thing. If you want to stop getting impeached, consider no longer doing impeachable things. That is the best possible way. Now, as far, as far as this whole let's expel Jamie Raskin from the House of Representatives thing, aside from

there's no reason to do it, which is it should be like full stop right there. Expulsions from Congress are really rare. And the idea that Trump thinks it might happen reflects his total and complete disconnect from reality. You may recall that Republican Congressman George Santos, the first man to walk on the moon and synthesize gold from old shoelaces, true story, was the last person expelled from the House of Representatives. And it is very, very rare. I think that this is going to be a much more common sort of conversation, especially if and when Donald Trump becomes the lamest of lame ducks, if and when the Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives, even if not the Senate, Donald Trump's ability to get any legislation done is dead. Now,

you might say, well, Trump doesn't care about getting legislation done. He'll just do executive order. He'll ignore Congress. He won't go and try to get an authorization for military force. If he wants to do a war, he just starts a war. And to a great extent, that's true. But what is going to happen to Donald Trump and the entire cast of sycophants around him is that if Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives, the next two years, the last two years of Trump's presidency will be investigation after investigation after investigation. And if they are, if subpoenas go out to members of the Trump administration and they ignore them, the, they are going to potentially be held criminally liable for ignoring those congressional subpoenas.

That is a crime. It's not always prosecuted, but at least in theory, they are going to have to deal with that. And so it's going to be an exercise in humiliation and an exercise in embarrassment. And so if Trump thinks that he is going to get away with this sort of thing once he no longer has his party in control of the House of Representatives, he's got bad news coming to him. Jamie Raskin, if I were a betting man, and I'm not. I know I've mentioned that I'm not. But if I were a betting man, my bet would be Jamie Raskin does not get expelled.

It is far more likely Trump gets impeached than it is that Jamie Raskin is going to get himself expelled from the House of Representatives. Not going to happen. Raskin's doing a great job, by the way. Marco Rubio stunned, stunned an audience when he suggested that the UFC fight on the White House lawn is like when man walked on the moon. What? I know.

The video is almost too embarrassing to watch, but let's watch it anyway, right? Why not? Here is the Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying, you know, Kennedy said we're going to put a man on the moon and we did it. And look at what UFC has done. What? What is he talking about? So I have a couple of reasons why I think is very powerful.

Here's the first. The first is America and the ideal behind America is the impossible that someone tells you can't do that or that's never going to happen. And the whole idea of America is audacious. The very idea that America, that you could have a country where founded on the principle that your rights come not from your government or from your leaders, your rights come from your creator, was an audacious idea. No one else believed that at the world at that time.

And that's the foundation. But then beyond that, everything we've done since then as a nation, time and again, how can you achieve some of the things, you know, we're going to put a man on the moon? when President Kennedy announced that we were going to put a man on the moon and returned him safely to the earth. No one thought that was possible, and we did it. We are a nation founded on doing what no one else dared to do and no one else aspired to do. And at some level, that's what this whole company and what UFC has been.

You see, mixed martial arts is not new. It's been around now for about 30 years, I would say, maybe 35, but there were no rules. There was no structure. I remember the early fights. I used to watch him back in the day, and it was you could get like a hundred. Where is this going? And 70 pound Brazilian jihitsu guy fighting a 250 pound heavyweight who was a striker. I was like, how did you know, how do you put this that the rules weren't clarify?

And Dana and the people around him had a vision. And that is to create a structure around this company to get. Dana White is like Kennedy saying, we do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Dana White is just like that. One step. One small step. You get the point. It rules, to define it by weight class, to structure the events, and it attracted some of the best

athletes in the world. And what you've built now is this global company that not so long ago would have seemed impossible. Back in the day when boxing commissions, that's what they're called, or athletic commissions, were a little bit reluctant to give you permits to stage these fights or put on these events, or when no one knew where it was, you were able to plow through that. And today you have one of the most recognizable American sports brands on the planet. Landing a man on the moon required hundreds of thousands of workers, scientific breakthroughs so over many years, a national mission, unity of sorts.

Hosting a UFC fight on the White House lawn is just a UFC fight. That's all it is. The idea of Dana White as somehow equivalent to the astronauts who went to the moon or Kennedy who's thought up the idea or not thought up the idea. but said, hey, this thought up the idea of making it a national focus. What? And this whole thing of like, no one, everybody said it couldn't be done. Nobody said you couldn't do a fight on the White House lawn. We just said you shouldn't. It suggests improper judgment, backwards priorities, and really embarrassing presidential conduct to give your

friend Dana White, this handout of millions of dollars to make money off of an event on the White House lawn. The moon landing expanded human knowledge. The UFC card enriches a private sports company and creates a spectacle. They are not even remotely comparable categories of achievement. Notice how often the people around Trump frame entertainment as governance. The political rally is really more of a concert. It's meant to be an entertaining event.

