The David Pakman Show - They know a political wipeout is coming

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Dan Koh, Former White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary and former Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Biden, joins us to discuss his candidacy for Congress to represent Massachusetts' 6th district -- Texas voters are defecting from Republicans over issues like building data centers, turning the upcoming Senate race into a toss-up -- Donald Trump celebrates economic strain in Iran while United States crude oil inventories drop to a 50-year low under his administration -- Jared Kushner secretly meets with Hakeem Jeffries to discuss key domestic issues as Republicans face potential midterm losses -- Donald Trump imposes 50% tariffs on Canadian imports after trade negotiations with Prime Minister Mark Carney break down -- Mark Carney stands firm against Donald Trump as internal infighting within the American trade team leads to a breakdown in negotiations -- Donald Trump's medical reports show a significant weight gain, drawing attention to the 80-year-old president's worsening health -- Melania Trump abruptly leaves her seat at an IndyCar event after executive assistant Natalie Harp appears behind Donald Trump -- On the ⁠Bonus Show⁠: Border Patrol arrests a man waiting for his sailor son's return from the USS Lincoln, Trump wants to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B worker visas, the crisis of overqualified workers, and much more... 🎙️ Plaud: Use code PAKMAN for 10% off at ⁠https://plaud.ai/pakman⁠ or shop at ⁠https://amzn.to/4fMahxp⁠ 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at ⁠https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman⁠ ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at ⁠https://ground.news/pakman⁠ 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: ⁠http://incogni.com/pakman⁠ -- Become a Member: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/membership⁠ -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: ⁠https://davidpakman.substack.com⁠ -- Get David's Book: ⁠https://bit.ly/m/attention⁠ -- TDPS Subreddit: ⁠http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow⁠ -- David on Bluesky: ⁠https://davidpakman.com/bluesky⁠ -- David on Facebook: ⁠http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow⁠ (00:00) Start (01:18) Texas is turning blue over data centers (09:12) Crude oil inventories drop to 50-year low (15:46) Jared Kushner secretly meets with Hakeem Jeffries (26:13) Donald Trump imposes 50% tariffs on Canada (33:46) Mark Carney stands firm against Trump (42:45) Dan Koh interview (56:40) Trump's medical report shows weight gain (1:04:12) Melania abruptly leaves IndyCar event Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro-level. This is Fidelity Connects, your daily edge in the markets. Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio. Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow. The reckless trade war is blowing up in the faces of this administration because Canada has called Trump's bluff. They've walked away from the table. And we now see astonishing chaos inside the people that are negotiating. on behalf of Trump. And meanwhile, we have warning signs everywhere.

Trump's health is again under scrutiny this time because of substantial weight gain. We have more misleading information from the White House. Melania Trump just abruptly walks away from Trump when Natalie Harp appears at a car race. And Jared Kushner is already meeting with the man who could become the next speaker of the House and lifelong Texas Republicans are. are openly preparing to vote for Democrats in November. Plus, Trump celebrates Iran's economic collapse, if it's even a real thing, while the United States is left with our smallest oil cushion in half a century as allies revolt and voters

abandon MAGA. We've got a phenomenal show for you today. If I can get through it, we will try. Texas, Texas, the state that Republicans have owned since before some of you were born might be about to flip. And the Republicans own voters are doing it. Now let me give you the kind of thesis here. Texas is not potentially turning blue because Democrats necessarily got so much better.

Texas might turn blue because Republicans have gotten a lot worse and their own base is finally noticing. Now, let's look at the exhibit. The Washington Post just profiled lifelong Texas Republicans who call themselves break rank. Tom Weeks retired wore a homemade break rank t-shirt to a Gina Inahosa event. My party has failed, he said. We heard in this Washington Post article that we're linking to from Twyla Lowry, who's a conservative Christian, voted for Greg Gabit three times and is voting for Abbott's opponent in November because of data centers, an issue that Donald Trump is increasingly on the wrong side of. Data centers, she says, are eating up her state's water, eating up her state's power, creating noise 24 hours a day

from a Bitcoin mine near her town. And then 84-year-old Glenda Berg voted for Abbott and Trump three separate times. And now she says she's appalled by Trump acting against what democracy is based on, specifically that mid-decade redistricting that he was pushing on Texas Republicans to try to steal some seats. So these are not mere anecdotes because we then go from these three, four stories to a Fox News poll. And the Fox News poll has Democratic candidate, you know, within one point of Greg Abbott in a state where Republicans usually are running nine to 12 points ahead of Democrats. You look at the Cook political report.

They moved the Texas Senate race, Ken Paxton versus James Talarico, from Leans Republican to a toss up in Texas against not a random unknown Republican, but an establishment entrenched Texas Republican. Of course, Paxton's a disastrous candidate. He's been indicted for securities fraud. He's been accused of adultery by his own estranged wife. He barely dodged an impeachment trial. He was caught on camera stealing an expensive pen. Now, Greg Abbott's campaign was asked about this kind of turning of the tide. And when asked about it, they said not a single word about data centers, not a single word about water, not a single word about the reason. that a lot of his voters are revolting. Instead, as press secretary put out this pathetic statement about,

oh, Democrats want to defund the police and let boys play girls sports. That is not what Gina Hina Hosa has been running on and that is not what James Tala Rico has been running on. But this is an important sort of tell. When your base is walking away over the important kitchen table economic issues that we know get people voting one way or the other, we're talking about housing, uh, electricity, water, your response is to go to culture war nonsense, we know you don't have an answer. And the reason we know it is that we know they know, we know, we know, no, I'm getting the reason the reason we know they don't have an answer. Is we understand that they're aware the economic stuff when you can run on it is much

more effective than the culture war stuff. And so you go to the culture war stuff when you're losing on the economics. Now, let me give you. the normal disclaimers before people start mortgaging their houses betting on these Texas races. I wouldn't do that. I'm not a betting man and I don't suggest you do that. None of what I just told you today means Texas is going to flip this November. Texas hasn't gone Democratic statewide since 1994. And the Republican Party has a brutal track record turning out its base. James Henson at the University of Texas says it takes a lot to get a Texas Republican to vote Democrat. But at least anecdotally, we are seeing a bunch of these people on camera say that's exactly what

I'm going to do. I'm a Republican. I am a Republican and I'm going to be voting for a Democrat. Now, if we zoom out a little bit, this is much bigger than a single governor's race or a single Senate race. The big picture of this is that. according to a new New York Times report, Democrats do have a number of possible paths to flip the Senate. Georgia is tightening a little bit, even though Osaf is looking pretty good there. North Carolina is tightening a little bit, even though Cooper is looking pretty good there. But then you've got Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, a bunch of these complicated races. Michigan is going to be a complicated race. Trump's approval is under 40%. So they're right to be nervous.

