The David Pakman Show - Trump checks out as Republicans panic and MAGA goes insane

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Ron DeSantis yells at a protester while potential Republican primary candidates maneuvering for the 2028 election begin testing their chances -- Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ...uses hypothetical scenarios to justify missed economic growth targets and defend Donald Trump's tariffs -- Some Republican candidates are skipping the midterm convention because Donald Trump presents an electoral liability for competitive races -- Donald Trump claimed a friend at the DNC wore an ID chain containing his Social Security number, while asserting shoppers need ID to buy kiwis -- Donald Trump once again repeatedly slumps and drifts off to sleep during an active briefing inside the Oval Office -- Donald Trump rambles extensively about golfer Tiger Woods and his driver license problems during an Oval Office statement -- Lara Trump demands that elected Republicans provide complete personal loyalty to Donald Trump regardless of their own beliefs -- In a CNN debate, Adam Mockler attempted to focus on economic issues but Caroline Sunshine deflected to talk about the culture war and God -- On the Bonus Show: Exploring the possibility of a childless female president, gas prices are expected to set a new record, the White House is preparing for investigations, and much more... 📖 Bullies, Parasites & Slaves: Text PAKMAN to 511511 or go to https://bps.online ⚠️ 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 (01:22) Ron DeSantis yells at a protester (08:49) Howard Lutnick justifies Trump's bad economy (19:07) Republicans are skipping the midterm convention (27:08) Trump claims ID is needed to buy kiwis (38:00) Trump drifts off to sleep in Oval Office (45:54) Trump rambles about Tiger Woods (52:23) Lara Trump demands lawmakers' total loyalty (01:00:20) CNN debate exposes culture war distractions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:36 Visit Wayfair.ca. Today, wayfair.com. Furniture made for all of life's moments. That's Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. Today, Republicans are being asked to explain what exactly are they offering voters? Why would someone vote for them in November? And the conversation has deteriorated into, this is not a joke, whether God has a penis
Starting point is 00:00:58 renaming Lake Ontario and yelling at protesters about George Soros. That's where they are right now. We've also got Republicans increasingly trying to get away from their own party's midterm convention. It's a terrible idea. And Trump has trapped them between a magabase they can't afford to alienate and swing voters that they desperately need. We then get to Trump himself, who glitched his way through an absolutely bizarre event,
Starting point is 00:01:27 repeatedly fell asleep again and woke up to say, oh, a friend of mine really needs a Gulf Stream jet and he couldn't get it. Lara Trump gave an almost perfect demonstration of how a political cult of personality works. And Ron DeSantis totally lost it as the 28 maneuvering is already starting. And the funniest part is Ted Cruz thinks it finally might be his moment to become the president of the United States. It won't be. explain why we have all of it and more today. Well, I'm surprised and quite frankly a little bit disgusted to be reporting to you today that even though it's 2026 and we haven't even had the midterms, the 2028 primaries appear to be getting going, especially on the Republican side. Ron DeSantis,
Starting point is 00:02:21 desicdemonious, the governor of Florida, seems to be trying something new as he is trying to figure out what is my political future? What happens now that I've sort of been alienated from Trump? But I kind of crawled back, but at the same time, many Republican voters don't like him. And with something new that DeSanctus is trying is losing his mind because a woman heckled him and yelling about George Soros. Take a look at this. Four million more residents than New York State does and New York State. Hey, Soros isn't paying you enough because you're not very good at this.
