The David Pakman Show - They break everything and you pay the price

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump signals he may declare a national security emergency to unilaterally change federal election rules before the midterms -- Ken Paxton appeals for donor contributions after opponent James Talarico builds a massive fundraising lead in the Texas Senate race -- The US labor force shrinks by over one million workers while labor participation drops to near multidecade lows under Donald Trump -- Donald Trump appears to fall asleep during official presidential duties in the Oval Office despite historically attacking opponents over their age -- Major corporations and government entities shift administrative burdens directly onto everyday consumers -- Trump asserts he split up his children's measles vaccines decades ago while directing parents toward non-existent medical choices -- Security personnel transported Trump inside a catering vehicle to switch aircraft after intelligence sources uncovered a credible threat -- On the Bonus Show: Results from last night's primaries, Mike Lindell refuses to concede, and much more... 🐶 Sundays for Dogs: Get 50% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://sundaysfordogs.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Trump considers a national emergency over the midterms (08:21) Ken Paxton struggles to raise money (19:28) Labor force shrinks under Donald Trump (27:48) Trump keeps falling asleep in public (36:32) Corporations push costs onto consumers (46:18) Trump lies about spreading out his kids' vaccines (56:09) Trump was transported in a catering vehicle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,

free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Donald Trump seemed to slip and admit that he is planning to do it. And what is incredibly tragic is that I believe there are millions, if not tens of millions of Americans who have no clue what he is toying with and what he is planning to do this November. Donald Trump appeared and was interviewed on the Wayne Allen Root show. If you want to see some wacky stuff, check out my old interviews, by the way, with Wayne

Allen Root on my YouTube channel. Wayne Allen Root proposes to Trump, what about declaring a national security related emergency, use it to just impose voter ID no matter what state law says, require proof of citizenship, put limits on mail and ballots, reduce early voting, all this stuff. Do the whole thing. Just do it. If you're famous, they let you do it. Or what was it?

Now, Trump could have said, oh, well, I don't have the authority to do that or that's not something the president can do. or maybe not something the president should do? No. Trump instead goes, well, you might be surprised. Take a look at this. So let me let me put an idea in your head, okay? Because it's so hard to get the Senate to do anything now they're on recess, they don't get anything done if they never get the Save America Act done. You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. and the Supreme Court ruled in 1983 under Reagan, that INS versus Chata, that if you declare a national security emergency as the President of the United States, they can't challenge it.

It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress. So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots, and you don't even need the sent to. Okay, I'll leave it. this. All right. We'll leave it at that. This should be setting off every single alarm. I don't, you know, we sometimes get desensitized to the insanity of what our elected leaders are trying to do. And we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, Trump's going to do another thing. Give me a break. Wayne Allen Root is not asking Trump to support a piece of legislation to change requirements around

voting. That would be a process that is enshrined in the law and that makes sense. Wayne Allen Root is suggesting that Trump bypass Congress, bypass state law, bypass governors, bypass state attorneys general, and just impose election rules from the White House. This is a form of federalizing elections, which Trump does not have the authority to do. And Trump's response is this kind of wink. I'm not glitching, by the way, I'm winking. It's kind of a wink and a nod, which is. I'm thinking about that. Keep talking about it. Normalize it. See how people react. See whether

his followers get behind it. We cannot prove that someone arranged this interview for Wayne Allen Root to propose this and for Trump to go, yeah, maybe I'll do it. Maybe it was spontaneous. Maybe it was planned. I don't know. But the point is this is how trial balloons work. And this is how a population starts to get desensitized to these radical authoritarian ideas. For now, Trump isn't rejecting it. He's going, well, you might be surprised. His movement will repeat it. People like Wayne Allen route will repeat it. And then all of a sudden, this outrageous power grab is, well, it's an option. It's an option we might do. Now, this connects directly to something I talk about on the show and something I talk about in my forthcoming book, pay attention, which by the way,

if you haven't seen my interview with Brian Tyler Cohen about the book, I was in Brian's studio, nasty studio, check out the interview of Brian did of me about the book and make sure you've preordered it at David Pakman.com slash attention. Algorithmic silos. This is what I talk about. Algorithms look at what you react to and they optimize around that. These algorithms don't optimize around what the president can legally do. The, the algorithms optimize around what is generated. interest and emotional reaction and getting shared. And most of what people truly consume, and it applies to this election stuff, was not chosen by the viewers. You were nudged in that direction. And we end up in these separate information systems where we believe completely different

things about what's going on in the United States or even about what's legal in the United States. So people watching this program right now, for the most part, there are some Magopotamians, even some Magadonians in the show, which is a whole crazy other thing. But there are some MAGA people that watch this show. But for the most part, the people that watch this show know that Donald Trump is entertaining an election emergency. This is something that he's kind of toying with. And there are people around Trump wanting him to think about it.

There are millions of other Americans who will never find out that this is something Donald Trump is considering. Their feeds will show them immigration stories and lurid crime videos or claims about a dead grandma who voted and is 175 years old and surviving off olive oil or whatever. And then if Trump does declare the emergency, it is going to feel to some of these people. Like, I mean, listen, I've been getting fed stories of lurid crimes by undocumented immigrants and election fraud by undocumented immigrants. It sounds reasonable that Trump would declare this emergency.