And Trump is nervous. And Trump apparently is nervous enough to tell his rally crowds in, was it South Carolina or North Carolina? South Carolina is where he did that recent rally. He said, pretend I'm on the ballot because I think Trump has an instinct of what happens when he's not on the ballot. When Texas becomes a toss up and Republicans immediately go, it's corrupt. It's a corrupt election. They're trying to rig it. you know that this has gone beyond being a normal low interest midterm. You are seeing a party realizing we may lose our coalition from the inside. And when you see their own voters wearing T-shirts that say break rank, that is a major red alert. So listen, I am not in a position to say

Texas almost certainly or probably is going to flip totally blue this cycle. You know, Hosa will win and Tala Rica will win. If you just take a motion out of it, the math is. still probably favoring Abbott. And maybe Paxton, there's this history of Democrat is looking pretty good in August in the polling up a few points like Talarico is, but then somehow the Republican wins. But having that information from history shouldn't dissuade us. It should actually encourage us to say, oh, if we just work a little bit harder, maybe these seats are flippable. The good news for Democrats, the bad news for Republicans, is that the ground underneath Republicans is sort of cracking open into this big crevasse. And it's not only because of Democrats that

it's cracking, it's also because of what Republicans are doing to themselves. So I say that it's an opportunity. Sometimes I get these emails from people who go, listen, if it doesn't really look like we're going to win Texas, is it really worth investing in? Of course, it's worth investing in. These are going to be close races until hopefully at some point, one of these actually goes in the direction of Democrats. But what it'll take to do that is when it looks tight in August entering September, we don't go, ah, it's not looking so good. Let's just focus on different races. This is the time to focus on these races. And we're going to be doing that. And I hope to have some news soon about what I'm personally going to be doing down in Texas

physically. I will get on a plane and then it will use the ability of the wing to generate lift with the turbine engine to fly me deep, deep into the state of Texas. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'll have news soon about how I'm planning to get involved in that race. Donald Trump is once again posting to truth social like Iran's regime is on a deathbed. And yet Iran seems to be sort of holding out fine and continuing this war while our own oil supply is closer to empty than it has been in 50 years. So here's what's going on.

Trump is declaring victory over Iran's economy on truth social. But our own oil supply, which Trump said would be at record levels never seen before, is being run into the ground. Donald Trump posting to his truth social account. Or maybe it was Natalie Harp who posted it. Who really knows at this point. Quote, Iran is completely collapsing. All caps, multiple exclamation points.

It's the format of the full meltdown for Donald Trump. And the whole point and the whole analysis is just that. Iran is completely collapsing. Now this is coming as Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is rolling out what he calls an economic D-day for Iran. And Iran's currency did hit, admittedly, Iran's currency hit a record low against the dollar. So I don't think anyone is out there going Iran's economy. is doing great. Nobody's disputing that Iran's economy is a problem. But when you look at how

Trump talks about it, he's not being sober or strategic. He's sort of spiking the football like the war has been won and like it's been this clean, costless win for the United States of America when it hasn't been. And the number that Trump isn't posting about in all caps is the number 41. Let me explain that number. The United States has 41 days of crude oil inventory remaining. That is the lowest level in half a century. Now, I'm all for getting off of fossil fuels. But the way we do it in an orderly transition is not by simply running out of oil when we're

still dependent on it. It's about reducing our dependence. And so where we find ourselves is with the lowest level of inventory, oil in 50 years. It's not like the lowest in a year or even in the last decade. You've got to go back to the 1970s since before most of the people watching this video were even born to find a time where our oil supply was proportionately as low as it is right now.

These are not conspiracy claims. You know, it's kind of popular out there to generate clicks by going, we're about to run out of oil or it's almost a civil war. That's another one that's really popular. But we have serious financial outlets reporting straight off of the energy information administration's numbers. And they show that crude oil inventories dropped another seven million barrels in a recent week. Refineries are doing everything they can. They're running at over 97% capacity to try to keep up. The strategic petroleum reserve, which is our emergency. stock file has been opened up and that is below 300 million barrels, which is also the lowest

number since 1983. Now, running low on oil inventory does not mean that gas pumps go dry tomorrow. But what it means is that if anything else goes wrong, we are in a really difficult situation. And of course, when you look out the window, I guess depending on where you live, we are acknowledging that we are in hurricane season. And it could be a situation where when inventories are this type, one big storm hits the Gulf, and you have a real supply shock. Now, Donald Trump has acknowledged the stakes back in June when he clearly thought we would

be out of this by now. Back in June, Trump said, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. Do you want to see Bedlam? And those were Trump's own words and warning. But instead of working to fix that and ending this war, we are now in week 12. 27 of what was supposed to be a two to three week war. Now, the bigger story that Trump doesn't want you focused on while he's typing completely collapsing about a different country is that you can't run a war economy and a normal

economy at the same time without someone paying for it. This was a really clear picture during World War II. And right now, I think because of propaganda and right wing media and social media and a lot of other sort of changes to the state of our economy, you can sort of try to hide it for a little bit. But even now, Americans at the pump realize what's going on. And so Iran's currency is crashing. Maybe that's something that Trump wants to celebrate. But for the average person who's just trying to pay for their electricity for air conditioning or soon we're going to be going to the cold season and parts of the country paying for oil for heating or just filling up their car. It's not a big

win for them that Iran's currency is collapsing. What would be a bigger win is spending less money on gas next month. And that's not the direction that Donald Trump, Trump seems to be pushing this economy. So he's very busy bragging about other people's collapses. And meanwhile, we do seem to be entering. I don't want to prematurely declare this a forever war. But we've got to just be honest about the numbers we've been given. This will be two to three weeks, Trump said. And then two weeks in, we were told, it could be another two to three weeks or maybe four to six, but we are in week 27 right now. And so it's not a forever war. Even Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years, eventually wound down. But this doesn't seem to be winding down. And in the meantime, Donald

Trump is alienating many of our allies, Canada being an important one, and we'll get to that later. But if you were simply to say, are we going towards the solution or away from the solution. It's definitely not obvious that we're going towards a solution or resolution at this point. And their behavior behind the scenes, Republicans, that is, very much, very much indicative of we know we're about to get crushed in November and we have to figure out something else to do. That something else is making some Democrats furious. And I want to talk about that next. Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner just showed up at a secret meeting with the guy who is likely to become the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Congressman.

