The David Pakman Show - This is a really strange way to "win" a war

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump orders a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz immediately after claiming the waterway was already open -- Hungarian voters remove longtime leader Viktor Orbán from power in a landslide electoral defeat, despite JD Vance campaigning for him -- Donald Trump makes a series of unsubstantiated accusations against Pope Leo, claiming he supports crime and nuclear weapons -- Donald Trump engages in a high-volume posting spree on Truth Social during the early morning hours -- Secretary Pete Buttigieg remains calm while Joe Kernen loses his composure during a heated exchange about economic policy -- Donald Trump struggles to maintain a logical flow during a phone interview with Maria Bartiromo about energy prices -- Donald Trump asserts that the outcome of international negotiations is irrelevant because he has already declared victory -- On the Bonus Show: David shares stories from his trip to Argentina, and much more... 📄 UPDF: Supercharge your PDF workflow! Get an extra $10 off at https://davidpakman.com/updf 🔊 Blinkist: Read a nonfiction book in just 15 minutes! Try it FREE at https://blinkist.com/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/DavidP -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Trump orders naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz (07:23) Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán ousted in election (16:39) Trump criticizes the Pope, saying he supports crime (23:36) Trump issues a high volume of overnight social media posts (33:00) Pete Buttigieg and Joe Kernen clash over Trump's economy (43:20) Trump discusses energy prices in Fox News interview (53:14) Trump declares victory regardless of ongoing Iran negotiations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Trump just exploded and canceled the entire thing. This is getting completely out of control. You might be saying, wait, wasn't Trump all about opening the straight of Hormuz?

That's right. But now Trump announced that he is closing it. What? Closing it to open it. Closing it to open it. Can you imagine something dumber? Well, I'm sure there will be something. First of all, just days ago, Trump claimed Vickson.

by getting Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, which never happened. Now he says we're going to win by closing the Strait of Hormuz. It's going to require some explanation. Let's first put up Donald Trump's Wall of Text, Truth, Social Post, where he said, quote, about the negotiations that J.D. Vance was leading, which failed miserably. He says, quote, so there you have it. The meeting went well. Most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered nuclear was not.

immediately, the United States Navy, the finest in the world, will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. At some point, we will reach an all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out basis. But Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying there may be a mine out there somewhere that nobody knows about but them. This is world extortion. And the leaders of countries, especially the United Shesh of America, will never be extorted. I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas, blah, blah, blah, blow them to hell, locked and loaded, etc.

You can read the entire thing. But the point is, Trump said it was open. It wasn't. Now he says he's closing it. Why are we having our Navy blockade the Strait of Hormuz if Trump won already? Iran's military has been decimated. The straight opened Tuesday and everything is fine. Well, Trump says it's because Iran won't agree on nuclear.

Now, let's slow it all down a little bit. The Strait of Hormuz was open before any of this stuff. I mean before Trump invaded Iran over six weeks ago. And we'll talk about that timeline. By the way, if you like the coverage of what's happening in Iran, not that you like what's happening, but you like being informed about what's happening, make sure you like this video and hit subscribe on YouTube. We can tell on which video people hit subscribe.

And that helps to tell us what content people are enjoying. The straight of Hormuz became a problem. when Trump invaded Iran. For the last week after saying it's open, Trump and his White House kept insisting we have solved that problem. We've gotten a deal done. It's all happening. And then it was like, well, it doesn't really look like the deal is done. And then it never really looked like the Strait of Hormuz was open. And now Trump suddenly acknowledges, okay, Iran never did open the Strait of Hormuz. And now we, the United States, will be blocking any and all ships going in and out. So was it open?

Was it reopened? Is the United States now closing it? Why? Donald Trump also followed up with the following, which I'm not going to read the entire thing. I'll give you a sense of it. Quote, Iran promised to open the straight of Hormuz, and they knowingly failed to do so. Why didn't Trump tell us that on Tuesday when we knew that that's what was going on? This caused anxiety, dislocation, and pain to many people and countries throughout the world.

They put mines in and blah, blah, blah. The meeting began early in the morning, lasted through the night, 20 hours. But the one thing that matters, Trump says, is that Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions. I want to remind you, we had a deal that Trump said was bad where Iran was not refining uranium. We had a deal. And Iran was sticking to it as far as inspectors knew. I know Netanyahu tried to say Iran's not, but there was no evidence that Iran was not sticking to it up until the point at which Trump backed out of it.

Trump said we're out. So they went back to enriching uranium and now Trump is desperate to get back to what we had that he got us out of and we see the economic consequences oil up stocks down. Ships can't get through. There's concern about bombings and mines and all of this difference. stuff. And so Trump goes, I'm going to close the Strait of Hormuz. You look at his explanation. He says, well, Iran may have planted mines, but we've also destroyed their Navy. And the negotiations made progress, but it doesn't matter. And everybody is working together, but he goes out and he undercuts and undermines J.D. Vance's negotiations. So all of his actions are contradicting everything that they

publicly claimed to be working towards. But the most important thing is we had what Trump wanted before any of this started. And I don't mean before June of 25 when he bombed Iran for the, I think that was the first time, hard to keep track. I mean up until 2018 when Trump got out of the Iran nuclear deal. Now let me touch on another area that's a little bit delicate. Trump's completely incoherent here. These posts are just jumping from topic to topic with claims that don't line up and timelines that don't make sense and facts that change from one sentence to the next. It's open and it will be open soon, but it's closed. And now we closed it. And then they never had opened it really. Hmm. That's really weird. This is erratic. And when you're talking about

military action and global trade routes, nuclear weapons, the risk of a wider war, erratic is very dangerous. And it goes to Trump's decline. I'm not going to go through the whole list where I give you the 150 different ways in which Trump has declined. But the rest of the world is trying to interpret this and say, what is going on here? What's being implemented? What should be happening in the markets? People don't know whether this is a bluff. They don't know.