So we have a situation where some of us who have been following this will go, this is the authoritarian attack we've been warning about. And others will go, he should be allowed to do it because we got a real problem out there with this fraudulent voting. Now, the law to the extent that it still matters is very clear. States set election procedures. Congress can change them by passing legislation. The president does not have that power, does not have any equivalent.

power declaring an emergency would activate the powers that Congress has granted. None of them lets Trump federalize elections, impose the rules that Wayne Allen Root is proposing to him by decree. And by the way, a federal judge has already blocked part of Donald Trump's earlier order requiring proof of citizenship to vote saying these are not powers the president has. These are powers belonging to the states and Congress, if Congress decides to pass a law. Now, here's the unfortunate reality. Even an illegal order can create chaos and it can force emergency court battles and it can confuse officials and it can undermine trust and who the hell knows, maybe there's a Republican attorney general

out there who goes, I don't have to do this because Trump said it, but I want to do it because Donald Trump said it. It is not treasonous in the constitutional sense, but it is an authoritarian proposal to abuse emergency power and interfere with elections. And Trump could have closed the door on it. And instead he goes, eh, stranger things have happened. You might be surprised. Most Americans are not going to hear the warning that we are yelling about from the rooftops almost every day on this show about this election until Trump decides to act on it. Just important to restate, states run elections. And even if Trump sat in front of that camera in the Oval office on a Thursday at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. and said, I am declaring an emergency and we are postponing

the election. It means legally nothing to the states. But that doesn't mean it won't create chaos or that some zany Republican attorneys general would go, this is our opportunity to try to save Republicans. We can't let them do it. Step one is we've got to be informed. I'm not really the type of person to delight myself when others are struggling. I want to lift people up rather than put them down. But if you're a terrible person and if you're going to hurt millions of people if you win an

election, I'm going to be happy that you're failing. And Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Texas, is that you're going to be happy. is failing really hard right now. And I just love it. Am I a bad person because of that? Let me know in the comments. Let me explain what's going on. Donald Trump sort of eventually handpicked Ken Paxton for the Texas Senate race.

This is the race where Democrat James Tala Rico is facing off against Ken Paxton. The incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn lost his primary after Donald Trump, very late in the game, endorsed Ken Paxton. Fine. So you've got Tala Rico and you've got Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton is unable to raise money. He is just nobody wants to donate to him. He is a terrible person. He's a disgusting individual.

He has decades of just horrible things in his past, both personally and professionally. And meanwhile, James Tala Rico is flush with cash. Check out this report from CNN. Tala Rico's raised over 21 million. Ken Paxton has raised not even two million. The Democrat in the Texas Senate race has raised about 10 times more than the Republican. Take a look at this. Just going back to Texas, this is remarkable if you look at just the money because Texas is obviously a huge state, a very expensive state in any cycle to run in. The Democrat, James Telerico, has raised and has cash on hand $21.5 million. Paxton, the Republican candidate in what has been Red, Texas, has $1.8 million. And I want to listen to what Ken Paxton did.

He went on Fox and basically begged for money. I'm optimistic that they'll come in soon because as we're raising money, We're working our way back into October, which is where we can spend money, and we're trying to work our way back to September. But we need help now because James Tolariko has been spending three or four million dollars a week on TV for the last month. So I want to compete. It's just extraordinary to hear a Republican in Texas having to beg for money on television at this point in the race. And it's also, I mean, we're all here old enough to know that Democrats have been promising to turn Texas into a purple state for a long time and haven't actually. done it. But it does look, certainly on the money side, but also on the polling, like they've got

a real chance of doing that in this race. And that is a huge shift from decades of political reality in that state. Yeah. And, you know, Ken Paxton was definitely not the choice of Republicans here. And Washington, who thought that the sitting senator, John Cornyn, would have been the best bet to keep that state red. By the way, also a black guy for President Trump. I mean, just the fact that that's happening at all right now is a reflection of the choice that. he made in terms of where he gave his support. Now, the exact totals depend on the reporting period and whether we're talking about money raised or cash available.

You might have raised a bunch of money, but you spent more. Okay, fine. But the latest quarterly filings show Tala Rico raising 31.6 million to Paxton's 9.3. And since the beginning of 2025, the cumulative totals were about 72 million for Tala Rico and 17 million for Paxton. However you measure it, the Republican is getting crushed. So he now goes, listen, we need help. I saw a fundraising email from Ken Paxton. I need your help. And he said to viewers and to anybody who would listen, my campaign needs support from around the whole country. Please donate to me. Think about what this means. A Republican nominee,

in Texas using national TV to beg for money like a telethon because a Democrat is crushing him. And it's not just any Republican. This is the guy Trump selected. Trump intervened in the Republican primary. He endorsed Paxton over Cornyn. The MAGA base said we're going to follow Donald Trump here. Paxton won. He is now the nominee.

But just winning the primary and building a general election campaign are two very different. things. And so Trump was able to help Paxton secure the nomination without a doubt, but it doesn't seem to be making donors super excited about giving Ken Paxton any money. And this is the underlying weakness of the Trump model. Loyalty is the most important thing. We know that. Electability, not so much. Trump has chosen the candidate who goes further to flatter Trump. But it's completely conceivable that Cornyn was actually the more electable guy statewide. in Texas. And then Republicans are figuring out, well, one of the things you've got to do to win is you do need to appeal to donors. I wish it were different. But at this point, the person who

raises more money tends to win, although this is not always the case. Sometimes you've got, you know, out-of-state money that pours in and it doesn't really have the same effect. But as a general rule, you're usually in a better position if you've raised more money and you have more money than if you don't. And Paxton comes in, years of scandal, impeachment by a Republican-controlled House, serious questions about whether Republicans nominated the weakest possible guy just because Donald Trump said, this is the guy. And look at the campaign that James Talleyco is running. Huge small dollar fundraising operation.