Now, there is a lot of debate and anger. Should Jeffries have taken a meeting with someone as corrupt and sycophantically subservient to Trump as Jared Kushner? I'm going to get to that in a moment. But I think the big message from this meeting between Kushner and Jeffries is actually that Trump is waving the white flag before the votes are even counted. Let me frame it up for you and see if you agree. When the guy, this is Jared Kushner, when the guy running Middle East diplomacy suddenly goes, I need to meet with Hakeem Jeffries and talk about housing and immigration. Kushner is not doing outreach. for the sake of improving relations with Democrats.

He's doing preemptive damage control. And when you send in Jared Kushner to meet with the opposition, to some degree, you must expect that the opposition is about to be running the place. And that is exactly what the polling indicates. All of the polling on the House of Representatives is Republicans are going to have it snatched from them. Democrats are going to take over. And more than likely, Hakeem Jeffries is going to be the Speaker of the House.

Now, the New York Times broke this story. The special envoy for peace in the Middle East, Jared Kushner, sat down with Hakeem Jeffries. And what did they talk about? They talked about immigration. They talked about housing. They talked about the cost of living. This is the greatest hits of sorts of we're losing on all of these issues and we might need Democrats to bail us out.

Even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Republican, of course, went on Fox and basically begged Jared Kushner, don't hedge your bets against House Republicans. We're going to do really well. This thing isn't lost, even though when you really ask Maga Mike Johnson, what do you guys have to run on in November? He's like, I don't know, affordability or something. Now, where it gets really rich is the following. A lot of Democrats, especially on the internet, are angry that this meeting even took place.

Now, our friend Tommy Vitor from Pod Save, he actually had a really funny comment, which was the only interaction Jeffries should have with Kushner is a subpoena, which I like. I love that significantly. But there were a lot of different people who said there's a whole bunch of different reasons that this meeting never should have taken place. One of the things I do find interesting is that when Zoran Mamdani went and met with Donald Trump and came out of it and basically said, listen, we disagree about a lot of stuff. But if there are areas where we can work together to make things better for New Yorkers,

Mamdani's constituency being New Yorkers, we should do it. And it was mostly treated as this kind of savvy, mature, you know, I've got to govern New York kind of moment. And nobody said, oh, Mamdani is legitimizing Trump. Trump's a threat to democracy. And now mom don't, don't he's legitimizing him. People were like, no, this is pretty savvy. Now, it's not exactly the same thing.

I think it's important to acknowledge. Kushner is a private citizen. He's not elected. His interests are mostly financial and not political. So it is a different situation. However, the sort of counter-counter point is that Kushner is a private citizen with direct access to the West Wing and a security clearance and kind of a direct line into the ear of the president of the United States.

So I would argue Kushner. doesn't need a title to represent Trump. He's part of the family. And when Kushner sits down at a table, effectively Trump is at that table. And I think that that's an important thing to to remember here. So for me, I don't think the concern per se is Mamdani met with Trump or Kushner met with Jeffries. I think that there's an issue here about what exactly are the rules as to who you should or shouldn't meet with. And I care more about what is actually going to be done by Jeffries if and when Democrats take control. Let me put it a different way. There's this debate as to, is it a capitulation to meet with Trump's son-in-law? Well, Mamdani is different or it's the same

or whatever. What I think is is most important. The real story here is what is the plan of Democrats in the House if and when they take it over in terms of dealing with the demands and requests of MAGA and of Trump. You know, Kushers building a bridge. Are they two buddy, buddy? Jeffries is not the most progressive Democrat in the world. We know that. The biggest story for me is Democrats are getting some leverage back.

And Republicans know that if Democrats take the House, they are in trouble. Not only are they going to be subjected to serious oversight and investigation. Not only are the subpoenas going to fly. We've already talked to Democratic members of the House who are involved in planning exactly who gets subpoenas and what the entire thing is going to be. It's what is going to be the Democratic policy with regard to this White House. And I hope that what it's going to be is don't give them a damn thing. Do not bail Trump out of anything. They have never shown that sort of charity or courtesy to Democrats. They deserve. nothing. And so I don't really have a problem with Jeffrey's meeting with Kushner. The problem is

if Jeffries is doing it out of a desire to sing kumbaya and pretend like these people aren't despicable clowns and extraordinarily dangerous to the United States. As long as that's the framing, I don't really have a problem with Jeffrey sitting there and listening to Jared Kushner. And there will be some things, including simply like let's get programs funded, et cetera, that they'll have no choice but to work with the White House about. But we need to be clear. And I plan to ask every single Democratic elected official that I interview between now and November, you're not going to give them any policy victories, right?

You're not going to allow them to get anything over on you. Are you once you are in control? And I sure hope that the answer is no. Most of my work is not just what happens on camera. It's the prep, the calls, meeting with my team, figuring out, What ideas do we want to produce? And this is why the Plod Note Pro has been so useful for me. They're one of our sponsors.

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Upgrade your first layer. Go to sheath underwear.com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 20% off your entire order. The link is in the description. The David Packman show continues to be an audience supported program. Our primary funding source is simply people like you in the audience who get themselves a membership at join packman.com. I want to say thank you to today's newest members, Maureen Mellinson and Mallory Klam.

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Donald Trump just picked a fight with a country that I don't think he expected to fight back. That country is Canada. And this time Canada's not backing down. Canada is calling Trump's bluff. Now the threat was 50% tariffs on Canada, our neighbor, our ally, the country whose soldiers, you know, fought next to us in Afghanistan. And the thing about Trump's trade war strategy is that it can work to scare people. right up until the other side calls Trump's bluff and Canada called Trump's bluff.