Starting point is 00:02:58 You should try again. He needs to pay some better talent instead of having people like you. you show up. This ain't my first rodeo, lady. I've seen it all and you ain't very good at it. What is he doing? Like look at the anger. This is the governor of Florida. He's been in politics forever. He's run for president of the United States. And a lady yells at him and suddenly he's screaming uncontrollably about George Soros. This isn't my first
Starting point is 00:03:39 rodeo, blah, blah, blah. Now, DeSantis' personality, it's unusual and it's certainly a topic of interest in American politics, but I think there's a much bigger story here because all of these guys are starting to think about what does happen when Trump is gone. That's really what this is about. And the 2008 Republican primary maneuvering is starting now. Ted Cruz, by the way, thinks it might finally be his moment. There's a Wall Street Journal report that will link to in the description to this YouTube video, which says that Ted Cruz has already been to Iowa three times this year. He's doing the podcast circuit. He's promoting his book. But most importantly, Ted Cruz has started to quietly kind of ask people, might you be interested in working on my
Starting point is 00:04:25 2028 campaign? So it seems as though Ted Cruz has already decided privately he is running. Now, I am not big on predictions. I don't know who the Republican nominee is going to be. I don't know who the Democratic nominee is going to be. I think there's a lot of unpredictability. One prediction I'm comfortable making, and if I were a betting man, I should just bet on it right now, but I'm not. Ted Cruz is not going to be the next president of the United States. I don't know who their nominee will be, and I don't know who the Democrats nominee will be, but Ted Cruz is not going to be president. And what's funny is that apparently even J.D. Vance's people are kind of looking at this and going, Ted Cruz thinks he might be able to do it. The Wall Street Journal report indicates that the allies of Vance are just kind of
Starting point is 00:05:12 scoffing at the idea that Cruz would even be a serious threat. And meanwhile, J.D. Vance is leading early Republican polling. He and Marco Rubio are kind of the Trump favorites for 28. But Ted Cruz is already starting to ramp up by taking some shots at J.D. Cruz criticized Vance over the Iran agreement that has fallen apart. He said it's a terrible deal. deal when Cruz was asked, how important is Trump's endorsement going to be in 2028? Cruz said, well, you know, it carries weight, but voters are going to make their own decision. And that is really interesting because it's not even November of 26.
Starting point is 00:05:49 Oh, my good. I lost the light again. This has been an issue in the remote studio this week. These lights are just refute something about me is repelling these lights. We're starting to see the outlines of this Republican primary. And you could have J.D. Vance saying essentially. I am the heir to Trump. No one else can compare. And Marco Rubio potentially saying, well, I'm the one who can
Starting point is 00:06:13 keep the Trump coalition together. J.D. may be Trump's heir, but he is going to fracture the coalition. I, Marco Rubio and really really the guy. And in the middle of all of this, you've got Ted Cruz trying to remind people, hey, I've been around since before Trump. And in comes to Santis. And he goes, Soros isn't paying you protesters enough. Now, remember that Ronda, DeSantis at one point was seen as the inevitable successor, the future of the Republican Party. He would be Trump without chaos. He would be Trumpism without Trump. And he would be competent MAGA.
Starting point is 00:06:47 And then DeSantis ran against Trump. Trump humiliated him and the entire thing completely collapsed. And now DeSantis is back in Florida yelling at hecklers and presumably looking at 2028 and sort of asking like, do I have a path back? into the top of the Republican Party. The fascinating problem that all of these guys have and they're going to have to figure out how to deal with this after we get beyond the midterms, which that problem is Trump built the movement around himself.
Starting point is 00:07:20 It wasn't about a coalition. It certainly wasn't about Ted Cruz. It certainly wasn't about Ron DeSantis. It isn't really even about J.D. Vance. They've all spent years teaching Republican voters that Trump is this uniquely brilliant. strong, necessary figure for their movement. And where they're going to find themselves after November, really, I think this is going to get going quickly, is they'll have to turn around and say, okay, yeah, even though we spent years saying Trump is the guy and the center of this movement,
Starting point is 00:07:53 now I actually want you to pick me because I think I'm going to be the next center of the movement. That's going to be a tough one to sell a lot of these Republican voters. And the question mark, there are a few certainties about the 28 Republican primary. We'll get to the Democratic primary later after the election is what I mean. But some of the things we know about the Republican primary are, number one, Trump will try to exert total control over the way that that primary goes. Number two, we, it's almost certainly going to be a big field. Number three, you are going to see people who for the last four, eight, 10, 11 years of Trump's
Starting point is 00:08:32 political career have basically said, we are all together and all the same because we are with Trump and blah, blah, blah. They are then going to have to start distinguishing themselves from each other, even though the game all along was to say we're aligned and united. They're going to have to say, well, we're not so aligned because they need to in order to say you should pick, pick me over him or her. Those things are all certainties. What we don't know is, will Trump actually have the political capital to,
Starting point is 00:09:02 to be the center of this primary and to be the decider and to what degree will denouncing Trump or distancing from Trump be a strategy, excuse me, that some, many, or most of the Republican candidates are going to figure out, hey, I need to do that in order to justify people voting for me. I don't know. I don't have the answers to those questions. It's going to be a crazy primary and I think it's realistically going to get going going sooner that a lot of people think. One of the problems that Trump has created for himself is that if you systematically get rid of everybody who actually knows what they're talking about, eventually you're
Starting point is 00:09:43 left with people like Howard Nutlick explaining why the economic numbers don't really count and the GDP is way better than what the actual number shows. And the clip I'm going to play for you is really something. You might remember that Nutlick was talking about we're going to have GDP growth of 5%. We're going to have GDP growth of 6%. And I explained to you, you know, that would be massive for the United States. Countries as mature and as large as the United States don't tend to grow at 6% unless it's a recovery from some disastrous economic contraction. When GDP shriveled under Trump during COVID, we then did see rebound GDP go way up. But that was a unique situation.