Is this a real escalation? Is Trump even really going to do this? By the time I published this clip, we may have learned this was a bluff or not, or it didn't start it as one, but it became one because Trump realized, actually, I can't do what I'm threatening to do. But the most important takeaways are, when Trump, you know, you know, when Trump, you know, made the decision in 2018 to get out of the Iran deal, which was a bad decision, he was far less diminished than he is now. So if the decisions he made in 2018 were that bad, how could he possibly make good

decisions today? And number two, all of this talk about the straight of Hormuz, it was open. It was open before any of this stuff started. So for me, you know, when I see Trump's post, it's less about what exactly is he doing right now. It's more does he even understand what he's doing. I don't think he does. Let me know what you think. Info at David Pakman.com. Leave me a comment. I want to hear from you.

The fascists always eventually lose and MAGA should be terrified about what happened in Hungary. This is one of those stories that can feel kind of distant. Oh, something happened over there in Europe, but it connects directly to Donald Trump. After 16 years in power, Victor Orban, a favorite authoritarian leader of. of Trump just lost, not controversially, not narrowly, not by just the tiny little bit. He got crushed in a landslide. And the guy who beat him, Peter Maggiar, is on track for a two-thirds super majority, which basically means full control of parliament.

Now let's contextualize that a little bit. Orban was not, you know, a normal politician hanging on by a thread. He spent a decade shaping the system in Hungary, keeping himself in power. And courts, media, institutions, they all tilted in his favor. For years, people pointed to him and said, this is the future of Hungary. It's the future of broader Europe. Trump loved the guy. Trump loves authoritarian.

Trump supported him. Trump hinted at even economic backing during his election because ideologically, they are so aligned. J.D. Vance went to Hungary, gave a speech saying, vote for this guy. He's great. It's all. And the voters said, we're not going to do it. And they ended it. And that's really the part that jumps out at me. Because as we've talked about this before when we talk about fascism and authoritarianism, it often feels permanent. How could anything happen to dislodge these recalcitrant powers from being in office and eventually they get dislodged. Orban ran essentially the same playbook over and over. You should be afraid of migrants and war and enemies. Our culture is in decline. They're making us not European

anymore. And it worked for a while. It worked for a similar period of time as it worked in the United States. But eventually people started asking sort of different questions. Well, what about the economy, which isn't looking so good. What about corruption, which is rampant in these sorts of administrations? And by the way, we've seen it in Cuba. We've seen it in Venezuela. These sorts of pseudo-populist authoritarian regimes, some which are nominally on the left and some which are nominally on the right, they are rife with corruption and all of it. And people realized, hey, things aren't getting better. They told us that things were going to get better and they're not. and then I see all of this corruption.

A reminder as to how it works here in the United States as well right now. And once the public opinion starts to shift on that, it's very hard to reverse it. Magyar did not run on, yes, panic and fear, but with a different scapego, which would be one way to do it. It would be no, you should be afraid, but what you need to be afraid of is different. They, he ran on economic stagnation, anti-corruption, basic quality of life, things that people actually feel, which should be instructive for Democrats in the United States as well. And when voters heard that and locked into it, the result ended up not being close. It was an overwhelming defeat for Orban. So we've seen this pattern before as the sweet sirens of Buenos Aires.

Is that audible? I think it is. There was just an emergency outside, but don't worry, we can continue. When we've seen this pattern before, long stretches of dominance by an authoritarian and they break when the public mood changes, that is irreversible for the authoritarian. So now this gets us back to Trump and Trumpism. Trump is using a lot of the same strategies, attacking institutions, discrediting media, telling supporters you've got to focus on the threats and the enemies that I've determined you should be thinking of. And he's pointed to people like Orban as look at what a great job he's doing.

The model works. You can hold power by doing it. One of the biggest examples of that model has failed. And it failed through an election with voters showing up in huge numbers. Now, it's not automatically going to happen here. We have to first get past the midterms and then start looking at 2028. It doesn't mean that we can just look the other way and go, oh, it's, we're good. It ended in Europe, in Hungary, rather, so it's going to end in the United States.