Cabinet meetings are not places for discussion of serious policy. They just sit there on camera the entire time and praise Trump like a TV reality show of who can praise Trump the most. The military parade becomes another opportunity for content. And now the White House is just a fighting arena. Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing. Rubio said he even had the audacity. If you're sitting there wondering how are you going to pay for groceries this month, how do you

feel about the secretary of state saying the UFC? fight at the White House is a gift to the American people. Take a listen. The White House is the people's house. It belongs to the people of the United States. The American 250 celebration belongs to the people of the United States. And there are millions and millions of Americans from all walks of life that are not necessarily attuned to politics or the financial markets or anything else, but they love the sport. And every Saturday, we've got a big event once a month. They're tuning in and they're watching and they've hosted it. For them to be able to see this event with their White House in the background as part of our celebrating.

as a country in our 250 years, I think is a gift to the American people. That's what Saturday is about. It's a gift to the American people. They're going to see their White House and their capital on their nation's birthday celebrating with a historic event. Have you said thank you for this gift that Donald Trump has given you? Americans want affordable groceries and affordable gas. That's what they want. They want housing they can afford. They want to be able to afford education for their kids. The whole gift framing is also really weird when we're the ones paying for it. We're paying for security for this event at the White House.

We're paying for logistics. We're paying for operational costs. It's a gift I bought myself, I guess. The more they talk about this, the more it sounds like they think this is governance. They seem to think that hosting a fight on the White House lawn is somehow governing that they were elected to do. Marco Rubio used to try to market himself as the serious foreign policy senator. He failed to convince anybody of that, but he would, that's how he presented himself.

He's doing PR for UFC at this point in time. And there's almost something desperate about comparing a cage fight at the end. Excuse me. At the end, I'm choking over the absurdity of it. Comparing a fight to the moon landing. Here is a final message, which is Trump's thinking of leaving the Iraq. arena up permanently. Secret service wasn't as excited by the explosions, but everybody else and what they built out there is phenomenal. We'll never see it again. Although the president's threatening to leave

it permanently. You heard that, right? He's threatening to leave the judge. Just don't know. Maybe, you know, we'll just host weekly fights between people and politics, you know. Isn't he funny? Isn't he so, so funny? Turn the White House into a content studio. Just leave the the arena up permanently. Folks, if, if for no, there's a thousand other reasons to put in place someone sane to replace Trump in 2028. But if nothing else, they've got to take down that UFC arena in case Trump tries to leave it up. If debt feels like it's draining your attention each month, multiple due dates, rising interest, balances that barely move, you are not alone. Our sponsor PDS debt works with people

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I know. I know. Sleepy Joe was the problem, right? Here is Donald Trump again announcing that there will be more socialism coming to the United States. It's the farmers, folks. It's the farmers. The president of the Kentucky Farm Bureau testified before the Senate about a month ago, middle

of May. At that point, he said that the pricing and availability of fertilizer was a crisis for farmers. And he said the war was not helping that. And he said, we need the government to step in and provide economic health. Even if you do make a deal in the next couple of days, that was a month ago that farmers were saying they were in crisis. Do you think there needs to be federal aid specifically for farmers because of the war? No, it's fair. You know, I gave the farmers $28 billion in my first time because it would take advantage of it by China. And I charged China for it.

I put tariffs on and China paid us hundreds of billions of dollars. And I took 28 billion out of the tariffs from China and other countries that treated our farmers very badly. I gave them 28 billion. And I'm looking at that, actually. The war is the primary impediment, which is now going to come down from Ukraine. You know, a lot of it comes out of Ukraine and other things, but other places. But no, the farmers have a problem with fertilizer, but that's all coming down now. And your fuel is going to be, I think it's going to be lower than it was four or five months.

four or five months ago we were doing unbelievable. Remember this, if you look at Biden, his oil prices without saving our country, saving the world by going out and saying to Iran, you cannot have a nuclear weapon. If I ask these people about Iran having a nuclear weapon and they're going to have to go through some pain, I mean, I don't think, you know, I hate to really do it because it's a little dangerous. Every one of these people are going to say, you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. He said, use it. You want to see turmoil? You want to see death and destruction? Let Iran have a nuclear weapon. So, but I am looking at doing a form of help because of fertilizer. But I'm look, yes, he's

looking at doing another farmer bailout. You know, Trump brags about how he helped the farmers in his first term. But he was only in a position of needing to do that because he screwed the farmers in his first term. Trump always screws the farmers up. And then in the second term, we've heard from farmer after farmer. We even heard from that soybean farmer on the show who's a big Trump supporter who goes, I love Trump. I voted for him three times. But he's screwing the farmers on this thing. And he, by the way, that guy still, Caleb Ragland, I think his name was he still supports Trump. That's another story of cult membership and other stuff. But regardless, he constantly ends up needing to help farmers because he is screwing the farmers. How many times,