Early on Saturday, the U.S. slapped 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after these last minute talks in Washington, D.C. collapsed. And Canada's just like, we're just not going to take it. And they are retaliating with dollar for dollar tariffs starting on September 8th. Now, just a few days earlier, Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister, Mark, Carney sort of seemed like they were close to a deal. Of course, Trump was like, we have a deal. And all caps, exclamation point. And it completely fell apart. And Mark Carney says that it fell apart because Donald Trump tacked on these last minute demands that had nothing to do with trade

and everything to do with just controlling our allies. Tariff treatment on Canadian-made vehicles and restrictions on Canada's ability to sign deals with other countries. And this is the part that's that's really kind of wacky. They went after Canada's language and culture protections, bilingual product labels and French language media rules just completely whacked out out of this world, the egomania, which we've kind of become accustomed to from Donald Trump. And Mark Carney's response is pretty savage, which is that The signature of the United States today is sort of written in pencil. It's not written in pen.

And here is Mark Carney. What the hell is wrong with Trump? I mean, seriously, here is Mark Carney speaking in French with almost simultaneous translation about these recent demands. This was not our choice. We were there. We were ready and close to having a comprehensive. agreement that would be fair to both countries. We were close to that happening, and it seemed

that we were close to reaching a comprehensive and fair agreement with the United States. But they made changes, including threats on the French language and Quebec culture and Canadian culture. That is not acceptable. that would never be acceptable. Seriously, who does Trump think he is with this stuff? Trump has spent a year floating. Canada should become the 51st state. And he goes, we don't need anything from Canada. We don't need their lumber or their energy or their cars.

All stuff, which is factually insane. American farmers get 80% of potash fertilizer from Canada. Northern states run on Canadian hydropower. Midwest refineries are built on Canadian. crude and part of why gas isn't more expensive right now, actually is thanks to Canada. And Trump goes in there negotiating like they need us and we don't need them, but we very much need them. Now you could go, well, they'll also get screwed.

Right. But who do you really get that much pleasure out of someone else getting screwed? If you're also getting screwed by your own president? It's like, I'm fine with our president screwing Canadians. Yeah, but are you fine with our president screwing you? And so what will happen is prices will go up on both sides of the border. of whiskey hockey sticks, dairy, steel appliances. Every small business that imports from Canada will get hit really hard because you pay the tariffs

up front. When you import you that you pay the Canadian company for the stuff. You pay the treasury, the tariffs when the stuff hits our border. And then you have to go and sell the stuff or if they are raw materials, transform them into finished products and then sell them to somebody. And the part that the Trump administration really does. want you thinking about is that the midterms are in November. And you've got voters furious about the cost of living. And Trump is creating a new price spike on purpose 90 days before an election

that should hand Democrats the House. Even Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, who's a conservative, said that a liberal party member Mark Carney is right to walk away because it was a bad deal. It's a bad deal for are auto and steel industries. This is them speaking, right, for Ontario's auto and steel industries. And you have a situation where right-wing Trump has pissed off Canadian conservatives who are now saying good for the liberal prime minister for standing up for Trump the dofuss. So something has really shifted here. Now geopolitically, Trump has built the trade doctrine, if you can call it that.

It's like sometimes the word doctrine or strategy is a little bit generous. But to the extent that there is a strategy or a doctrine here, Trump's built it on the idea that everyone is eventually going to fold. However, China didn't fold. They hit back on rare earth minerals. They got Trump to blink. And now Canada's not folding either. So Trump said trade wars are easy to win.

He thought trade wars would help the United States long term. He's got a trade war and he's got one with the ally that really had every reason to, uh, um, that or to put a different way. He's got one with an ally that Trump had every reason to play nice with. And instead, Canada has decided that enough is enough and they're not going to allow themselves to be pushed around any further. And the bigger issue here is that it's getting too late to fix this stuff before the November election. Now, my only concern, I hate to even bring this up, but we just kind of have

to name it for what it is. My concern is that not enough people will understand why things are the way they are and say, well, I'm going to vote accordingly. And there's a long history of this in the United States when Obamacare first passed and it included something called the Medicaid expansion, which state governors had to do. There were Republican governors who said, said, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do the expansion. And when the midterms of 2012 came, you had a bunch of Republican voters in red states who said, well, I'm really mad at Obama because I didn't get health care. And of course, the reason they didn't get health care was not because of Obama. It was because their state governor, a Republican, said we're not

going to do the Medicaid expansion. So blame can be a fickle and tricky thing in American politics. But the landscape is one that should be brutal. for these Republicans. The bigger story we're going to move on to now is how does Trump react when his bluff is called and he is embarrassed? And that's what we're going to go to next. There's a video going around of a Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saying a few words that should terrify foreign leaders who are still trying to appease Donald Trump. We are masters in our own home. This is a very short video. This might be the single most important thing said to Donald Trump by a world leader since he came back to office.

Let's take a listen. Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us. And I promise that that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise. Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away. And we are just getting started. As we observed earlier this week in St. John's,

Canadians don't submit to the weather. We thrive in it. We don't wait to see which way the wind's blowing or surrender ourselves to the waves to be storm tossed by events. We set our own course. We make our own weather. O Canada, we're met with our ocean to other. Building Canada strong for all.

I see this as different from the other trade blowups. We talked about the tariffs in the last segment, but this is really bigger than the tariffs. Trump's government is falling apart here during these negotiations. And the reason that these talks collapsed wasn't that Mark Carney was being unreasonable or that Canadian negotiators were being unreasonable. Trump's own trade team couldn't even agree on what they wanted. You had Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and Trade Representative Jameson Greer at each other's throats over the metal tariffs.

Back in April, Lutnik went on stage at a Washington conference and trashed Canada's negotiating strategy. He said, it's the worst one I've ever heard. Canada sucks. Not exactly statesmanship. And then according to reporting, Nutlick blew up a preliminary deal that Greer's team had already been negotiating saying they sprung it on us. This was his own administration's deal. It was sprung on him.