Starting point is 00:10:26 In general, countries like the United States don't grow at five to six percent. And indeed, the United States GDP has not been growing at five to six percent. The numbers don't support anything close to that. So what Nutlick now has is a new method of economic analysis. And it's basically the following. Ignore the real numbers. Imagine how good the numbers would have been if completely different things had taken place. Now, a lot of us would go, what does that matter?
Starting point is 00:10:54 What matters is what is not what could have been. Well, not to Nutlick. Take a look at this. Just want to shift back just briefly to the perception that the U.S. has grown at 1.5%. Can you really just give some background on what skewed that number and what is possible in the next couple of quarters? Because I hear some crazy numbers being bandied about. But imports, and maybe it was oil or whatever, skewed that down to 1.5. If you factor some of that out, it's closer to above three, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:11:33 It is above three. If you just take a look at the GDP numbers, what happened is when the Supreme Court ruled against the president for tariffs, and those tariffs came down, imports came flooding in. And the way we do GDP in America is we take our growth. sales. So the big number of sales that every company in America makes and you subtract imports. So when all those imports come flying in starting February all the way through the next quarter, that reduces the number of GDP by 1.6%. 1.6%. So it was going the other way. So if you took the quarter before and you added the quarter after, that's 1.85% GD.000. So it was going the other way. So if you took the quarter before and you added the quarter after, that's 1.85%
Starting point is 00:12:21 That would put you well over 3% if the AIPA case with the Supreme Court had gone the other way. And you'll see the tariffs are going to be back in place, right? Over the next couple of weeks, they'll be all back in place. And you'll see imports start to fall. And you'll see GDP rise. And just that calculus itself, over one and a half points are exactly right. All right, but Howard, the Supreme Court case did not go the other way. The Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn't give Trump the authority to impose those tariffs.
Starting point is 00:12:56 So we are now at the point where the Commerce Secretary is saying focus on the hypothetical GDP. Ignore the real GDP. Oh, you lost the basketball game. Imagine if you had made all of your three pointers, then you would have won. Yeah, but we didn't we didn't do that. That's not the case. And even Nutlick's hypothetical here from the actual number to well over 3%. What happened to five or six? He's going, it could have been well over 3% if this hypothetical had come to pass. But you used to say, we are going to have 5 or 6%. We went from we will have 5 or 6% to celebrating imaginary 3.6%, which also doesn't exist because the Supreme Court didn't rule differently. Now, I think there's an even bigger problem with this argument that I'm not hearing anybody talk about. When the Commerce Secretary
Starting point is 00:13:50 treats a tariff as though economists universally agree, more tariffs would have met more growth when they don't. Understand that. What Lutnik is saying is if Trump had been allowed to do way more tariffs, GDP would have been way higher. Trump was not allowed to do those tariffs, But it is not the case that even more tariffs would have been better for the country. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says the policies of blanket tariffs have gone through a bunch of these different changes. But in general, the estimates are that Trump's tariffs, if allowed to have held at their full girth and width and length, would have actually reduced GDP over the long run.
Starting point is 00:14:36 But who cares, right? Like, this is what happens when loyalty becomes the principal qualification. And think about how many serious economists and policy experts and government officials and business people wanted nothing to do with Trump. And the most important qualifier is really, I am completely loyal to Trump. The really qualified people were like, I would never be caught dead working for this guy. And so what you end up with is the people that are willing to go on TV and explain the economy is doing really well.