Can you screw the farmers and then bail them out before they realize, hey, maybe I shouldn't vote for this guy. Unfortunately, that's it. A lot of them voted for him three times. And now he's going to be leaving office in two years. Trump then taking the requisite nap during this event. This was at 3 p.m. As you all know, Donald Trump is increasingly holding events only between noon and five local time. This was right in the middle of that at 3 p.m.

And Trump fell asleep while Doug Bergam was speaking. risk their lives. They risk their own personal capital to help feed America. They're the farmers of the sea. Just like President Trump's behind our farmers and ranchers. He's behind our fishermen. He's making sure that. Trump really struggling to stay awake and sleeping again. Trump is sleeping all the time, all the time in public. Three o'clock. It was Biden who had this uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere. It was Biden who was sleeping. It was Biden who couldn't keep up with the schedule. And Trump is falling asleep all the time. A strange moment, Trump says you can't get Maine lobster in Maine anymore.

You've got to go to Japan to get Maine lobster. But you have never had. And again, in Maine, I opened it up. You know who's fishing there? Canada. Canada. Japan. What's fishing there?

Maine lobster. You couldn't get a Maine lobster. You had to go to Japan to get a Maine lobster. You had to go to Canada. Canada to get a Maine lobster. They were fishing there. Not only that, you had to go a day and a half in a boat. And they had you at three knots. That means like essentially a little bit different than three miles an hour, but it means slow. Right. It is not true that you had to go to Japan or Canada to get Maine lobster. Maine lobster comes from Maine. However, I did research. Can you get Maine

lobster in Japan. You can because Japan imports lobster from Maine. So the main lobster in Japan is not Japanese. It was sent there from Maine, which undercuts Trump's entire argument, as is usually the case. Trump then shifting into the blatant racism part of the event. It's it's never really a Trump event until you get to that. And here Trump goes, listen, people like me built this country. I, guess he means rich white guys. I don't know. Or maybe guys with orange skin. I'm not sure. And it wasn't these ingrates from Somalia who are in Minnesota. These people built the country. Not the complainers. The complainers didn't build the country. These people built the country, whether it's fishermen or farmers or anything else.

Me, guys like me, they built the country. And you know, I watch all these ingrates. They're always complaining, complaining. They didn't build anything. They couldn't build anything. Look at what's happened in Minnesota. Somalia. All these people came in for Somalia. They ripped off our system. Right.

Sounds a, it's sounding a little bit racist to me. I don't know. I did. You know, I'm careful on this show. I know that there are shows where everything is racism and misogyny and structural misogyny else up. This is not one of those shows. Sometimes there is a place for that sort of analysis, but sometimes there isn't.

And I try to only make that analysis when it's there. This just seems like blatant racism. Trump really seems to have very negative feelings about people from Somalia, particularly in Minnesota. He thinks that they are somehow disproportionately involved in various types of fraud, something which I've researched and not found any evidence for, and reinforcing the idea that the real Americans, the real builders of this country are people who, I guess, look like Trump when he says guys like me, you tell me what Trump means.

by guys like me. In a bizarre moment after months of bragging that he shut down the strait of Hormuz, Trump goes, the straits been open for months. What? The strait is open. But the straits have been open for a number of months already and you just didn't know about it. You as reporters weren't able to get it.

I just announced yesterday that we brought a lot of ships through and nobody knew about. I guess we did a pretty good job, Peter, right? But we've got many, many ships across and millions, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil were brought across. This guy's not something. We brought a gazillion gallons of oil, barrels of oil through the very wide open Strait of Hormuz two days ago I covered on this show that Trump was bragging that the straight was closed because he closed it.

And if you look at me, it's it's semi public data, the traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. And then you've got satellite data and other things. We know that it's been closed or almost completely closed for much of the last 15 and a half weeks of this three week war. He just says whatever. And then finally, the sort of cherry on top of incompetence, the banana in the banana split of ignorance is Trump going, we have a really strong memo going in the direction of a deal with Iran.