Now, Mark Carney noticed this and he said it out loud in front of reporters. Our negotiating team is unified. Our negotiating team knows the objective. Everybody's in the loop. And then he says, you cannot say that about the US administration. A foreign head of government on the record says the US government can't even get its story straight. And he is completely correct. Now, earlier in the show, I mentioned Ontario's premier Doug Ford, a conservative, not a Trump

hating leftist. And he compared Trump to a guy who steals your lunch money your first day and then your hat the second day and then your shoes the third day, which is not somebody that you want to trust. And Trump at 1 a.m. on Sunday was on truth social, of course, ranting that Canada wants the benefits of being a state without being one. Again, going back to this 51st state nonsense, multiple exclamation points and, you know, 1 a.m. All of the normal stuff. I think the political math is relatively simple. Tariffs raise prices. It's an import tax.

The Fed's own research has determined that Trump's trade policy is causing inflation to be higher in the United States. Americans are paying more because of this policy. We are now 70 something days from the midterms. And the polling is that Democrats are already more trusted by voters than Republicans on the economy. And Trump is picking a fight that guarantees higher prices on groceries. and higher prices on other goods right before people vote.

Mark Carney realizes this. He knows he has leverage. That's why he didn't fold. I don't, I know I'll get emails from MAGA's going, David, you seem so happy that the United States is failing. Well, the United States is failing because of Trump. And I'm not happy about it. Trump has seen his team implode and the political clock is ticking.

And Canada decided we don't really need to blink because they're screwing them. The part that gets beyond the relationship between the U.S. and Canada, which should be a good relationship and it's arguably worse than it's been in decades. Other countries are watching what's going on. You've got 10 nations already signed on to Trump's so-called reciprocal trade deals this year. And every single one of those governments has now seen Canada walk away and get away with it. Trump built the whole strategy on no one will ever call my bluff. Mark Carney called Trump's bluff on camera and so far he has won.

Now, Trump has a decision to make. And I know the decision that the Republicans who are on the ballots in November want Trump to make. Trump sort of has two choices now that Canada has called his bluff. He holds firm and continues to see the economy get more and more screwed up. Things get more expensive and risks more Republican voters going to the polls in November and saying, these people screwed me. Prices are too high. They promise lower. Everything's higher. I'm going to vote for a Democrat or maybe even some of them don't go to the polls and they stay home,

but it's all damaging to Republicans. That's one option. The other option is Trump folds, for lack of a better term, comes back to the table, says, all right, I didn't mean it. Tacos, maybe is the right phrase. And that is obviously what Republicans want him to do because it's the Republicans on the ballot who realize this guy is seriously screwing us. And as we heard from some long time Republican voters earlier, many of them are saying, I'm not voting for Republicans this time. So Trump is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but not out of any circumstantial parameters. It's from his own doing. And he's going to have to figure out what he is going to do. How much does he care about saving Republicans in November bearing in mind that Republicans losing the

House means that Trump and his administration are effectively shut down for the last two years of his presidency. It's arguably bad for Trump either way. We know what's better for the country. We know what would be better for Trump's Republican Party. But that's not really what Trump cares about at the end of the day. Every political story has two parts. What happened and what different media outlets want you to think happened.

And you can see the framing difference. pretty clearly in this story about Donald Trump signing a $70 billion immigration bill after this long fight over ICE funding. On the left, the focus is what will the money fund billions for the next three years of Trump's mass deportation campaign. On the right, the emphasis is Trump taking future ice shutdowns off the table by signing the bill. One side is asking, what does this mean for immigration enforcement, for mass deportations?

The other is framing it as Trump ending the threat of ICE. shutdowns. This is why our sponsor Ground News is so useful because it lets you compare coverage from the left, right and center in one place, along with factuality ratings and info about who owns the outlets. I've been using Ground News for years. It can really help you see through the political spin that blinds a lot of news consumers. And right now you can get 40% off the same vantage plan I use. Go to ground.news slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Identity theft usually does not start with some movie version of how hacking takes place. It's boring details that are easy to find. Your full name, current and former addresses,

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are independently verified by Deloitte and you can get 60% off an annual plan at incogni.com slash Pacman with the code Pacman. The link is in the description. We're going to be speaking today with Dan Coe, former White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary and former deputy director of intergovernmental affairs under President Biden. He is currently a candidate to represent Massachusetts 6th district. And we are just days before the Massachusetts primary. Dan, great to see you. I appreciate your time.

David, thank you for having as always. I am so interested in your race for a couple of different reasons. First of all, because as a former guest host of the show, we, I mean, I hope that that is a credential that only helps and doesn't hurt in your campaign. But in all seriousness, you're running for the seat being vacated by Congressman Seth Moulton, who is challenging Senator Ed Markey for a Senate seat. It's a district that is diverse economically. It's a district that has a lot of interesting characteristics. And also, it is taking place at a time where if Democrats do take the House of Representatives, based on every member I've spoken to, there is a plan to do everything

possible to hold this administration accountable and also to do oversight, which is the responsibility and duty of the House over what has taken place. So give us sort of like your 30,000 foot view to start of. There's the policy side. But in terms of oversight and keeping this administration accountable, something my audience is frustrated that is not happening right now. What would you want done if you make it into the House of Representatives? Well, David, your audience has a right to be frustrated because we are seeing a president who's doing such heinous things to our country today that we forget almost about what happened the day before.

There's just so many terrible things, and we're not fighting hard enough. I mean, we forget, I haven't forgotten. I know you haven't, but it's easy to forget that Jolene Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison. We still don't know what the deal was made there and why. Alex Prattie's body cam footage is still not public, and he was murdered in cold blood,

and we know why it's not out because it would show terrible things about what they did to him. And so I think right now we need fighters who are determined to end Donald Trump's corruption and destruction of our democracy. To the point of oversight, it's a committee that I am dying to be on. I have worked very closely with all of the cabinets when there were competent secretaries who are running it. And when we see people like RFK Jr. issuing a retraction of vaccination guidelines for our kids, I mean, we both have kids, David. I've got a six and a three-year-old.