Texas Tribune reports that almost half of Tala Rico's money from individual donors is from people giving under $200 total. So Tala Rico doesn't have like a few giant dumps of money. He's really doing the work of raising from small dollar donors. Now, there is, it's important to be cautious here, especially in Texas and especially when you're talking about a Democrat running for the Senate. Beto O'Rourke dramatically outraised Ted Cruz in 2018, but he did lose. And Colin Alred outfundraised Ted Cruz in 2024 and lost by even more than Beto lost by.

Texas is difficult for Democrats. You still want to raise more money. Raising more money is usually better than it is worse. But it's important to remember that this is Texas. And Paxton may also get help from national Republican groups and outside organizations. Trump can do rallies, send fundraising messages, all of that stuff. This is a race that is not over. But if there's anything to feel inspired by, especially if you're thinking of getting

involved in this one, it's that Tala Rico has better polling numbers than Beto ever did. And that's a good sign. Now, Republicans control statewide politics in Texas. Trump selected the nominee. The nominee is going on Fox and going, I really need your money. I just, I really need your money. Let's make them fail on this one. And the broader issue, of course, is the Senate map. In the House of Representatives, everybody's up for reelection every two years. So every two years, It is a referendum and you could see major realignments. You can see realignments in the Senate, but the hundred, the way it works is there's a hundred seats in the Senate, six year terms.

Every two years, about a third of the hundred senators are up for reelection. That third can favor one party or the other. And it's not awesome for Democrats this time around. There is a path for Democrats to control the Senate. It's not even that unlikely. Most of the polling and betting markets say that it's like a 5545 looking good for Republicans. 554545 can become 5050 very quickly. So we've got to get out there.

There are so many key races. We're going to be talking about them. There are many opportunities to get involved. But it is a delight. I am personally relishing seeing Ken Paxton struggle so badly to raise any amount of money. And he's a horrible person. He deserves to be struggling. He has no business being the nominee.

Never mind the senator from Texas. Have you ever actually looked at what's in your dog's food? A lot of kibble is made with extreme high heat, then patched back together with a bunch of synthetic ingredients that I struggle to pronounce. But our sponsor, Sundays for Dogs, is different. It was founded by Dr. Torrey Waxman, a vet and dog parent. To just be real food that's easy to serve. Sunday starts with all natural meat.

They add highly nutritious foods like kale, ginger, and blueberries, no fillers, no nutritional blends. And it's gently air dried. No need for a fridge, freezer, prep, or mess. A friend of mine has been using Sundays and loves it. Their dog gets very excited for meals now. They love knowing that they're feeding something simple. and complete and genuinely high quality to their dog.

Sundays also just launched a new fish recipe with Omega-3s to support skin, coat, joints, and brain function. Go to SundaysforDogs.com slash Pacman for 50% off your first order. The link is in the description. Shopping for a mattress is one of those things that most people put off. you finally decide we're going to do it, you just start guessing, which is why our sponsor Helix sleep is such a great way to go. I've been sleeping on a Helix mattress for years at this point. You go to the Helix website, you take a short little sleep quiz, answer a few questions about your

body, how do you sleep? What kind of feel do you like? What are you looking for? And they will match you with a model that is built around your preferences. And that's it. It just simplifies mattress shopping. The thing I most like about my Helix mattress is that the whole process was very straightforward. I just answered a few questions. They matched me with a mattress that is what I wanted. And I've had it for years. It's in perfect condition. I'm far from needing to replace it. Go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman for 27% off site wide, a discount they are only offering to my audience. The link is in the description. You know, sometimes I talk to people and I just say to them, do you have any idea what's happening

under Donald Trump right now? And these are sometimes people who at least believe that they're kind of following what's going on. They think they have a sense of how the economy is doing. They think they have a sense of what the United States is up to as far as, say, foreign policy, for example. And one of the things that happens, and it's nobody's fault, is that economic news kind of arrives a month at a time.

And there's a lot of different metrics. We get a jobs report that comes out. We get an inflation report that comes out. If it's good, Trump tries to take credit. And then later, a lot of the numbers are revised. Sometimes they're revised by a lot. And the revision never gets the attention of the original headline. And so what people will sometimes remember is, oh, I don't know.

I think we created some jobs in May, right? But now it's August. I don't know where exactly are we. And what can happen is that people lose track of the big picture, picture trajectory of what is going on. So let me pick one area and give you the big picture. And you tell me whether this is useful. The American labor force has shrunk by more than 1.3 million people in the last year. As always, fact check me. Go and look at the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I will never tell you that I'm the ultimate source of truth and final authority on any of this stuff.

I'm giving you my best interpretation of the data. You go to the Bureau. of labor statistics and you find that the labor force fell from 170.4 million people last July to 169.1 million people this past July. The newest data that we have is for up to last month. The participation rate, which is the share of adults working or looking for work, has dropped to about 61 percent. And we already talked about that in an earlier show. Outside the pandemic, it has not been this low in decades. Trump made a series of promises and those promises where we're going to have an economic boom and instead the pool of Americans working or looking for work is getting smaller.

Monthly headlines can sometimes hide that. And so if you go, well, listen, in July, the unemployment rate fell from 4.2 to 4.1%. Maybe that sounds good, but then you take a closer look and you go, well, that same month, 264,000 people left the labor force and the total employment level went down. And once somebody stops actively looking for work, they no longer count that person as unemployed. That is someone that has left the labor force. You're not working and you're not looking for work.