What it tells us is, even when the system seems locked down by authoritarian, it can still break, but it does require massive participation. And Hungary did it. Good for them. Part of it is getting voters to start caring about their lives rather than the warnings they've been hearing for years. And this is not about immigration doesn't matter. But to a degree, if you are just a working person and a northern state not really affected

by immigration in the way Trump wants you to believe you are, at some point you wake up and you go, why have I just been on this immigration thing only because Trump told me to be all about it? I have other concerns here. I have economic concerns that have nothing to do with immigration in the way that Trump is claiming. I have concerns about my community that have nothing to do with the lurid crime stories that Trump cherry picks and uses to scapegoat people. I care about the promises that he has failed on, including prices, the economy, energy, et cetera, and he's failing on that. So a switch can flip

in this way and all of a sudden it goes in a different direction. So I think we should be looking really closely at what happened in Hungary. And one additional reason to look at it is Trump loves to talk about the power of the endorsement. Trump endorsed Orban and sent J.D. Vance there right before the election and Orban still got crushed. So I think that the takeaway, if we're looking for something sort of optimistic, which I think is necessary at this point, even when it looks like, oh, my God, there's tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump three times. We're not going to be able to excise this movement. It can happen pretty quickly. And so if you're Trump watching this, he should be terrified, MAGA should be terrified, Republicans should be terrified. Good for the Hungarian people.

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Could be any book. Maybe you've been hearing about it for years. You want to read it. You can't find the time. This is why I find Blinkist to be such a valuable resource. Our sponsor Blinkist is an app that distills the key insights from nonfiction books into short summaries you can read or listen to. in about 15 minutes. Instead of committing hours to a full book, Blinkist gives you the essential

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struggling to speak, slurring and swollen and sweaty, and he said a lot of things that raised serious questions. After Trump left these, this conversation that I'm about to play for you, he was up all night posting to truth social. And taken altogether, it makes sense to be worried about what's going on with him. Trump is increasingly embroiled in a battle with Pope Leo, basically wanting us to believe that the Pope is some woke, never Trump left winger of sorts. When, listen, I'm not Catholic. I don't really care about the Catholic Church, but I recognize the importance of the Pope to over a billion Catholics.

The Pope is not someone to get involved in this sort of Trumpian sniping. But Trump is trying to get embroiled in that. And he says, the Pope's not doing a good job. He likes crime and basically telling us this is a woke guy. Take a look at this. And they're going to go back, build up with oil. Why did you attack Pope Leo on priest social? I don't think he's doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. He hit us. Think of it. He's worried about fear. What about the fear when the ministers and the priests and the all of those great people that

arrested during COVID and in many cases they're outside 10 feet apart and they were arrested so we don't like it we don't like a Pope that's going to say that it's okay to have a nuclear weapon we don't want a Pope that says crime is okay in our cities I don't like it I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo he's a very liberal person and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime he's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapons so they can blow up the world. I'm not I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. Trump is not well.

You know, conservative Catholics, some said, well, Joe Biden's a bad Catholic because Biden was liberal on abortion. And they said, I don't know if that's really in the spirit of Catholicism. What about this? Now, Trump doesn't claim to be a Catholic, but, conservative Catholics who said because of the issue of abortion, I've got to go Trump over Harris or Trump over Biden. Is this something you're comfortable with? Is this something that you can say, yeah, this is the guy, even though he is now viciously attacking the Pope, attacked by the way for things that are in line with the teachings

of Jesus based on my extremely. amateur understanding of it. Seems to me that it is the Pope rather than Trump. Can you imagine? It is the Pope who is on the side of Jesus's teachings, not Donald Trump. And Trump goes, well, the Pope likes crime. And the Pope thinks it's okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons. There aren't really arguments there. It's stringing together accusations in a completely incoherent way. Now, before spending the entire night posting about Iran. Trump said to reporters during this conversation, I think Iran is in very bad shape. They're desperate. It was a long meeting. Iran is in bad shape. Take a look. I think Iran is in very bad shape. I think they're very desperate. We had a meeting that lasted 21 hours. We understand

the situation better than anybody. And Iran's in very bad shape. And just so you understand, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. We'll not have. There is no way that they're going to get. They still want it. And they made that clear the other night. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. 21 hours with no Big Mac break.

Can you even imagine that? No, seriously, though. Trump says Iran is in bad shape. Trump says Iran is very desperate. The truth is. is that Iran still seems to have leverage on the United States. I don't say that joyfully. You know, all of these emails I get from MAGA's, David, you look like you're hoping

for Iran to win the war. No, I'm against authoritarian theocratic regimes. And I'm also against authoritarian dictator, wannabe American presidents, starting illegal wars for no sensible reason. And then potentially using them for his. personal gain by selling Venezuelan oil, which is a whole other topic that we're discussing today. And so when Trump goes, no, it's very serious, 21 hours and they're in bad shape, they're desperate. Iran has taken a lot of losses. There's no doubt. But they've somehow

gotten Trump to go from, they must open the Strait of Hormuz to I'm closing the Strait of Hormuz. That sounds like Trump is the one who's flailing and scrambling. And then finally, Trump, was asked about Victor Orban, someone that Trump supports, someone that J.D. Vance flew to Europe to support and say, vote for Orban and Orban losing. And Trump just walks away. Take a look. Very serious examine. Thank you very much. Trump knows that the days are numbered for this sick, disgusting movement that includes MAGA and it includes the supporters of Victor Orban. He sent J.D. Vance. They did a rally. They said, vote for this guy. He's great. He's like MAGA reincarnated in Hungary. And under the bus again goes J.D. Vance. Orban destroyed. And Trump simply walks away.