Two weeks to go, folks, two weeks to go. Concepts of that agreement when it comes to nuclear, you said this was just a concept of that agreement. So is this just essentially setting the stage for deeper talks on nuclear? It's a very strong memorandum of understanding. That is a little conceptual, but it's something that's going to get done. And if it doesn't get done for any reason, which I can't imagine that not happening, they want to sign it as much as I do or more. Here's one reason that this deal might not get done.

Iran and Israel both say that this memorandum of understanding. doesn't exist. Here's another reason this deal might not get done. He has said 30 times that it's about to get done and it hasn't been done. And this has become a war that supposedly ended 10 or 11 times already and yet everybody's bombing each other. Trump's scaring people with his incompetence. And Chuck Todd thinks he knows one additional element of what's going on here. Listen to this. There's new reporting that Donald Trump can no longer stand for long periods of time. that the entire White House schedule for Trump and his events as president are carefully managed around him not having to stand a long time anymore. I really hadn't thought much about this,

but when I think about it, it's true. Most of Trump's events are now sitting down in the Oval office, sitting and signing documents, sitting at a round table, very short moments of standing. Chuck Todd pointed this out. Take a look at this. It's to stand for a long period of time anymore. All events are designed for sitting. All of the things at the White House more and more are now taking place in the Oval Office. He sits.

Fewer Rose Garden events. The weather's been terrific in Washington during previous White Houses. Anytime you could do an event outside, you did an event outside. It was just better TV, better coverage. Then look at that Wisconsin event. He's not standing for 20 minutes. And I'm very curious. He's going to give a rally speech at some point during this birthday.

celebration sometime at the end of June, will he stand for it? It's either hurts for him to walk. It's uncomfortable for him to walk. Whatever it is, there is something going on here. Yeah. I was kind of skeptical about this. It seemed like, oh, here's just another thing people are saying. But I zoomed out. And I think that when I look at the totality of the situation, it seems to be true. Trump's walking, as you know, is increasingly unsteady. And we've explored earlier this week, how he's unable to walk in a straight line and just kind of weave side to side to side. There's also the gate issue where Donald Trump will drag his right leg when he walks, which is something else that there's been medical focus on. He is walking increasingly gingerly

and has even had incidents where as he walks up onto Air Force One, he trips and catches himself. And you might say, well, hold on a second, David. Trump does. these two-hour rallies and he stands the entire time? No. When's the last time that he did that? As Chuck Todd says, around this whole America's 250th anniversary thing, he's supposedly planning some kind of speech component with it. I think it's going to be very interesting to see how long it is and whether he actually stands for the entire thing. Now, in addition to this, if you zoom out further, not only is Trump mostly sitting during these events. He's falling asleep at two to three events per week. It happened yesterday again. To top it all off, we have reporting that Donald Trump's

schedule is mostly squished between the hours of 12 and 5. That's even, that's an even smaller window than Biden was operating in. There was criticism. Oh, Biden's only doing 10 to 4, which is six hours. Trump's reportedly only doing 12 to 5, which is five hours. And you put that entire picture together. It's not the picture of health, vigor, and vitality. There's just no way to argue that it is. And the White House is in a kind of difficult position because the brand they've built for Trump is strength, stamina, dominance, alpha male. And when you have visible decline, it matters more for Trump than for the typical politician because he spent years saying age and fitness are the political issues, the most important thing.

And he mocked other people because they're weak, they're tired, they're sleepy, they're confused, they're low energy, they can't walk right, they can't stand right, they can't speak. right. And now that is a standard that if you apply it to Trump, Trump's failing to meet the standard. There's a big difference between Trump has a specific medical condition that they're hiding from us, which may be the case, by the way. And the White House is adapting Trump's schedule to the realities of being 80 and declining. The latter is completely plausible without a dramatic diagnosis. There may be a dramatic diagnosis that's being hidden, but that's not even what this is about. The question is not can Trump stand for 10 minutes?

Almost any healthy 80 year old can stand for 10 minutes. The question is, can Trump really sustain the pace that is expected of a president for hours at a time day after day? And if staff are designing events around we've got to have Trump sitting for much of it or all of it, that is information relevant to answering the question of whether Trump has what it takes. Campaigns and white houses optimize around strengths and they try to hide weaknesses. They do this in every aspect. This is, it's sort of their job at the end of the day. Aging is no moral failing. This is an issue of transparency. If the White House knows there are limitations, we as voters deserve to

understand them and to evaluate them. And Republicans spent years arguing the public deserves to know everything when it's Joe Biden. We need to know about his health. We need to know about his cognitive status. I'm just saying apply the same principle to Donald Trump. I challenge you find a recent example of Trump standing continuously in an unscripted setting. Those are becoming really rare examples. It is noteworthy. The White House doesn't want this disgust. In fact, they put me on a list of media offenders because I do talk about it. This has struck a. nerve. So tell me, when did he last stand for a while without visibly struggling? Final note, if speaking of me being on the list at the Whitehouse.gov website,