You're out of the labor force. This is the way that these terms are defined. So you can have unemployment fall even when fewer people. are working. Fine. Second layer, there are revisions. The July report showed that the economy lost 23,000 jobs. I went over that with you earlier this week. May and June were revised down by about 103,000 jobs. The first estimates get headlines. The corrections get very little attention. Now, when you zoom out, you see a very clear pattern here. Participation in the labor force has. fallen basically on a straight line since January and six million people outside the labor force

would like to have a job. A quarter of unemployed people have been looking for jobs for at least six months. And there are also about 500,000 what are called discouraged workers. This is from July. These are people who they would like to work, but they've stopped looking because they think there aren't jobs available that are going to be suitable or that they can obtain. That's up about 40, 45,000 jobs since last year. So we've got to be honest about the causes. As I have said before, sometimes the labor force can shrink because there's a lot of baby boomers and baby boomers are retiring.

The fact that some baby boomers can afford to retire is not a sign for concern. Labor force can go up or down. Labor force participation rate can go up or down for reasons that are good or reasons that are bad. Trump has nothing to do with baby boomers being of the age that they would consider retirement. Trump doesn't have anything to do with the declining birth rate in the United States. At least I don't think he does based on anything I've seen so far. These are trends that develop over a long period of time. But there are areas where Donald Trump does have an impact and he's got to be held accountable for that. The immigration crackdown of Trump is reckless and it is hurting

the employment situation. If older workers are retiring, and you've got fewer young workers replacing them, immigration is where you get workers. If you believe in the standard economic theory that Trump and Republicans believe, which is that in order to do well economically, you need growth, growth means you need more people working, and they're saying, we are going to limit a source of workers who pay taxes and do all sorts of other stuff. You deport workers. You're doing the same thing. You block new workers. You're doing the same thing. You're limiting production and you're reducing growth. This is their economic worldview. Now, meanwhile, there's a job market that's frozen. Companies

are not firing huge numbers of people. That's good. But they're not hiring many people either. People send out applications and they hear nothing. Some people stop looking. They disappear from the unemployment rate, but they are still people who would like to be earning money that they are not earning. This is what really gets lost when every jobs report is a separate event and you don't look at the trend. Now, let me make a macro critique here. And if people don't want to hear this, tell me, David, David, shut up. We don't want to hear that. This is a critique of the coverage of this. Unfortunately, a lot of the first to social, like, so let me put a different way. If you are creating content directly for vertical platforms, you might be doing a great job. But there's a lot of content

out there that is like direct to TikTok rather than being pulled from a broader conversation like we do here. These 60-90-second clips about the jobs market, on both sides of the political aisle, they're often pretty crappy. It's the last number, no context, no discussion of what these different metrics mean. Usually they look at one metric. It's worth going deeper. That doesn't mean it has to be this show, but understand the metrics that are being used. Look at the deeper economic reports. Look at the actual Bureau of Labor Statistics report. The point is, We are less nuance tends to perform better, but it would also be good to at least give people the opportunity of more nuance if they are interested in it.

And if you do look at the big picture, it's tough to spin it, right? More than 1.3 million people have left the workforce. Participation is near a multi-decade low. Employment is down. And there are a lot of jobs that are nominally available. For example, we've spoken about the 500,000 manufacturing jobs that are just open because they are not offering a high enough wage for what the job entails and or there aren't enough qualified workers in the locations where they are needed. So this is not a problem that is only because of

Donald Trump. The entire economy has not collapsed as of this point in time. But we have a serious downward trend here. Trump is aggravating it through tariff and domestic policy. So when Trump ignores the jobs numbers, labor force participation, consumer confidence, inflation, all the stuff. And he goes, well, unemployment went down 0.1% last month. We need to be able to go deeper. How many people are working? How many have given up? What are companies doing in terms of firing, hiring, and layoffs? This is what happens in Trump's America over the last year. 1.3 million fewer people working. That's not good for the economy. All right, Donald Trump fell asleep again. Oh, okay. It's again two, three times a week. This is happening now. It's completely pathetic. Yes, it is pathetic.

I want to go beyond just the fact that Trump fell asleep. Now, I am going to show you, again, behind the resolute desk, Oval Office event. This one was about childhood vaccines. This is, this is not a joke. Like, it is visually funny. Okay. I, I have a sense of humor like everybody else. It is visually funny to see Trump sort of almost horizontal and just passed out asleep. But this guy made Joe Biden's age and alertness the central issue around the 2024 campaign central to his political identity. Trump would never fall asleep when he's not trying to fall asleep.

Trump out. He's just out. And look at the woman behind Donald Trump, by the way, realizing what's going on. Take this extremely seriously, as we have been. the last year and a half and more of the presidency. At the NIH, what we've done is we have established the Autism Data Science Initiative, which started almost a year, actually more than a year ago, where we funded a dozen and more major research teams to answer the question of what is the cause of autism.

It's a complicated biological phenomenon. It's not going to be a simple answer. I will have, as the secretary said, potentially genetic predisposition, but that cannot possibly explain why we've seen such a large rise in autism. There must be some other environment. So let's get the prerequisites in here so that we can kind of center context for what's going on. Trump repeatedly called Biden Sleepy Joe. He's like, Joe Biden doesn't have the stamina.

Joe Biden doesn't have the focus. Joe Biden doesn't have the mental sharpness it takes to be president of the United States. Trump told Americans, a president who looks tired makes the country look weak. We can't trust a president that looks tired with this very important job. Now, when Trump's aides are confronted with the fact that Trump falls asleep on the time, all the time, they just deny it. They go, oh, no, no, no. He rests his eyes to really think clearly about what's being discussed.