He'll praise the guys when it helps him politically. But after Orban took this brutal loss, what could Trump do? He could go, well, it was rigged. Really? How did they rig that one in Hungary? What do you know about the voting system there that you can argue that it was rigged. And instead, strong man silent when it starts to get a little difficult. After that, just consider the insanity. After that, Trump went home to his bed, to his toilet, I don't know, and spent the entire night posting trash. That's where the United States presidency finds itself today. And it is truly sad. The president had an overnight mental health emergency. We're not kidding. We're not laughing. This isn't funny. This is extremely serious. After speaking briefly to reporters completely incoherently, Donald Trump spent roughly between the 9 p.m. Eastern hour until the 4 a.m. Eastern hour posting, posting, posting

endlessly to truth social, clearly unwell, clearly suffering another meltdown due to failure after failure after failure on Iran and in other areas, multiple posts, videos, conspiracy posts, the kind of behavior that would raise a very simple question if it were your uncle behaving this way, which is why is he awake? Why is he saying these things? And do we need to have a psych hold at a local mental health facility? I wish I were kidding. I wish I were Let's take a look just at a little bit of the breakdown of all of this stuff. Donald Trump, first of all, finding and posting articles that praise him for his behavior with Iran.

These are increasingly difficult to find because his actions on Iran have been increasingly unhinged. Posting memes and fake images and AI edited and Photoshop edited images of Barack Obama, for example, when of course the issue here is Trump, not Obama. president, not Obama. And if Trump had just stuck to the Iran nuclear deal that was signed by Barack Obama in 2015, instead of getting out of it in 2018, we almost certainly wouldn't be in this situation right now. The Dow wouldn't be down an additional 300 points today. Posting stuff about Obama being a secret Muslim, posting stuff about himself with Jesus playing chess, the alluding to this idea that some MAGA's push that Trump is secretly playing some kind of complicated chess game that nobody else

is even smart enough to understand. Posting stuff about Iran and different crimes and images and stuff about Israel and Iran and Obama and Biden and political cartoons. We're just scrolling through this stuff because the substance really matters less than the fact that Trump is doing it. Trump posting an image of himself styled as some. Sun Tzu from the art of war called Don Tzu as if he is some kind of military genius. Trump posting and reposting stuff about the Iranian leadership and this, that, and the other

thing. Okay, I think you get the point. Overnight. Even actually up until 6 a.m. Eastern time, Trump seemed to be up all night. Again, not the behavior of a stable genius. Now, let me tell you what stands out, what's relevant and what's most. important here because it's like, oh, the exact Obama's a Muslim meme doesn't really matter.

And that's true. What matters is the following. The volume of what Trump is posting is disturbing. The timing of Trump's posts is disturbing. Multiple posts in the same hour. Dumped overnight. These bursts of activity, including stuff that doesn't even make any sense, random conspiracy memes and different things.

It's irrelevant whether Trump is posting from his bed or his toilet. I don't even want to get into that speculation. There's a lot of that speculation. Where exactly in the residence is Trump while this is going on? I don't care. The point is this is not just a guy with a phone. It's the sitting president of the United States. If this were your uncle, you'd be worried.

It's Trump at nearly 80 years old and significantly in decline. The president of the United States, arguably the leader of the free world, and this is what he's posting. Now, there's a criticism here for Democrats as well. There are some Democrats, and this is not a both sides thing to be clear. There are some Democrats who are accurately characterizing the behaviors of Trump as demented, as as extraordinarily unwell and as requiring the removal of Trump. Not that Democrats can do that right now, but at least some Democrats are being clear about that.

There are some other Democrats that are not meeting the moment by calling this what it is and are using mealy mouth language about Donald Trump seems distracted and unable to really carry. Just crap, guys. We've got to call this for what it is. And Democrats really need to do that. Now, I think it's important to mention that in the midst of this totally deranged behavior from the president of the United States, they are increasingly targeting and coming after independent media.

I told you last week, Donald Trump Jr., retweeting attacks and calling me a sick person. Caroline Levitt retweeting and signal boasting those very attacks, signal boosting those very attacks. So while it is Trump's behavior that is completely erratic and unhinged, he's up at two in the morning, three in the morning, four in the morning, posting like this, we have people close to the president attacking people like me. And so as a reminder, we're going to be here to keep fighting. We need and appreciate your support. Thanks to the nearly 10,000 of you who subscribed to.

the YouTube channel last week. In this critical time, make sure you are supporting the shows you value. We're trying to get to 4 million YouTube subscribers. I need your help. I'm asking for your help. We don't have the algorithms on our side. And in addition, this administration, as Trump's behavior is increasingly demented, is targeting us and coming after us. So make sure that you are subscribed or following me on any relevant platform that is important to you. Now, what is this fundamentally about when we think about our allies, Iran, the economy, inflation, gas, oil, et cetera? It's about, does the president have decision-making capacity or has he lost it? I believe he has lost it if he ever had it.

Is the president able to emotionally regulate such that he and his administration can, in some calm and rational way, deal with the issues we are facing? I believe the answer is obviously no. And question three is who is actually in control moment to moment? I don't have the answer to that. We suspect it's some combination of Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Susie Wiles. You know, J.D. Vance doesn't really seem to be in control of anything. Trump doesn't seem to really like the guy. You don't want impulsivity in this role.