if you missed this week's one day membership drive where we have now seen over 600 people sign up and get new memberships and you would love to get a membership at half price. Just email in. Today's the last day that we're extending it. Send an email to info at David Pacman.com. We're working through a backlog. that is still at about 150 people requesting the code. You will get a response from us if you get your email in today. Info at David Pakman.com. David, send me that code, please. A lot of people put on music while they work, assuming it helps them concentrate. But in practice, familiar songs, lyrics, or constantly changing tracks often will take attention away from what you're working on

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benefit from additional stimulation, but the app really is built for anybody looking to reduce distractions and stay engaged with their work. You can try Brain FM totally free for 30 days by going to Brain.fm slash Pacman. 30 days is a long free trial. Go check it out. The link is in the description. One of the best parts of a good meal is sometimes something people overlook having great bread. When a meal includes fresh, warm bread, everything feels a little bit better, which is why I love our sponsor, Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas. Everything arrives frozen, bakes in 25 minutes or less with no thawing required. Boxes are fully customizable. You can do variety, gluten-free, vegan, protein options. I love the garlic butter demi-baggett comes out, crisp on the outside, soft in the middle, really easy. Weeknight dinner feels much more complete with it. Imagine fresh bakery-quality bread, pastries and pasta at home with no.

No trips to the store. Wild grain has over 40,000 five star reviews and has been voted Best Food subscription box by USA Today three years in a row. For a limited time, get $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life at wildgrain.com slash Pacman or use the promo code Pacman at checkout. The link is in the description. Ladies and gentlemen, the problem is the blacks. I know that. this, it's like we're going back to that, David. Listen very carefully to what Republican congressman James Comer said here. Comer goes, there's rampant fraud, especially in minority communities. The problem is not wealthy suburbs or rural counties or everywhere equally. The fraud problem

is non-white people. If you have been following American politics long enough, you know that this is an old trope that is back. Republicans lose an election they don't like. And instead of going, why did voters reject us? They start looking for cheaters. This applies both to voting and also welfare programs, et cetera. They love to insist it's the minorities cheating in elections and it's the minorities cheating in welfare programs. Take a listen to what James Comer had to say. We're seeing so much fraud in the Medicaid program in particular is because of the That's federal money that goes to the states. Then the states administer their own Medicaid programs.

And what we're seeing, especially in the blue states, is there's rampant fraud, especially in the minority communities, and they're turning a blind eye to it for political reasons. That's the bottom line. That's what those state employees in Minnesota said, and that's what's happening. And I think the only way we're going to stop it is if people are put in jail. By the way, his pronunciation of program as pogrom is very interesting to me, but that's not really the focus of this particular episode. You know, it's it's always the same story with these people.

The cheaters are certainly in the blue states, but especially in the cities and they're in the most urbanized areas of the cities. And it just so happens that they're the communities with lots of black and brown voters. This is such an old pattern. And notice something else. There's no evidence presented. There's no statistics that are offered for us or an investigation. or certainly no prosecutions and convictions.

It's just rampant fraud by minorities. If the fraud were truly rampant, there would be proof everywhere and yet they are unable to find it. We would be seeing arrests in court cases and criminal charges and maybe a conviction or two and someone going to prison. Instead, we get political talking points. Now, we've been through this in other ways. He's talking about Medicare, Medicaid fraud.

here. But we've been through this sort of routine before. Remember after the 2020 election, the recounts and the audits and the court challenges and investigations and Republican election officials reviewing Republican states and all of it. And there was just no evidence. We are six years into that. They still claim it was rigged, but they presented no evidence. And the narrative is able to survive. The narrative itself is what's useful to them. They are beyond needing evidence for this to be politically useful. If you can convince supporters that losses happen because somebody cheated and you've got a scapegoat for that, you never have to change anything. And in fact, when it comes to, if we shift now from election fraud to Medicaid fraud, if you can convince people that there are these

attractive scapegoats for your political purpose, these black and brown people are cheating the system and your taxpayer money is going to them, these more, this movement of MAGA people will be way more willing to accept going after those programs. If it's really true that the blacks and the Browns are taking my tax money to lie about deserving Medicaid, I'm okay with Trump cutting Medicaid because we're good. I don't want my tax money going to that. Meanwhile, war in Iran that they're paying for, ballroom elements of which they've been asked to pay for, et cetera.