And I see how dangerous it is when there's a misdiction. information out there. When we see Pete Hegseth literally giving loans to Donald Trump's kids, we need people who understand how government works and be able to hold these people accountable. People forget that if the Democrats went back to the House, which I believe is a when, not an if, we will have the subpoena power to be able to bring these people to account, not just cabinet members, but all the tech CEOs and other people who have abused this system. What do you say to voters or potential voters who are like, I don't know that I want to even go out and vote when they say no matter what happens in Dan's race, no matter what happens even

in the house, it's not going to kick Trump out of office. He's going to be there two more years assuming that that he's alive. And that just doesn't feel like enough action or enough change. What do you say to those people? I think we desperately need to give voters a reason to vote Democrat and not just against Donald Trump. And I think there's a lot of potential to do that first on the track of oversight and ending corruption, also taking a stand against corporate PAC money, which I have done in this race, banning stock trading, banning insider trading,

advocating for publicly financed elections. But on top of that, David, you touched on this, but I'll go a little bit deeper, giving people an agenda around affordability to get excited about. I have a five-point plan that centers around making sure that families can raise their kids with things like the child tax credit, capping utility bills,

capping rent, offering food, free primary care as a step to Medicare for all. And just making sure that we, and the last part actually, is $10 day child care, which Rokana has proposed. What people seem, what the Republicans have tried to perpetuate that we seem to roll over on is they always say it's too expensive. It's not too expensive if we have the right priorities. If we repeal Donald Trump's tax cuts from 2017, that would pay for all of these things that

I just talked about while leaving a trillion dollars left over to address the deficit if that's where we wanted to go. We need to take the money that we're giving to these billionaires and to the first trillionaire this country's ever seen and actually invest in people. And that's the centerpiece of my campaign. There's a poll that has you plus 19. Talk a little bit about the dynamics of your race in the sense of in the context where there's a lot of different sorts of Democrats running in different parts of the country. And in fact, there are different sorts of Democrats winning primaries in different parts of the country. How different is the district you're running in relative to some others? And what are the dynamics of that for you now campaigning? Thank you. Well, you know, I'm very

fortunate to have had the polls look promising, but we are not resting on our laurels. I was out knocking doors in Wakefield, Massachusetts yesterday in the rain because, you know, you can't control the weather, but you can control the attitude. And so we're out there no matter what. I think there's a lot of different conversations right now in the Democratic Party about where we need. need to head. I think we need to be unified by the fact that we need to be the party that's fighting for working people. There may be different policies to get there, but if we want to empower people and make sure that the dynamic is with people who are struggling right now and that we're going to empower them with things like $10 day child care and not put another tax cut on the table

for the rich, I think we can all unite behind that. And there's great people running in this race as well. I think people are also really sick of negative in fighting between the Democratic Party and different people, that's not what I am doing either because I think it's really, really important that we talk about what we're fighting for and our common concern with where MAGA is taking this country. One of the things that is super frustrating, and I see it in the comments all the time when I interview existing elected officials, people currently holding office, is they'll have a list of proposals and they've been in office.

And I'll see in the comments, you've been in office. Why haven't you done any of that stuff already? And usually the answer is like, well, we didn't have the votes or some stuff requires a super majority if we're talking about the Senate, et cetera. You're not in office yet. So your proposals are still TBD in terms of evaluating whether they become a reality if you were to win this race. But do you, what do you say to that frustration from people who go, listen, you're running for your fifth term and you're promising the same stuff and just none of it has happened? You know, David, one of my favorite movies is Gladiator.

And there's a scene in Gladiator where one of the former gladiators who's a champion, he's giving advice to Russell Crow. And he says to him, win the crowd, win the crowd Spaniard. And the reality is Democrats suck at winning the crowd. Donald Trump's approval rating is at 34%. Our approval rating is at 28%. And it's clear that we are not convincing people that we are the party of the working class. And we need to be very, very principled about how we approach this. We should not be taking corporate PAC money if we are Democrats. We should be talking about where we're going to put government resources in the hands of people that need it the most and not in the hands of the wealthy and do it now. Make it very clear to people, would you rather have $10 a day child care

that costs $800 billion over the course of 10 years or would you rather give a tax cut to corporations that would cost more than a trillion dollars over that same period of time? It's a matter of priorities and we don't make that argument enough and families every day that are taking their kids to daycare and wondering whether or not they can afford it the next day, feel it every day that we're not doing enough. Is that idea possible if Democrats only take the House and not the Senate? I think it is possible because I think it's all about how we present to the American people. What is very frustrating to me is that I don't see enough about what the Democratic agenda

is right now. I hear a lot about what we're fighting against, which is Donald Trump, but that's great. But if just fighting against Donald Trump was the way that we would win, then our approval rating would be a lot higher. So we need to do a lot more than that. That's what this campaign is all about. And then also I should know when it comes to fighting corruption, we will have the ability to subpoena the people who have been hurt, excuse me, hurting our government if we went back

the house. That does not require legislation or anything else. That is something that's really important for people to realize. And it's something that I would utilize to our advantage to hold people accountable when that happens. I'm interested in talking with you about data centers because one of the things we're seeing right now is that both Republicans and Democrats. seem increasingly united, if not against data centers per se, definitely against them being

built with taxpayer money without taxpayer involvement in deciding whether we want this thing. And as I said before, if a community decides it wants a data center and it has time to make the decision and understands the ups and downs of it, of course, they should be allowed to have that. But the problem is that a lot of these are going forward without that community involvement. Trump seems to be completely on the wrong side of this, where every time it comes up, he just goes, no, Data centers are great and we, they should be doing more of it. They're beautiful, et cetera. What do you think is the right strategy for Democrats on the issue of data centers, given

that Trump seems to be completely on the wrong side of this thing? We need to listen to the American people on this. We need to have the right community involvement. We need to listen to the community. If they want a moratorium, they should have the right to get it. We have so much in the future when it comes to energy consumption, protecting our environment. And the community deserves to be heard in these situations. And so what I guess I'm trying to figure out what is the process by which we could satisfactorily say the community had the appropriate amount of time and all of the information because you hear these stories about well, it came up at a town meeting, but by that point, it was approved and there was really no going back at that point in time.

I think it's about, you know, I was an Andover selectman. And for me, it was always frustrating when the state. or the federal government tried to intervene in our process. So I think it's about empowering the local elected officials, empowering local community members to understand what the concerns are and make sure that they are satisfied. It's something that I worked very closely with when I was in the mayor's office in Boston, is making sure any kind of development,

whether it be a single house or whether it be a big apartment building, had the right community process. And that's something that people don't quite realize if they don't have the local experience, but something that we need to double down on, especially as Democrats who are supposed to be empowering everyday people. Last thing I want to ask you about the issue of Iran. We are now in week 27 of a two to three week war.