The supporters of Trump often see this and they go, look at his energy. This guy's almost 80 years old, not like Sleepy Joe, and he is relentlessly fighting for the American people. They find that when Trump posts AI slop memes at 3 a.m. That it's evidence of his energy and passion and engagement with the job. They see it as strength. It is constant erratic output. It's like a diarrhea of the post. It's instability.

and it's been normalized to some degree, and that's the part that should most scare people. If any previous president, any previous president, Democrat or Republican, I don't care, spent the entire night posting in bursts like this after speaking incoherently to reporters, it would be treated as a five alarm story. The morning papers and the morning news shows today would have spent their entire show talking about the erratic behavior of the president should he be removed. It barely registers. It should be a national, if not a global story when a president behaves like this.

And it was a yawn this morning on corporate media. So when you look at this overnight spree, the takeaway shouldn't be Trump posted a lot. It's this is a guy in decline, maybe beyond simply decline, posting all night from the most powerful office in the world, ruining people's lives economically as he does it. So is in a mental health emergency? I would argue that it obviously is. Many VPNs claim they don't track you. Only one can prove it.

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It's one of the few privacy or security tools I truly trust. Get 83% off just 203 a month plus four extra months free at PIAVPN.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. MAGA CNBC host Joe Kernan, almost having a heart attack when Pete Buttigieg confronted him. It takes two to tango, I think is like the appropriate phrase here, given that I'm in Argentina. On the one hand, Pete Buttigieg is really good at this stuff. On the other hand, Joe Kernan, who has come after me on Twitter and is just a trigger. Triggily guy overall. He is not well suited to remaining calm when he's getting dog walked by Pete Buttigieg. So we're going to check this out. This is really worth watching. I don't always play

like the full thing, so to speak, on the show. But I'm going to this time because to see Joe Kernan come close to having a heart attack as Pete Buttigieg very calmly dismantles and explains every aspect of what Joe Kernan is saying being wrong to him. This is more than Kernan going, well, disagree with you. He has this visceral emotional reaction because he's a MAGA guy because Pete Buttigieg is making him look stupid. And the dumber Joe Kernan looks, the more he talks over Pete Buttigieg and the more that he interrupts and the louder that he gets and the more visibly frustrated that he gets, this is very good. Let's take a look. I understand that. I'm saying this is somebody who knows what it's like to be sent to war by a U.S. president. And when a president sends you to war,

when you and your buddies are on that great-tailed plane going into a war zone, you do it with some level of confidence, some level of assurance, that your chain of command. Now that we're there, that doesn't even sound like, now that we're there, do you hope this has a successful outcome? There were 40,000 Iranians that were slaughtered by the same regime. 47 years of killing Americans, stirring trouble all around the world with proxies. And how do you feel about that regime being left intact by this president?

I thought we were getting rid of them. and I don't know what might happen. Is that an argument? Is that an argument? So you don't want us to work, and it was just a bad move. You want us to pull out now. Look, there's no obvious way out now, but I want to make sure that this ends

in a way that, first of all, our economy can recover, that we're not paying so much for gas. I mean, right now, oil's $100, jet fuels $200, gas is over $4,000. Diesel's like $5.50. You averaged $3.80 under Biden for four years. Yeah, and when we left,

inflation was lower than it is today. You accounted for 21.5% pricing. This president took the inflation rate up. Inflation, this president took the inflation rate up. It's more than 3% year on here. You saw the numbers who's come out. It's more than 3% of you're on here. Okay.

Isn't it? Isn't it? It's a point three. The math is direct. It's fluctuating. It's fluctuated from 2. It's higher than when he got here, Joe. It's not 9%.

His central campaign process. promise was he was going to take inflation and drive it down and instead he took inflation and it's up. I thought the in the Fed. It was three when he got here and now it's more. It could not be simpler than that. It's around three and we're involved in a war with the street. He said on day one it would go down. He came in on day one and now it's up. It's up to three percent. It was 21 and a half percent. He promised it would go down. Over four years, over four years it was 21 and a half percent. You own, Democrats own the affordability prices. Listen to me. Period. Why did the president fail?

You don't think Democrats are only a affordability crisis? Why did the president fail to keep his promise to lower prices, in your opinion? I'm laughing because this is, this piece of it is basic. The president did say that he was, he wanted to be in office to bring inflation down, and he has not brought inflation down. That's all. He drove it up. He not only failed, he drove it up.

Mr. Secretary, let's talk a little bit. Terrence have had a minimal, a minimal. If you tell a family where I live that $1,000 per household, is minimal. From the 21 and a half percent increase that you're the Democrats. We can argue all day about just how bad COVID was and how bad it got and what it took back from that. You call it

where I live, a thousand bucks per household isn't minimal. Now you found now Democrats found religion on inflation. After presiding over the worst inflation in 40 years, now you found religion. It's 2026. They're in charge. You guys are in charge. I'm aware of that. What are you going to do differently?

What are you going to do differently to make the prices actually go down like you promised to your Number one, we've got to get through this war, and you've heard people... We got to get through this war, and we didn't have to be fighting this war. What are we doing? That's a matter of opinion. You can't say that. It's a matter of opinion that I share with most Americans and a large number of Republicans and a whole bunch of MAGA people who bought into this president because they actually believed them.