etc. So it's a brilliant way. It's evil genius to get them to look at the wrong thing. We've got to do something about my tax money going to black and brown people that don't really deserve pennies on the dollar compared to what Trump is. You know, Trump's net worth is up billions during this administration. So they don't need evidence. They just need an attractive scapego to say that's the problem. That's what we're doing it. The someone else who's the problem is a black or brown person in a minority community in an urban area in a so-called blue city. And they can sort of cycle through this for whatever they need. Is it useful for voter fraud? Well, we've got to cut polling places in urban areas and militarize the precincts and all of this stuff. Then it's, well, it's with

Medicaid. It's with food stamps where the average benefit is a couple hundred bucks a month. Now, I do think that it's worth addressing the free ridership problem in any big and mostly effective social welfare program. Some people will get through the cracks and get some benefits that they don't deserve. But it's really not worth focusing on that if you've calibrated enforcement correctly. And let me explain what I mean by that. You could get free ridership to zero. If you dramatically increased what you spend on enforcement, you could assign a team of forensic

auditors to evaluate every single application for food stamps or Medicaid or whatever, if that's what you wanted to do. And you would bring the free ridership to zero. But the enforcement would be so expensive that it's not worth it. And so with all of these programs, and this is global, they have expertise that allows them to say, okay, if we, if it's known that there's no enforcement, there will be some people who just go, sign me up, right, if it's that easy. On the other hand, if we do that scenario I mentioned, a team of forensic auditors for every application, we'll have zero so-called fraud or

free ridership, but it will be so expensive to enforce that that doesn't make sense. We need just enough enforcement. It's got to be to a degree random where people go, they might catch me. that you get that free ridership down to a minimal level. And that's what I believe we have with most of these programs. That's actually the cheapest. And remember, the money that goes to people in these programs is economically stimulative. When someone is on Medicaid, it leaves them a little money to spend in their local communities, which is good for the local economy.

When someone is on food stamps, that food stamp money is spent at local grocery stores with a very high economic multiplier effect. So the program is economically stimulative. In order to have this zero free ridership enforcement, it would be so expensive that it would not make any sense. Back to James Comer. They're back to it's the blacks and the browns. Anybody surprised? Somehow I'm kind of not surprised.

It is starting. The Trump administration said earlier this week, they are stripping citizenship from 17 people who were naturalized. They were born outside the United States and they obtained citizenship once here. like me that I was born in Argentina, I obtained citizenship in this country. Is Trump coming for people like me next as we have suspected? I'll get back to that. The case we're dealing with here is 17 people born in Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, China, India, a couple other countries.

They have been convicted of crimes. In some cases, it was healthcare fraud. In others, it was wire fraud, conspiracy to manipulate stock prices, but something Trump has done himself, by the way. Why denaturalization, you might ask, instead of simply prosecute them for the crimes? This is the reason. The DOJ says that these people covered up their involvement in those crimes during the process of obtaining citizenship.

Now, as I've said before, denaturalization, stripping people of citizenship is very rare. You need to go through a federal court process. It can only be done to people who were naturalized. If you have birthright citizenship from the time you were born, this point. process cannot apply to you, except the Trump administration is also going after birthright citizenship. Trump signed an executive order that says if you were born in the United States to undocumented parents, he wants your citizenship stripped. Now, I think we on the left should be honest about these two different scenarios. When it comes to birthright citizenship, Trump likes to say the

U.S. is the only country with birthright citizenship. That's not true. But there are some countries that do not confer citizenship just because you were born in the country during a vacation to parents who aren't citizens or to undocumented parents or whatever else. It's true. Some countries allow that. Some people don't. But that is the law right now. You do get citizenship in that scenario.

If they want to change that, they've got to change the law. And that is a debate that can be had. Maybe they would win that debate. Maybe they wouldn't in order to get rid of birthright citizenship in the United States. You've got to pass a constitutional amendment and repeal the 14th amendment. You'd need two thirds of both the House and Senate and three fourths of the states to ratify it. Or you would need two thirds of state legislatures to call for a constitutional convention. And any resulting amendment would then be ratified by three quarters of the states.

That's the process if you want to do that. It's unlikely, but they could argue for it. But the law right now is that we have birthright citizenship. You can't take it from people. Now, as we spoke about with Sarah Isger a few weeks ago, the Trump administration wants to argue that if you're in the United States unlawfully, you are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It's a technical argument.