And sometimes he is just so concentrated. That is not a reassuring defense. It's not an even remotely believable defense. The president is sitting in the Oval Office during official government business, which could impact the health of children. And he can't be bothered to stay awake. If he's asleep, that's a concern. If he's just so damn bored that he closes his eyes and checks out while really serious stuff like childhood vaccination is being discussed, that's also concerning. Now, this is not an isolated incident.

Two to three times a week, Trump is falling asleep in public during the day. His day is already mostly restricted to 12 to 5, local time wherever he is. And even within the 12 to 5 window, he can't stay awake for all of it. There was an event on prescription drug prices. Another important topic, fell asleep. So do we need to diagnose Trump? Is it sleep apnea? Is it congestive heart failures?

I don't know. They're not transparent about his health. It's obviously not good. we get credible medical information about the president? Of course we should. He's 80 years old. Oldest person ever inaugurated his president. He's not healthy. He's obese. Cancels colligula, you know, all this different stuff. But we're getting propaganda from them. We're not getting an explanation. Fine. Let's get to the hypocrisy, though, because when you spend years and all of your allies spend years going, oh, Biden can't do it. Biden stumbled. He paused. He went quiet for a second.

of these legitimate questions exist about presidential health when the president is Biden or Trump. But Trump insisted that every single one of these incidents is essential except not when it applies to him. That's the larger issue. And then let's go bigger now. Competence and interest in being the president. Trump loves rallies where everybody cheers for him. He loves listing his grievances.

He loves insulting people. He likes TV appearances. He likes being the conversation. Governance requires that you listen, that you're awake, that you absorb briefings. You evaluate details. You stay engaged even when other people are talking. Trump doesn't give a damn about any of that. He is so uninterested in the presidency.

His administration then comes in and fills the vacuum. while Trump sleeps, RFK talks about changing vaccine requirements and drives these huge policy changes that should really involve medical professionals, which RFK is not. It is massive weakness that is projected by this sort of thing. And then the national security aspect is that you think Russia and China and whoever else looks at this and goes, damn, that's not someone we can take advantage of. Of course not. They see Trump asleep every other day on live TV.

And they go, this is a guy we can take advantage of. Not that Putin needed to be reminded of that. He knew that back during Donald Trump's first term. They go, this is the guy who lacks stamina and attention. And for all of Joe Biden's decline and slowing down that we saw, Biden, first of all, Biden stayed awake during official events. But Biden knew what was going on in his administration. You didn't have these situations like with Trump where someone goes, sir, what do you think about this thing that happened yesterday that everybody's talking about?

He goes, sorry, the what now? And then after it's repeated loudly enough for him to hear, he goes, we're going to have to get back to you on that. Because he has no idea what is going on. So the claim was from Trump, Biden can't do the job because he looks sold and tired. Okay. That's a standard, I guess, that Trump set. Trump's the one falling asleep constantly. And when Trump did wake up, by the way, just as an aside, he said horribly racist things about Somali Americans.

Here he is. Take a look at this. These are people that have been not successful. They're people that have been, in many cases, failures. They come from other failed countries. And they come here and they tell us how to run our country. They come from places like I will mention because I don't want to get myself into a controversy. but they come from countries that are not great.

They come from, let's say, as an example, Somalia, they come in and then they tell us how to, how our constitution, how our declaration of independence, how it works. It doesn't work that way. And they're not smart. They have no aptitude. They have nothing going, and they're telling us how to run our country.

And I just don't think it's going to happen. I think that they start off. Now, I may be wrong, Just sort of par for the course at this point in time. Where are the magas? I want to hear from you. Like, honestly, if you, if this is the picture of strength and vitality, send me an email. Info at David Pakman.com.

Leave a comment. I want to hear from the magas who think this is nothing to worry about whatsoever. Everything's fine with Trump. Summer is better when good food doesn't require planning. And that is why our sponsor, Wild Grain, deliver sourdough breads. seasonal pastries and French butter from small independent bakery straight to your door. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. I love wild grains, slow churned French butter on sourdough.

Rich, lightly salty. It is a great snack. Easy upgrade for breakfasts or casual summer dinners with friends. Wild grain is using simple, recognizable ingredients. They've got a slow fermentation process. You can customize your box with classic gluten-free vegan and protein options. So if you're looking for an easy way to enjoy bakery quality bread at home, give wild grain a try over 40,000 five-star reviews named USA Today's best food subscription box three years in a row. And their croissants are still winning awards.

Go to wildgrain.com slash Pacman to get $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life. The link is in the description. Anytime somebody says, do you realize how they are screwing you? Just about everybody has a bunch of ideas. Yes, they're screwing us in this way or that way, price gouging or controlling. I want to explain a few less commonly discussed ways in which the average person is being screwed by American institutions. And the current White House has zero interest in doing a damn thing about it.

It's going to be up to us to figure this stuff out. One of the things in general that American institutions have become very good at is making you and me pay for costs that should belong to a corporation or to the government. You pay either with your money, with your time, with your risk, and sometimes even with your right to defend yourself. And you might be going, David, this is very vague. This is abstract. Please give me something concrete.

Let me explain. One example is customer service. A company bills you incorrectly or loses your package or keeps charging you for a service that you've canceled. You spend hours navigating phone trees, AI customer service, repeating your story, trying to get the mistake corrected. Automation is in there and it's just, it's all a huge mess. And the company has no concern whatsoever about the fact that the error they made is costing you time, money, and frustration. You are providing unpaid labor and it's part of their business model. Either they are paying to resolve these issues or you are.