He's got 75% Republican approval for the war. You don't start with the approval you have within your own party, but the point is the MAGA coalition... Democrats aren't going to approve of anything. I'm talking about Americans. Americans disapprove of the president and their right to do. do so. He's got the same approval rating other presidents have had at this point in the term, a little bit above. This president right now is unpopular for very good reasons, one of which is that he's made like... He's no more unpopular than Obama was

or Biden was at the same term, at the same point of his presidency. That depends on which polls you're looking at, but by and large, no, I'm sorry, but like, I've been out on the trail. I was in Marjorie Taylor Green's district. Marjorie Taylor Green. This is a Trump plus 38 district. Or it was. I've seen... I've got a number. You'll get a chance to prove that in November this year. We had a chance to prove it last week. The Senate might go.

I understand. Yeah, because people are. Presidents make difficult decisions, obviously. Yeah, but usually they make difficult decisions to try to make other people better off. This president has made decisions to make himself better off. That's definitely happened. If you're the kind of person who can pay a million bucks for the entry fee at Mar-a-Lago, then you're doing great. But everybody else is hurting right now.

So this is not a debate in any sense of the word. When one person loses control of their ability to think and their ability to remain calm, this is what it looks like. Now, notice the contrast. Pete Buttigieg, as I like to call him, stays completely calm. While Joe Kernan gets louder and he gets more frantic, Pete Buttigieg is explaining things and Joe Kernan is reacting and he's angry. And it's facts versus feelings here, not in the way that the MAGA people like to tell us that it

kind of goes down and the feelings just aren't holding up. Now, one of the things that I've experienced in conversations that get very passionate and emotional is that when you realize you're getting pounded, you try to interrupt and stop the other person from talking. And I kind of get the urge because in situations, I've been in. When the other person starts making an argument and I've identified the argument, I know I can rebut it. I calmly wait for them to finish. In fact, it's better because the more you give them rope to confidently tell you here's why you're wrong, if I'm prepared to show them

that didn't make any sense, I'm better off letting them confidently assert their position and then I debunk it. When you interrupt and you yell over and you talk over, and you talk over and you won't let a thought be completed on some level you are anticipating or you're realizing I don't have the substance to rebut this. And this was Joe Kernan on his own set, on his own network, and he can't keep control of this exchange. And so it's interesting because the confidence that we see a lot of these MAGA people have confidence in bad ideas. It works when you control the bully pulpit. It sometimes works. You know, if you're, Trump in front of a friendly audience and no one's going to challenge what you say, that confidence

about things you're wrong about can work. If you're Caroline Levitt to a lesser degree, you can't control the press's ability to ask questions, but you can end the press conference. You can move on to somebody else. At an individual level, she still is sort of in control of that room, although she often loses control. Joe Kernan lost control. Pete Buttigieg was in control of this conversation. and without raising his voice for an instant, he made Joe Kernan look like the maga clown that he is. One other aspect that I think is important to mention here. I was recently on a podcast called the Can't Be Censored Podcast. It's a Canadian podcast.

They flew in and interviewed me and it was a good conversation. One of the things they asked me was about why don't I react more emotionally when I'm talking to people I disagree with. And my argument was that it doesn't serve my position. I look unhinged. I look out of control. And I understand being passionate and I understand caring about the issues you're discussing. And I understand feeling frustrated by terrible dehumanizing arguments from the right.

But I still think that I end up looking worse if I am the one who stooped to the sort of behavior that Joe Kernan stoop to in this clip. And the confidence of MAGA, we saw this gap where you can sound really content. and you can speak very loudly, but that doesn't mean you're at all competent in what you're saying. And the arguments ran out for Joe Kernan. Awesome job by Buttigieg. The people that like Pete for 2028, one of the things they like the most is that he goes into these spaces, Fox News or to a lesser degree CNBC and just pounds them like you would do with, you know, taking peppercorns and making cracked pepper, I don't know, something else. Anyway, Chimmy Churry, he's just pounding those herbs,

very Argentina themed here. Really nice job by Pete Buttigieg. I don't know if he's going to be back on there anytime soon. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. The David Pack The Packman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. You have to see this.

Fox host Maria Bartaromo had an eyebrow raising moment when trying. Trump admitted what we've all suspected, which is that come the November election, gas prices could be even higher than they are today. But wait a second, I thought it was going to be three to four, maybe four to six weeks in Iran. And gas prices would briefly go up, but then they would come down very quickly. But Trump is now admitting they may be higher in November. He seems disoriented in this interview that he gave Maria Bartaromo right after he made the announcement that he will close the Strait of Hormuz after fighting to have it open.

Let's take a look. Donald Trump appearing with Maria Bardo to mirror what he said on Truth Social. There is going to be a complete blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran will not be allowed to make money selling oil to people that they like. Here he is explaining it all to Maria Barteromo. But, Mr. President, you wrote on Truth Social this morning saying that we will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. And at some point, we will reach an all being allowed to go in and all being allowed to go out basis. So tell us what you're trying to

accomplish with this all in, all out. Yep. It's called all in and all out. There'll be a time when we'll have them all come in and all come out. But it won't be a percentage. It won't be a friend of yours, like a country that's your ally or a country that's your friend is, all or nothing. And that won't be in too long a distance. We're just bringing the ships up. We got a lot of ships that we're bringing them up. We think that numerous countries are going to be helping us with this also. But we're putting on a complete blockade.