And therefore, if you're born to an undocumented immigrant, because the undocumented immigrant is not subject to the jurisdiction of the country, you don't get citizenship. That's the way the argument goes. And they like to go, the framers of the 14th Amendment. did not intend to grant citizenship to everyone born on U.S. soil. Subject to the jurisdiction means you have political allegiance to the United States. If you're here illegally, you are loyal to a different country. Therefore, it doesn't count. Children should not automatically get citizenship. The problem with that argument is that people present in the United States, you might be a citizen,

you might be a tourist, you might be a permanent resident, you might be an undocumented immigrant. you are subject to American law. If you're here illegally and you commit a crime, you can be arrested. If you're here illegally and you take an action that hurts someone financially, you could be sued. You could be prosecuted. You've got to follow traffic laws, federal, state, local laws. You are unquestionably under the jurisdiction of the United States when you're here illegally. And this is why a lot of people do not believe that Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship is going to succeed.

I don't believe it's going to succeed. Now, back to the denaturalization, these 17 cases, is it likely that the administration will prevail in denaturalizing at least some of those people? If they indeed have been convicted of committing the crimes that the administration claims, they will probably be successful in denaturalizing at least some of them, because that is the law. You can be denat, denaturalized if it turns out you did lie or occult the commission of these crimes in your application for citizenship. That could happen. Do I think Trump is coming for my citizenship? Listen, on the one hand, I doubt it. I did not make any statements in order to be naturalized

because I was under 18. My parents became citizens. I was just able to go get a passport and become an American citizen. I didn't need to be naturalized. I didn't need to be, make claims, rather, to be naturalized. So I couldn't possibly have lied about the circumstances of my naturalization. because I didn't make any claims with my naturalization. On the other hand, as we know, sometimes just making someone go through a process is how you punish them, even if the process will ultimately fail. They put me on a list of media offenders on Whitehouse.gov, terrifying. And if they were to sue me for defamation for something I say on the show, I'd probably prevail,

but it could be very expensive to get there. And similarly, while I do not believe for a second that my citizenship will ever be taken from me, I think that just by messing with me and saying they're going to try to do it and making me lawyer up, they could make me have a pretty miserable few months or even longer. So I don't expect to lose my citizenship, but will they try to go after critical folks who were who were naturalized? I wouldn't put it past them. Here's something people don't think about enough. There is not much of a line between online privacy and real world safety. If someone gets angry at you in track, at work in a relationship or in a comment section, it can be very easy for them to figure

out your details, address, phone number, relatives. A lot of that information is just sitting on public search databases right now. There is something you can do. Our sponsor in Cogni helps protect you and your family by automatically sending removal requests to hundreds of these databases. And they are legally required to comply and get rid of your information. Incogni will follow up until it's done. Incogni's custom removals is my favorite feature.

If I find information on a random directory or an obscure business database or some new people search site, I just paste the link into Incogni, their privacy experts, work to get it removed. Removing your information from these online databases is critical to protect yourself and your loved ones. Get 60% off when you go to. to incogny.com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. We start today with a message from Nicholas on Instagram who says simply, keep crying, you big baby. Nicholas is happy that the White House has put me on a list. What a First Amendment defender. What a strong advocate of the

Constitution, which respects and supports freedom of the press and who am I kidding? These people are completely and totally pathetic. And what has been fascinating to see is in the wake of the White House putting me on this list, the number of people who are thrilled about it. If you support the First Amendment, if you support freedom of speech, doesn't that, shouldn't that also apply to people whose speech you disagree with? They love to say sometime when it is of no consequence whatsoever. I disagree with what you're saying, but I completely defend your right to say it. Well, I guess a lot of these people don't defend my

right to say. So this is the other side. On the one hand, there has been an outpouring of support from the audience since we got put on this Trump list. On the other hand, lawyers reaching out offering their services and so many different things. But on the other hand, there have been these MAGA people, gleeful that the government is suppressing the speech of people in the media. Hmm. I guess what I argue in my book is right that it's a waste of time to argue about principles with people who abandon the principles once they are inconvenient. Kelton wrote on Spotify. I'll never understand why politicians try to exclusively go on friendly media. In Canada, they do the same. And they're never really challenged. When they are, they get

angry at the reporter. And it happens with all parties here. I want to see how politicians are when challenged and presented facts that could counter their position. I feel like this is part of the bigger problem of politics becoming tribalism when the other side never sees each other or hears about them in an adversary way. Yeah, listen. This came up on the Monday show. This isn't like a both sides are the same kind of thing. But we've experienced this with Democratic elected officials where as soon as I start asking follow-ups are going, yeah, but the thing is they, the tone of the interview changes.