Starting point is 00:15:05 If you ignore the economy we have and imagine an economy that we don't have, then it's doing great. And that's what you get with Howard Lutnik. Lutnik is still promising the tariffs are coming back any day. Maybe they will find some other legal mechanism for some of the tariffs, but the administration has already imposed tariffs using other authorities since losing that Supreme Court case. But that's a separate question. You don't count a future policy as current economic growth. You don't count a court case you lost as a court case you might have won and then say that
Starting point is 00:15:42 that's really the economy we have. And you don't get to promise five or six percent GDP growth. And then when reality intervenes, tell us, oh, you know, technically, we could have had 3.6 in this hypothetical where Trump was allowed to keep all of the tariffs going. So where they've shifted to is the current economy, the real economy, reality is so bad for them that they're doing fan fiction. They're analyzing an economy we don't have. Trump should get credit for an economy in which he got to do all of his tariffs and we didn't go into Iran and we had 6% GDP growth. Vote as if we had that economy. That's demented. Why would
Starting point is 00:16:21 anyone do that? That does the hypothetical economy we don't have doesn't make groceries any more affordable for people. And it doesn't make gasoline any more affordable for people. So, We deal with this a lot on the show. I deal with this concept of these informational silos where it's like what are facts even in my forthcoming book pay attention significantly. We are in the final days before the release of this book. I need your help to make this book a success. I don't have the multi-million dollar New York Times behind me promoting my book.
Starting point is 00:16:56 I don't have these massive marketing budgets or the bully pulpit of being on CNN or Fox news, which instantly makes books a bestseller. All I have is you. So please consider preordering the book at David Pakman.com slash attention. Next week, I am going in to sign the signed copies. If you want a signed copy, we're at the end. Okay. Go to David Pakman.com slash attention. The top link is for signed copies. Make me get a little bit of pain in my wrist from having to sign a few more. We'll take a break and be back right after this. One of our sponsors today is the new book by George Koch called Bullies Parasites and Slaves. Bullies take from others to benefit themselves and they pretend to be our only defenders as a ploy to get our support.
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Starting point is 00:18:23 care. You can get bullies, parasites, and slaves in paperback, e-book, or all. audio, you can even get it for free if you need, go to BPS.on online or text my last name, Pacman, to 511, 511. The link is in the description. Sometimes the most important part of a political story is not what gets reported, but what gets placed in the center of the frame. And that is why our sponsor Ground News is so valuable.
Starting point is 00:18:56 Take a look at Trump's Medicaid work requirement rule. The underlying story is that a lot of a on Medicaid will have to do 80 hours a month of work, school, or volunteering to keep their coverage. When our sponsor ground news lines up the sources, the framing really changes. On the left, the focus is human consequences. What happens if you're sick and you lose coverage? On the right, it's how much will it cost to implement these requirements?
Starting point is 00:19:23 What about states saying that's going to be really expensive? And what's revealing is only around 10% of the coverage is coming from right-leaning sources. They're mostly ignoring the story. Ground news will flag gaps like this through its blind spot feed. So you can see when a major story is getting very little attention from one side of the media landscape. Go to ground. News slash Pacman for 40% off the same vantage plan I use. The link is in the description. Donald Trump has found a new way to screw his own party and he is creating a total nightmare for Republicans heading into the midterms because the Republican Party has a problem that they can't hide. And the problem is very simple. It's three words. Those three words are Trump is toxic. Now, he's not
Starting point is 00:20:12 toxic with the hardcore MAGA base. He's not toxic with the people who are, you know, buying the hats and the Trump phones that they will never get and all of that crap. Those people are still with Trump. But Republicans actually have to win elections outside of that hardcore Trump base. And now they're heading to this extraordinarily ill-advised midterm convention where Donald Trump is going to make all of it about Donald Trump. And there are Republicans who have realized he's screwing us and we want nothing to do with it. So CNN put together this remarkable compilation of Republicans saying, we're not going. Or I think I might be busy that day. Take a look at this.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Are you planning to go to the Republican convention next week? I'm planning to be in my district. next week. Thinking about it. How do you go to the Republican convention next week? I have to be in the district because I have events. I would love to go. I was thinking about it.
Starting point is 00:21:07 I'm going to miss out on something important, but I cannot be into places at the same time. This is incredible. I mean, Republican after Republican can't make it. I've got to do my sock drawer. I've got too many loose socks that have strayed and I need to rematch them up. I've got to wash my hair. Individually, maybe a lot of these Republicans do have legitimate scheduling conflict, but collectively, give me a break.