And the more time that's required of you, that saves them money. They've outsourced or you could put it a different way. They have socialized the customer service. This gets us to forced arbitration. You might take a job or open an account somewhere or you click accept on terms of conditions, on terms and conditions and there's pages of legal language. It might eliminate your right to sue or eliminate your right to join a class action. Now, arbitration can be faster and cheaper than going to court, but choosing it after a dispute

is very different than a corporation saying, you've got to accept that you will never us before you even know what we might do wrong. And if a company improperly takes $20 from a million customers, almost no one is going to fight alone. But you've got to. And so if you're the corporation, you want to prevent those million people you screw out of 20 bucks each from getting together to fight you. Make them each arbitrate against you individually, which obviously puts the company at a huge advantage and the individual at a disadvantage. which gets us to item number three. Businesses outsource staffing risk.

A restaurant or a retailer can't perfectly predict demand. So workers are going to get schedules at the last minute. Or they are told you have to be available even though we won't guarantee you hours. You have to give us that you'll hold your schedule open, but we're not necessarily going to give you hours for which you will get paid. You might lose shifts, meaning you lose. compensation. The business needs flexibility, but you pay the price as the employee for the flexibility that the business needs. And when you make employees reserve their time, even though you're

guaranteed nothing, you essentially are becoming an unpaid insurance policy for the business. Government does a very similar thing. Government gives private companies captive customers, Families paying to communicate with prisoners who are in jails and prisons are forced to pay exorbitant rates in many states. Some states are dealing with this. Exorbitant rates to private companies for the phone services that they provide to the inmates or drivers on privatized toll roads or borrowers dealing with government contractors rather than the government itself. taxpayers navigating completely unnecessary tax filing complexity, which is a boon to the tax prep software industrial complex. There's no competition when that is taking place.

And so what you're doing is you're taking government coercion with private profit, who gets screwed. It's the average person. Now, let me give you the kind of final example. And then I want to tie some themes together. We as taxpayers when there's a new road or a road that gets repaired or broadband infrastructure is being installed or a stadium is being built or utilities are coming in or there's development for new pharmaceuticals. We are subsidizing all of that stuff. Sometimes we're subsidizing it as taxpayers.

Sometimes we're subsidizing it as customers. But then once it's all done, we also pay in order to use what came from it through user fees and all of that sort of stuff. Now, I'm not saying user fees are illegitimate necessarily. And you might have a situation where there's public financing of new infrastructure, so the taxpayers pay, but then there's maintenance over the period of time. So then we kind of pay again by paying a toll or a user fee or whatever. But this is supposedly what certainly Republicans don't want, which is that there is a socialization of a lot of the costs, but then the profits still flow to private institutions.

It's framed as a partnership. The public is going to be partnering with government and a private industry to build something. Well, is it a partnership? We're just paying for it. And then we are going to support its continued existence and maintenance also by, paying user fees. Damn, that's not really sounding very good. Now, what often is the case is that if you pay attention to like town meetings where these sorts of projects are discussed, individually, they all look kind of normal. It's like, well, in this particular case, I guess it makes sense that

the taxpayers would fund it. And I guess it makes sense that the taxpayers would also pay user fees to use it. But if you zoom out, you see the big picture or a very consistent pattern, which is companies make mistakes, the public pays to correct it. Company faces uncertainty. The public absorbs the uncertainty. Government creates the customer. A middleman collects the revenue. The public finances the foundation and then private owners get to keep all of the profits. Republicans will often come in and go, no, this is the way these arrangements have to be because there's a private company involved. There's no other way to convince a private company to do it. But there's really no market there that justifies that being the way that it has to be.

Now, I would love to be able to say, but Democrats are awesome on this issue. And not really. Democrats will often just regulate around the edges. And it's the same middlemen, but they'll just go, well, you can't make quite as much money off of it. I don't know if that's so good. And so what you end up with is two parties that take industry money and then they treat all of the circumstances I just described as unrelated problems. Now, I think the answer is really

reciprocity. Corporate mistakes should be costly to the corporations. Arbitration should only be chosen after a dispute if everybody agrees, all right, arbitration actually makes sense here to every party. If you are a reserve worker, and in some industries, it is this way. If you're on reserve, if you have to be on call already, you should be compensated for that. In an, in a, in a A lot of salary or not salaried. There are many jobs in which that is the case, but there are too many in which it is not. And if you're a contractor with captive customers, you should still be subject to pricing rules.

It can't be a, hey, we're effectively a government set up monopoly and we can charge whatever we want. So we need a pretty radical change here. And it is not a change to my view is it's not a change to socialism. or communism, but it is a change to real regulation and actually having a more competitive process for a lot of this stuff. And many people don't even realize that the structure here is screwing them. They sort of see the after effect where they go, wow, look at how much I'm paying for utilities or look at how disruptive this road construction project is, which by the way I'm paying for,

and then I will also pay tolls in order to use the road. A lot of people see that. It's the structure that is really important to understand. 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 four 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 second to pop over to YouTube, search up the David Packman show, and hit

subscribe. Every bit helps. I would love to have you as a subscriber there. Donald Trump has been caught in a really humiliating blunder involving some very tiny pricks. Now, it's not, it's probably not what you think. I'm talking about vaccine needles, of course. Get your minds out of the gutter, please. This is so funny because it's something I've talked about.

before that I've spoken with pediatrician friends about. Listen to this. Donald Trump is now claiming that when his kids were little, including Ivanka, he insisted because he knows so much about vaccination. He insisted we've got to split up their vaccines. Don't give them these combined vaccines like MMR and DTAP. You got to separate them out one by one and that they made repeated trips to the doctor with their kids in order to do that. He didn't want them receiving these combined vaccines because I guess way back in 81 when Ivanka was born, he was so smart that he knew that there were problems with these vaccines and whatever. So take a look at this clip. See if you can identify the problem with what Donald Trump is saying. In addition to the fact that he just lies all the time,

Let's see if you can identify it. We're going to talk about it in a second. Mr. President, you're a proud father. Would you have vaccinated your children differently based on the recommendations? Well, I did. I took my children for five different vaccinations. In other words, I broke it up. The one visit where they just pump, you know, what seemingly looks like gallons,

where they pump so much in. I took all of my children from day one. I believed in this a long time, a long time ago. I took them with my wife. I took them through five different visits to the doctor. Essentially, they get 20% each, and I had no problem. It's inconvenient. It's five stops, but it's something that I think will have a huge impact on autism.