We're not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like and not people that they don't like or whatever it is. It's going to be all or none. And that's the way it is. And it'll be, you saw what we did with Venezuela. It'll be something very similar to that, but at a higher level. And this is going backwards. Now, so far, so far, this is bad policy. It's a sort of normal interview, normal, abnormal for Trump's standards. He is announcing policy that doesn't make

sense. He spent weeks saying we're going to get the straight opened. He spent one week saying the straight is open. And then he goes, Iran never really opened it. And by the way, now I'm closing it. Nutso, totally boncos, non-compostmentis. But for Trump standards, it's still sort of like, all right, this is kind of the interview that he gives. We continue. And Trump goes, hey, you know what? We don't really get our oil from there. We have a ton of oil.

Technically true. But blocking the straight of Hormuz will blow up your oil and gas prices and mine as well. Trump doesn't care about that. Take a listen to this. Mine, two, mine, send mine. And that will, if you have a lot of. ship that costs a billion dollars, you say, well, you know, I'd prefer not getting whack by our mind losing my ship or damaging it badly, at least. And so that's a little bit of a thing that they

can do, that it's military might and military power don't do it, but, you know, it's extortion, and they're extorting the world. You know, we don't get our oil from there. We have so much or we have, and one thing you said is, I don't know if anybody heard it well, but we have votes pouring up to the United States, they'll be filling them up and they'll be leaving, and they're going to be packed with the best oil. You can get light, sweet, crude. They're going to have the best oil that you can get. So that's interesting, and it's great because we have a lot of oil.

We don't get any. I mean, literally last year it was 1%. We did that as a favor. We don't need this great. But other countries do, and I will tell you, while we're on the subject, we're very disappointed with NATO. were very, very disappointed that they didn't come. Now they want to come and they want to help with the straight and it won't take long to clean

it out. So we're going to clean out the straight and they'll be able to use the straight and not too long a distance. If Trump cared about what you pay for gas, he wouldn't say this and he wouldn't do this. That's extremely important to understand. When Trump decided to go into Iran, so he says, he expected gas. prices to be even higher than they've gotten. What that means is that Trump was more than willing for you to sacrifice so that he can do his

war games. And what Trump is now acknowledging is he doesn't care if they go up even more because as Trump says, we don't get a lot of our oil from there. That's true. But what he's not mentioning is that if you blockade a pathway for 20% of the world's oil, it is going to drive global oil and gas prices up even more. So what that means is, and now as Trump is even saying by the time of the election, they might still be elevated, this summer, you'll pay even more for gas than you already are because Trump is raising, blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Even come fall as people who have oil-based heating in their homes, which is still a lot of people, as they start using that oil and buying oil, you are potentially even by then going to be paying even more.

And then the incredible moment where Maria Bartaromo raises her eyebrows, as Trump says gas may be even more, even more expensive come election time. They all said, we agree. So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections? I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher. But it should be around the same.

I think this won't be that much longer. They're wiped out. They're wiped out. And you don't get the, you don't get a fair shake. You don't get, you know, we need, we need a free and fair press in this country. And I don't even know why people would do that. Why would they say how wonderful they're doing militarily. They're doing so well. They totally what the country is wiped out. We lost one airplane and we captured the two. They could be even higher in November and look at Maria Bardo's face as he said it. She realizes this is political. political suicide for Trump and for Republicans. Now, is it possible that Trump has already conceded? They're going to get crushed in November. They're going to lose the house. Just forget it. Don't even fight for it. Try to get whatever limited victory he can get in Iran and call it a success, even if gas prices will be higher. Maybe. But what's clear is he doesn't give a damn about the average American and what you are going to pay. not the populist policy that we were sold during the campaign.

Trump saying you want to see a stock market go down. Well, let Iran have nukes and let them use them. There's a little problem with this argument, but let's take a look at the clip. Let's stop this, this country from having a nuclear weapon. You want to see a stock market go down? Let a couple of nuclear bombs been be dropped on us or frankly any place else. And then you'll see a stock market that goes down. So the stock market has not gone down very much at all, got down a little bit, much less than I thought.

And frankly, the gas hasn't gone up as much as I thought. But regardless, even if it did, we have to stop this group of people from having. And again, it was worse because Comeney was a total, you know, radical. I'll be nice. Maniac. He was a maniac. And you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. So I just have the greatest economy.

ever, everything's going along and I say, I'm sorry. I tell my economic infighted. And say, I'm sorry, fellas. We're in great shape. We have to go and take a little journey down to Iran and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. They all said, we agree. The problem with this is they didn't have nuclear weapons or if you believe they did, it

would have been because Trump got out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. But if you believe they did, Trump told us he destroyed them when he bombed Iran in June of 2025, except maybe he didn't or did he or did they rebuild them. And so the point here is, sure, if Iran drops nukes on someone, that would hurt the economy, that would hurt the stock market. We just don't have the evidence that that's something they were capable of or going to do. I don't defend Iran's rhetoric about destroying other countries. I don't support theocratic regimes, but I've got to go with the facts and the facts

don't point to that is something that was plausible or even likely. Trump, by the way, mentions, oh, the election was rigged. By the way. And Maria Barteromo goes, yep, even after she raised her eyebrows in horror at Trump saying gas prices will be higher, she goes, yep, the election was rigged. Take a look. But under Biden, who was an incompetent president, he was grossly incompetent. Look, the election was rigged.