And then their staffers write to us and go, we didn't really like that. Earlier this week, Donald Trump stormed out of an interview when Kristen Welker asked him follow-up questions and then he pounded on the mic, stepped on the microphone, destroying it. It's the case in a lot of countries, but it's not every country. I do think it's important that we understand and acknowledge that in many countries, journalists who ask follow-ups and tough questions are respected rather than treated like crap by the people being asked the questions, but also the elected officials are more prepared for it. And so I can't say I know exactly how it is in Canada, but certainly there are places where serious journalism is actually respected and expected.

All right, Scott Garrett with an interesting take on Trump's regular cognitive exam. Scott goes, let's be honest, if your child's date showed up at the door and said they've passed five field sobriety tests in the last week, yeah, I think that this is a great point and we've been talking about it. Why is Trump being cognitively tested so much? Why are the results of his cognitive tests so newsworthy as far as he's concerned? Probably because there's some kind of a problem. It doesn't mean full-blown dementia, but some kind of a problem. And similarly, if someone goes, listen, I get field sobriety tests all the time. You don't have to worry about my driving. The natural question would be, why are you being field sobriety tested so often? It's a good analogy.

I like it. Anders Youngner says on Spotify, very strong podcast that you run, have followed you for a long time now. Understand that administration is putting you on their list as you break down all their arguments really effectively, which becomes dangerous for them. Keep up the good work. Greetings from Sweden. Love to hear from our Swedish friends and glad to have your support. ghost bunny with another great message. You know, in more boring times, independent journalists and news outlets may have felt like, but am I having an impact? The feedback mechanisms are not so clear in calmer waters. But now you have a very straightforward feedback, feedback that you're doing a great job.

At least there's that. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's something we've been talking about with the other people that are on this Trump list. The fact that they even know who we are and have put us on a list and have a list. proves that they believe we are having an impact. And it's what more can you ask for? It's an incredible realization. And I think that Ghost Bunny is absolutely right.

Marmart says, I would say, let's all buy David Parkman's book to support him. I'm getting another copy today. Well, the book, the book numbers have gone up. pre-orders for my forthcoming book, pay attention, have skyrocketed since we ended up on this list. We suspect it's possible that there will be pressure from the administration on Amazon and Barnes & Noble not to sell the book. They put pressure on them for the first book. So I very much appreciate everybody who has preordered the book. And you can read about the book at David Pakman.com slash attention.

Rolf Mueller wrote in about my road rage confrontation on the way to Montreal. And Rolf says, the only country in the world where the first thought is, will he pull out a gun? A hundred percent right. In most countries around the world, if you have a dispute on the road and people get out of their cars and they are going to speak about the dispute, the dispute, I at least wouldn't assume this person might have a firearm and they might. pull it out and they might use it. But that was one of the first things on my mind when this guy confronted me at an electric vehicle charger last week, which was to even generate this kind of confrontation. You already have to have somewhat of a predisposition to conflict and maybe to violence. And in addition to that, what if he does have a firearm and what if he is getting

ready to use it or wants to use it or whatever the case may be? Knox Warner also wrote in about the road rage confrontation and says that you were driving an electric vehicle probably had a lot to do with it. Yeah, you know, there are sort of two details I didn't include because they are speculative last week when I recounted being confronted by this massive SUV driven by this guy's wife. The guy in the passenger seat gets out to confront me for cutting off his wife and all of the stuff. I do wonder, you know, big, this sort of a lumberjack type guy in a massive gas, gas guzzling SUV, just sucking down gas, is it possible that this guy is just furious about electric

vehicles to some degree? And electric vehicles are very fast, which is why, you know, I just was able to jump out without any risk of a crash in front of his wife. Is it possible that he's angry, that the guy he voted for Trump has. boosted gas prices and he's got this disastrous gas guzzler and I've got this clean electric vehicle. Could he have been angry about that? Is he just angry about the existence of electric vehicles? The other thing some people wrote in and I thought it was an interesting analysis was a lot of people wrote in saying, David, the key thing was you cut off his wife. He felt emasculated. This EV driving liberal pansy left handed Jewish Argentine.

You're going to let him cut off your wife like that and that there was a sort of masculinity aspect to the confrontation. I didn't I didn't mention that. It's of course very speculative, but it did, it did cross my mind. Let me put it that way. Remember, you can write to me on any platform, but you can always email me info at David Pakman.com comments, concerns, suggestions. We accept all.

We even accept trolling. We delete it, but we accept it. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. You can sign up and get instant access at join packman.com. If you missed Tuesday's membership special, we did a one day membership special to prepare for what may be a legal battle against the White House after they put me on an offenders list. If you miss the membership special on Tuesday and you'd like to avail yourself of it, just write to info at Davidpackman. We'll get you the coupon code. You can sign up.

It'll be clean and simple. See you on the bonus show. Be back here on Monday.