So first of all, the first question is like, in 1981, do we, really believe that this is what Donald Trump was thinking about and doing because Donald Trump only became interested in this anti-vax stuff once it became clear that he was going to be a political person and that the Republican Party wanted to hear some of this stuff. Okay. Ivanka was born in 1981. Separate vaccines were available for some of these things then. So it's like hypothetically possible, but it doesn't sound super likely. Trump didn't publicly push this false vaccine autism stuff until into the 2000s at minimum. And really once he became more of a political person, that was 25 years after Ivanka Trump

would have gotten, for example, her MMR vaccine. His older kids were vaccinated long before that disgraced former Dr. Andrew Wakefield started the MMR autism stuff. a paper about it and it's obviously been debunked since. So there's really no evidence at all that in the early 1980s, Trump was studying immunization schedules and worried about vaccination and all of that stuff. Like, we have today's Trump who has become Trump gets all of his vaccines, but he's using the anti-vax thing to get political clout. We have no reason to believe that the Trump of 45 years ago was thinking about this stuff at all.

So this is very clearly an identity that Donald Trump is projecting backwards. I always knew this stuff and I was making these decisions for my kids. By the way, it's fascinating that this is the first time Donald Trump has ever said that he previously made these decisions about his own kids. It's been a decade now of playing coy officially as a politician with this anti-VAC stuff. And never, to my knowledge from what I found, has Donald Trump ever said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we separate out the vaccines for my kids. What I believe is going on here is that this is a politically useful position for Donald Trump today because Trump put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of

health policy, a secretary of health and human services. Vaccine distrust and skepticism is central to the entire Maha movement and to voters who treat public health agencies like the enemy. And so today, by telling this story, Donald Trump is able to kind of cast him to make a man. himself as a visionary. In the 1980s, I was doing this stuff. But the truth is the current policy exposes the absurdity of doing this. Now, one more clip here. This one's from the Wayne Allen Root show.

I've interviewed this guy before, by the way. Wacky, wacky guy. Here is a little more about this vaccine stuff. But with me, it's too many, but it's something bigger than too many. It's too big. It's too much at one time. They give these massive. massive did you ever take a look it looks like a Coca-Cola bottle you know like they're pumping this

massive amount of fluid into a child's body i don't care if it's water you know with the number 72 and i want them i want them to break it into four visits or five visits to the doctor and i think that will have a huge impact and the other thing is there are certain vaccines you know the mmr do you know the MMR as an example, if you give them, I mean, certain studies, so what do you have to lose? You know what I'm doing? I'm saying, what do you have to lose? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Nobody's going to get hurt by it.

MMR. If you give them separately, the M, the M and the R, it's fine. When you put them together, they're sort of like a nuclear weapon, according to some. So why would you give them separately? Why would you? What's hurt by giving them separately? And why would you give a COVID vaccine to a child would not one child ever died of COVID who didn't start with childhood cancer?

There's no risk of COVID killing children. So Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the MMR vaccine to be broken up into three shots. Executive orders, remember, are basically memos. It's I would like someone to do something. And these are not products that are available in the United States right now. I know I've mentioned this before, but I want to include it in this story. Pediatrician friends have been telling me over the last year that parents come in and they go,

no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm going to get them the vaccines. We're going to get them that. We're going to get little Timmy, the vaccine. But I want to separate it out. Just give them measles today. We'll come back for mumps. We'll come back for Rubella. And my doctor friends have to explain to parents.

Those don't exist in the United States. There's no supply. I don't have a measles only vaccine in the back room. Creating them requires manufacturers. It requires, I don't even know what the status would be as far as FDA approval because these really haven't been available in the United States for a long time. So Trump is directing people to a choice that isn't even really a possible choice in the United States.

Now, I don't even know that I need to mention this, but there's no evidence that splitting it up would be safer. It does mean more needles, which means more. injection sites, meaning at least theoretically more infection. It's more appointments. More appointments means more appointments you might miss, cancel or be unable to make it to. And you're leaving kids exposed for longer. So there's actually no evidence that you're gaining or doing anything beneficial by splitting up these vaccines. Now, Trump again is talking about vaccines and autism. We've talked about this ad nauseum at this point. Studies involving millions of kids have found no

connection between vaccines and autism. Andrew Wakefield, who was a big vaccine. He was like the big guy arguing about vaccines and autism. Turned out that he wrote a paper based on it was like 11 or 12 kids who were brought to him specifically. There was no randomized controlled trial. And it was determined that Wakefield had a financial interest personally in a measles only vaccine. So the paper was retracted by the Lancet, Wakefield lost his medical license. And yet after this has so been debunked now for 20 years, we're back to the same stuff. You've got to be afraid of vaccines causing autism. You should be separating out the vaccine in a way that can't really be done. Now, as of this moment, there is no evidence that Donald Trump has a personal financial interest in the measles vaccine,