And in the midst of it, we are also increasingly at odds with Canada, one of our most important and closest historical allies. What, if anything, can the House by itself? Imagining a scenario where Trump is president, the House goes to Democrats, the Senate does not. What can the House realistically do about what's going on in Iran? Well, first, I think we need to make it very clear to the American people what has happened under this president with this illegal war. When we see gas prices still 50% higher than when this war began, that we are paying for it, that the president is saying he won't apologize

for higher gas prices. That's a disgrace. Secondly, we need to exercise our responsibility, our constitutional responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to make sure we need to that we are voting to defund and stop this war. This is a house right now controlled by Donald Trump, not even MAGA, but Donald Trump. I refuse to be part of a house that would have that and do that. We need to stop the funding to this war on day one. And that's something that I would be a part of if I'm fortunate enough to get elected. So would it be accurate to say that while the Senate can take up the question of the authorization for this war and whether or not it was legally declared, the House really controls the purse strings and it's financially that you could

most interfere with the war. And we also can't, we also shouldn't just go with the regular procedure because certainly MAGA is not doing that. We should continue to subpoena Pete Higgseth, other, we should subpoena Pete Higgseth, other actors in this situation to continue to push forward on this and use every single tool at our disposal and get really creative to. Republicans are not holding back and neither should we. We are watching this race very close.

We've been speaking with Dan Coe, who is running to represent Massachusetts 6th district. The primary is September 1st. Dan, we're watching it closely. And I always appreciate your time. Thank you, David. Thanks for all you do too for the fight. Thank you. Hey, if you're hearing this, that means you're listening to our podcast on one of the many podcast

networks that we stream to. And first, I just want to say, thank you for being a listener of this show. It really means a lot that you're tuning in here. I would love to ask you for a quick favor. We are so close to reaching 4 million subscribers on YouTube. YouTube is where we post everything you get through the audio podcast and a lot more stuff. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick 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. Trump's gaining a substantial amount of weight and the guy who has spent years humiliating other people for being overweight wants everybody to look away and definitely don't mention that Trump has gained at least 20 pounds very, very quickly. Now, let me be completely clear before I can already see the emails I'm going to get today. I am not fat shaming Donald Trump. A person's weight doesn't determine their value.

But Trump is an 80 year old president showing. many concerning physical changes. And the White House is insisting that it is only the Biden White House that misled the American people about presidential health, even while the Trump White House continues to mislead the public about Donald Trump's health. Now, there's a new report from the Washington Post. Take these numbers with a grain of salt for a moment. But according to the Washington Post report, Trump weighed 238 pounds in May. And the administration's own records show that he is gained 14 pounds between his two most recent annual exams. Compare that with the 215 pounds that were listed when Trump was booked in Georgia in 2023. And you say, well, even what they're acknowledging

is a gain of 23 pounds. Now, the story gets even weirder when you remember, hold on a second, Trump's weight numbers have looked really weird for years. Trump previously claimed to be 6.3 and weigh 239. There was a lot of importance between those numbers because that put Trump one pound below the BMI for obesity. BMI, not a perfect metric, but for non-bodybuilders, it can be generally instructive. And then all of a sudden, when Trump was booked in Georgia, he only weighed 215. Now, you can't determine someone's exact weight from a picture, but if we are adults,

we can all acknowledge Trump has never appeared to be six foot three. And Trump certainly never looked like he was six foot three, two hundred and 15 pounds. So those numbers strained credibility from the get go. And it was never clear whether he was actually weighed or someone gave a flattering figure. So we don't really know whether Trump has gained 14 pounds or 23 pounds or even more. What we do know is he's is he looks way heavier than he did during the campaign. And even by the admitted numbers of his administration, he has gained a bunch of weight relatively quickly. Now, at Trump's claimed height, 238 puts Trump two pounds below obese.

Again, BMI is not a perfect screening tool. Doesn't measure body fat, doesn't measure fat distribution or muscle mass, especially in older people. But I don't think any of us think Trump put on 14 pounds of lean muscle. Doctors said to the Washington Post that, and listen, we know this stuff. Excess body fat, especially visceral fat around the abdomen, has a whole bunch of health issues associated with it. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, disability, premature death. Trump's own physicians have said it would be better if you lost some weight.

It would be better if you ate a better diet or had a little more physical activity. Maybe walk the golf course instead of using the golf card. And instead, Trump actually brags. He goes, no, no, no, I really avoid exercise. He loves McDonald's. He recently suggested maybe even junk food is good because all these health conscious people are dying so young. And after all, some smokers live to 95.

Now, that doesn't make cigarettes healthy, of course. That's not how risk works. But the level of hypocrisy here is stunning because for Trump's entire political career, And even before it in a non-political setting, he would make fun of other people for their weight. He's made fun of Chris Christie. He's made fun of Illinois governor J.B Pritzker. He's made fun of Rosie O'Donnell. He joked recently about Chris Christie and Jerry Nadler fighting over cheesecake. And so Trump has no issue making other people's overweight status a punchline when he thinks that benefits him, but it's Trump's own weight that is now ballooning. And we're supposed to believe,

oh, they're being so cruel. These are illegitimate questions. These are politically motivated questions. Now, the White House responded to concerns and questions about Donald Trump's ballooning weight by saying his energy is completely unmatched. And by the way, Joe Biden sucks. And Joe Biden is unhealthy and he has dementia and all of this different stuff. They did not explain Trump's weight gain. They did not address Trump's own doctor's recommendations or the general recommendations that being overweight is unhealthy. They have not addressed the question of whether Trump briefly lost weight because he was on what Trump describes as the fat shot, some kind of GLP1 type medication like OZempic. And they are continuing to not be transparent. Now, to go back to diagnoses and all of this stuff. Noticing weight gain in pictures and videos doesn't prove a medical crisis.