You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that now. And it's all come out and it's coming out. But under Biden, if you take a look at what happened, when he, when he was president, that's a war that would have never happened. Russia attacking Ukraine. Yeah. And I ended, Ray, I ended eight wars, including Pakistan. It was so rigged that Fox had to pay nearly $800 million in fines for allowing that message to go out on their airwaves. That's how rigged it was. This guy can't

can't do it anymore. And we need to be serious about what needs to happen, even if Republicans aren't willing to do what needs to be done. Sometimes you just kind of have to call things what they are very simply and very plainly. Right now, what that means is we have to acknowledge Donald Trump has no idea what's going on. He doesn't understand, nor do quite frankly, I even think that he cares what happens to this country based on his failed war with Iran. Donald Trump in advance of the failed negotiations with Iran, sensing apparently that a deal was not coming, said whether we make a deal or not makes no difference because we won. That's his argument. We already won so the deal on which everything hinges doesn't make a difference.

Let's look. We've totally defeated that country. And so let's see what happens. Maybe they make a deal. Maybe they don't. From the standpoint of America, we win. One other things is happening is that boats are sailing up and heading out to our country. Big, beautiful tankers, and we're loading them up with oil and gas and everything else.

It's a pretty beautiful thing to see. What about the United States? China, the United Iran, assets in other countries. We're going to see what happens. We're in very deep negotiations. very deep negotiations with Iran. We win regardless. We've defeated them militarily. They've dropped a couple of water mines. You call them water mines in the boat. We've defeated all of their water boats, too. Their Navy has gone 158 ships. They have 28 water droppers, mine droppers, they call

them. All of them are sunk. They probably have a couple of mines in the water. We have mine sweepers out there. We're sweeping the straight. In addition to that, we're negotiating, whether we make a deal or not, it makes no difference to me. The reason is because we've won. Whether you listen to the fake news or not, you know, it's amazing. Their credibility is down to 13%. The media credibility down to 13%. Think of it. We defeated their Navy. We defeated their Air Force. We defeated their anti-aircraft. We defeated their radar. We defeated their leaders.

Their leaders are all dead. And now all we do is we'll open up the straight even though we don't use it because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid or weak or or cheap. I don't know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO that I get done. Well, if it doesn't matter, why are there negotiations? Why is J.D. Vance in talks to make a deal if it doesn't matter? Is it Trump undermining his vice president again?

Why threaten escalation if the outcome doesn't matter? Because negotiation requires caring about the outcome. If the outcome doesn't matter and you don't care about the outcome, what sort of a negotiation is really going to happen? If the outcome makes no difference, you also have no leverage. And so there's two interpretations of this. It's either you're telling the other side, we don't really. need a deal, we don't really care about a deal, the terms don't matter. We've already decided

we won. Well, then there's not going to be a deal, arguably self-sabotaging and throwing J.D. Vance under the bus. Or Trump anticipates that we're not going to be on the winning end of this. Trump anticipates that there's not going to be a deal. And so he wants to get out ahead of it and say it doesn't matter even though it really does. Now, a lot of people at this point would ask a question that I think is highly relevant and incredibly salient to the discussion we're having, which is how is Trump's cognitive decline affecting politics? This is how it shows up. Inconsistent logic within a single sentence. We're negotiating for a great deal and it doesn't matter if we get a deal. Contradicting his prior statements from just hours earlier. Losing track of cause and effect and

why are we even here. Speaking in conclusions without. supporting reasoning for anything that he's saying. It doesn't matter if we get a deal because we won. How are you defining that victory? What do you mean we won? At what point did we win? And if this were a serious discussion of policy, we would get an answer from the White House. Here are the objectives and here is clear, consistent messaging. We're going to align our public statements with the negotiations. J.D. Vance is there supposedly undertaking the most important negotiations that this administration has been involved in at least as far as this second term. And publicly, you say that it does matter. You don't do the pomp and circumstance about J.D. going to negotiate and then publicly go,

we actually already won so the deal doesn't even really matter. You wouldn't be announcing policy via posts if this were a serious administration. You wouldn't be declaring the outcomes irrelevant. So there's actually two or maybe even three camps here in terms of the analysis as to what's going on. This is Trump's new rhetoric because he knew the deal would fail. This is Trump's rhetoric because he's actually actively trying to hurt J.D. Vance and devalue and kind of throw him under the bus. Or option number three, which is kind of like an all of the above or none driven primarily by Donald Trump's incoherence and cognitive decline. I can't tell you I know exactly which one it is. What we know from tracking Trump historically over the last number of years, number one, he only

really cares about himself. And so you paying higher gas prices or J.D. Vance failing negotiations, he doesn't care as long as it doesn't affect him directly. He may be miscalculating on that. I think it will affect him directly in the sense of making Republicans lose in November and throwing his final two years of the presidency into complete an utter disarray, which he's not going to like. But at the end of the day, this is all about how can Trump appear strong and pull out something approximating a victory? He's not seemingly going to get a victory on the negotiations,

although then we heard again this morning, those are continuing. And so he's pulling the, the negotiations don't really matter. This thing is over and we won. My question to the administration would then be by which objectives did we win and then you get six different answers from four different people not convincing me