but the political interest is very clear. The story binds him to this maha, agenda. And maybe Trump is actually involved financially in some way with a measles-only vaccine. We don't know. We don't have evidence of that at this point in time. But he is really trying to get the political benefit of this vaccine skepticism. The humiliating blunder is that he is turning unverifiable family information, which we should really doubt the truth of, international policy and going, I did this in 1981 and we should now make it policy. And by the way, the products that he is suggesting don't even exist. So bottom line, Trump believes that his tiny pricks, not the not the MMR, the full prick,

these little pricks that he is in love with should outweigh decades of medical evidence. That's not the way we do things. Or at least I didn't think it was. Donald Trump could have gotten reporters killed with a stunt that he pulled. And he doesn't give a damn because he doesn't care about anybody but himself or people that are just convenient to care about. Let me explain what took place here. Donald Trump publicly climbed aboard Air Force One in that, remember, Air Force One is

any plane the president is on. But we're talking about the presidential 747. There's two of them. plus now there's the Katari one. But okay, Donald Trump climbed aboard what was believed to be the Air Force one that would be transporting him. He did it in front of the cameras, but he didn't fly on it. Okay. Instead, Trump was secretly removed in a catering truck and placed aboard a different plane while

reporters kept traveling on the plane they believed Trump was on, despite the fact that the whole reason for this, was fear of an attack against that plane meant to assassinate Donald Trump. There are two stories here. Number one, Trump's increasing obsession with being killed, being assassinated. That's number one. And number two, just the total disregard, total disregard for the value of the lives of others. Now, we have good reporting about this from the Washington Post. American intelligence apparently received a threat that groups connected to,

Iran might try to shoot down Donald Trump's plane. Trump had just been at the NATO summit. This was several weeks ago. This was in Turkey. Turkey is close to Iran. Security officials believed, listen, the danger here is serious enough that we need to do a deceptive act. So Trump got on Air Force One in full view of the cameras.

The attention shifted. He was bundled into a catering vehicle, driven to another aircraft flown to Britain, under a different call sign. And the reporters that routinely travel with the president believed Trump was on Air Force One. And this is like the key detail about how terrible a person Trump is and about how disgusting this administration is. If Air Force One was being used to convince potential attackers that Trump was on board, the journalists and the White House personnel traveling on that plane unknowingly became part of the deception. Human shields maybe is the harshest interpretation and maybe we just say, well, unwitting decoys. Unwitting decoys is difficult to

dispute. The operation involved an astonishing calculation. Air Force One is designed to survive emergencies. It has some of the most advanced defensive technology available to planes anywhere on this planet, the replacement aircraft reportedly didn't have any of that stuff. And so moving Trump might have made him harder to locate, but it potentially made them more vulnerable if attackers had discovered the ruse that was going on. And of course, there was also a risk that anyone reluctant to attack Air Force One directly might be more willing to attack a less protected plane if they found out if they found out that Donald Trump was on that plane. So is Trump's fear of assassination irrational? It's not irrational. I mean, listen, any president of the United States is a target.

That's without a doubt. Trump did survive an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. There are other people who have been planning to kill Donald Trump and there are people who plan to kill every president. And I believe that intelligence agencies did believe that they at a credible threat. That all can be true. But the specific precautions that a president operating inside an atmosphere of extraordinary fear would be taking don't seem to necessarily line up with all of Donald Trump's behavior. Trump has spent a decade, I don't know, building this image of complete and total strength. He's just, he's the strongest. He's fearless. He's a dominant guy. he's uniquely capable of imposing his will on other countries. No one would dare cross him.

And behind that very performative behavior, Trump's security operation reportedly concluded that the world's most recognizable airplane is too dangerous for Donald Trump to use. And the political contradiction I find to be even sharper because the threat reportedly came from Trump's own conflict with Iran. Trump has precipitated the circumstance in which he is increasingly worried about being taken out, being assassinated, through an ill-advised war that was supposed to take two or three weeks starting on February 28th, and it's basically mid-August at this point in time. So the master, the supposed master of strength and control, was secretly driven away with

the catering supplies, while reporters, unwittingly sustained the illusion that Donald Trump was aboard Air Force One. Now, imagine for a second that something happened to Air Force One and Trump wasn't on it, but all of those reporters were. Do you think Trump would genuinely feel bad about that? I really don't. And it is such a disrope. We know he is not a big fan of the free press.

And I don't mean the free press like Barry White. I mean like a free press. But this is a new low even for Donald Trump. And so I don't even dispute that Trump has legitimate reasons for fearing an attack. If he was briefed on that, then that's completely legitimate. This operation shows what fear has done to him into secret aircraft, elaborate deceptions, putting reporters and White House staff at risk. Like, if it's dangerous enough for Trump to be flying on Air Force One, isn't it dangerous

enough for anybody to be flying on it. It's absolutely terrifying. And it's just a reminder. You know, after I did this segment, I believe it was last week, maybe it was late the week before, about just wait until they go after Barron, especially if Barron is subpoenaed or any of these investigations that some Democrats are talking about happen. Trump is going to absolutely lose it. And people wrote in and they said, no, David, what are you talking about? Trump doesn't care about anybody but himself. He doesn't care of it. Even if Donald Trump doesn't personally care about some of these people, Trump would see the persecution or investigation of Baron or Melania as disrespect to him. How could Trump be the alpha if they are willing to investigate his wife

or kids? That's why it would trigger Trump, not because he cares deeply about those people. And he certainly doesn't give a damn about the press corps. That's for sure. Just unbelievable behavior.