But substantial weight gain in an 80-year-old combined with swollen ankles, hand bruising, uncontrollable drowsiness where he's falling asleep in public a couple times a week, that's a big concerning health picture for the president of the United States. And we still don't even have a public that has gotten a real story with honest, explanations about Trump's health, credible measurements. We are once again being told, don't believe your eyes, even if Trump's entire face and ankles look really swollen and his hands are bruised, and he's visibly heavier than he has been in years. He is the healthiest president who has ever lived, definitely healthier at 80 years old and essentially obese than Barack Obama in his late

40s when he became the president of the United States. That's what they want you to believe. And so there's kind of two parallel stories here. There's the story of what is going on with Trump's health. And that's an important story because he's the president. And he made presidential fitness and health a standard when Joe Biden was the president. That's number one. The number two is that much like cults and authoritarian regimes, they are telling the public believe things that directly contradict what you see with your own eyes. Trump is increasingly struggling to walk and swinging his right leg around and his ankles are swollen and his hands are bruised and he's falling asleep all the time and he's visibly confused and he's put on a bunch of weight. Ignore all of that.

That's what your senses are telling you. Listen to what the authoritarian leader says. Listen to what the cult leader says. That's how we know cults and dictators operate where they say, I am the holder of truth. Listen only to me and ignore what your own senses are telling you. I'm not falling for it. I hope none of you are. Melania Trump got up and walked away from her own husband on camera. And the reason why was standing three feet behind him as he held the green flag. Now, here's what we believe is going on. Trump doesn't like Natalie Hart. And the body language at this Grand Prix race that took place in Washington, D.C., basically says

everything. Now let me set the scene for you. This was the Freedom 250 race in D.C. Another Trump vanity project at taxpayer expense. It was an Indy car race down Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate that the United States. is now 250 years old. Melania Trump showed up. That's itself news.

This was only her second public appearance in over a month. She's basically been staying out of sight in the midst of this scandal involving Natalie Hart, potentially Trump's new love interest. And as the camera's role, Melania is right next to Trump. And Natalie Harp, Trump's 35-year-old executive assistant, is just a few feet behind them. You can see her in the black dress in this image over Melania's left shoulder. We start with video of Donald Trump. By the way, really, have you ever seen anyone wave a flag like this?

Here is Trump waving a green flag. We have green. We are racing in the freedom to. Dear God. Very, very strange stuff. And so that brings us to this moment. Natalie Harp behind Melania. And Melania seems to leave as soon as Natalie Harp is spotted in the booth.

I apologize in advance that there are engine noises to these videos. This, this is very visual. So I also apologize to the audio audience. But what we see here is Natalie Harp sort of approach Trump and very quickly Melania Trump gets up and walks away. There goes Melania. In comes Natalie Hart. He used to have a phone in her hand or something like that.

So Melania bails out there. And then here is another moment that is generating a lot of. interest, which is a conversation between Donald Trump and Melania that seems to have both of them upset with each other over something while understanding that they're on camera sort of trying to control and limit that the degree to which they are obviously arguing here. So Melania seems pissed and Trump is sort of reacting as if they're having a normal conversation, even though it seems pretty clear that they're not. Oh boy. Now, it has not been independently confirmed that they were arguing or arguing about Natalie Harp's presence. It has not been independently

confirmed that Melania got up specifically because she can't stand Natalie Harp and doesn't want to be around her. And that's why she hasn't said a word to Natalie Harp. That's what the videos appear to show, but they are not facts. But I would argue that the context really matters here. The context isn't subtle. Natalie Harp has become the story. And it is not the story. of a really skilled aid whose professionalism is unmatched. It's a story about an aid who seems obsessed with Trump. Personal letters where she says, you are my guardian and my protector. You are all that matters to me. And she reportedly worked in the White House over a year without a security clearance until Trump intervened to get her a security security clearance. She was in the small

group that fled Air Force won with Trump during that security scare in Turkey. She's been photographed chasing Trump's golf cart in Scotland. She may or may not be having an affair with Donald Trump. That's certainly what a lot of people are implying. Senator John Ossoff put her name in the national spotlight saying Trump would rather build his ballroom and travel with Natalie than do the actual job. And Trump's response has not been to distance himself from harp. was to call John Ossof, ki, a pee, Kiwi Herman and to keep defending Natalie Hart. Bernie Moreno went

on TV and said, the scrutiny is misogynistic. Newt Gingrich went on Twitter and said, they're criticizing a professional working woman, woman, as if they are now the defenders of women's rights and feminists and whatever. But nobody else is writing, you are all that matters to me, to their boss, in strictly professional working relationships, man or woman. And then another weird moment, this was more of a dementia moment. Trump, I don't know if he doesn't understand the direction of traffic in this race. Everybody is looking to their right. And Trump's watching the race off to his left. And everybody in the booth is like, you got to look that way, sir. Here's everybody saying that way. Over there, Melania, Trump's pointing the wrong way.

Sir, over there. And eventually Trump's like, oh, the entire thing is happening over there. Gotcha. Listen, this was a chaotic scene. We don't exactly know the totality of what happened here. It's not about one flag or one awkward moment or whatever. This is a White House where the president's wife is done pretending everything is normal. She's basically MIA.

She and Trump are completely estranged. There are reports that there was a renegotiated pre-neap related to Donald Trump running again. again, which includes that Melania Trump is not only getting a bunch more money, but that she sort of has a minimum number of events which she's required to appear. That's reporting. It has not been definitively proven by documents. Where we find ourselves is a situation where Trump has become the leader of a movement that claims to value traditional values. It claims to value having one wife. It claims to value fidelity and not cheating and how any of this stuff fits into that. Obviously, it doesn't, but it's also an indictment of the average Republican voter, which at the end of the day,

they can claim, here's what we value, here's what we want. It's these sort of principles and godly this and godly that. Trump told him he's religious, even though we know that he's not, and they accepted it. Trump told them that he is against abortion. He is anti-choice when he had 68 years of being pro-choice, and it's clearly something he came up with in order to convince Republicans to vote for him. And he embodies everything that Republican voters claim to oppose. And yet they still prefer Trump over Democrats because really what it is is about we hate Democrats. So Melania standing up and walking away and letting everyone see her do it, a reminder of all of the ways in which Trump is not what Republican voters say they want, but Republican voters have never punished him for it.

They just ignored it because they hated Hillary and they hated Biden and they hated Kamala Harris. Another example of their stated principles don't really matter to them. On the bonus show today, we will talk about an insane border patrol arrest involving an American service member. We will talk about a move to impose new fees for H-1B visas. and the hidden crisis of overqualified Americans who can't get themselves hired. It's a very interesting story. All of that and more today on the bonus show. Get the bonus show by signing up at join pack.com.