Starting point is 00:21:37 These people understand the political problem that they're facing. If you're a Republican running in a competitive race, what are you supposed to do with Trump right now? You could distance yourself from Trump. Fine. But then Trump sees you distancing and he goes, you're a rhino and he attacks you on truth social and he does the full routine. He tells his supporters that you're disloyal and suddenly you've got a problem with the Republican base that you need to turn out and they don't turn out for you. So maybe
Starting point is 00:22:06 you go, all right, I'm not going to distance from Trump. I'm going to embrace Trump. I'll go to the convention. I'll introduce him in sycophantic delusional language and stand next to him and smile for the picture and tell everybody, look, it's the biggest president. He might be, but other than William Howard Taft, he might be the biggest president ever, but he's the greatest president, whoever lived. Okay. But now you've got to show that picture to the independent voters that don't like Trump and the swing voters that are like, I don't know, I might stay home if this seems too Trump aligned. And that is the trap that Republicans find themselves in. You can't navigate around it. You can't say, hey, you know, Donald, you're not particularly
Starting point is 00:22:47 popular in my district right now. Maybe just give me the next few months to run my own campaign. because Trump demands loyalty. And if you don't give him loyalty, he attacks you. And if you do give him loyalty, you own everything that comes with him. And a lot of it people don't like. And now he is potentially going to bring all of it together at a midterm convention that puts him front and center when Republican candidates would rather voters forget that he exists. If there's an even deeper problem, it's what are Republicans actually running on? Like, what is their positive midterm message? Later, we're going to look at Adam Mockler on CNN being confronted with what they have. And it's, does God have a cock?
Starting point is 00:23:31 I'm sorry, that's what it is. And look at what voters have been experiencing. They've been experiencing wars they were promised wouldn't happen. Higher oil prices. Trade fights, tariffs, inflation, economic uncertainty, inflation outpacing wage growth and chaos and Trump sucking up all the oxygen. Republicans control everything. can't run against Biden anymore. They can't say, if you give us power, we'll fix everything
Starting point is 00:23:58 because they've had power for two years. So if voters aren't happy with the direction of the country, Republicans need something positive to offer them. And instead, they're going to have a giant convention starring the guy who's already president and is deeply unpopular. And so that's why these candidates are skipping it. It's not that they don't want to attend a political event. They seem to understand Trump is now a liability. If we embrace Trump, it's bad for us, but we also can't denounce Trump. It's sort of like you want to stand as still as possible and hope you blend into the background and just don't have Trump involved in any way, but don't have Trump notice.
Starting point is 00:24:36 Now, the problem for the broader party is that Trump spent years making himself synonymous with the Republican Party. And now Republicans have figured out, damn, there is a downside here. If Trump is popular, it's great. Everybody benefits. If Trump is toxic, we don't have anywhere to hide. I can't run with him and I can't run against him. And increasingly, it looks like a lot of Republicans have settled on option three just don't
Starting point is 00:25:03 show up. Now, there is this Trumpapalooza that they are doing. And reportedly only 2,000 people so far have received tickets. And I've got to be honest, from the reporting that I'm seeing, it's not clear that 2,000 people requested tickets. Let me explain what I mean by that. They keep circulating. We've distributed 2,000 tickets. But that might mean they invited 2,000 people. It's not clear 2,000 people even want to go. So the theme is sort of the last lame duck phase of George W. Bush, but on steroids, which is even for the midterms, this guy is so unpopular that we don't want him anywhere near us. It only matters if we
Starting point is 00:25:47 show up and vote. There is a path to control the Senate for Democrats. There is a very obvious and likely path to controlling the House of Representatives. A few people emailed me this week and they said, David, you shouldn't be too confident. It's dangerous. I got to tell you guys, we've got to have a conversation about this. This is not a show that goes, okay, here's the truth of what I believe, but let me couch it in different terms in order to manipulate people into certain people. I always tell it to you like I see it. In 2024, I came to the audience borderline tears in my eyes. I was almost sobbing like that.
Starting point is 00:26:29 And I said, guys, Kamala is polling worse in the seven swing states than Biden who won and polling worse than Hillary who lost. It looks really bad for Kamala. And people wrote in and they said, David, that's not the negativity we need. we need to stay positive. And I say, guys, it should be motivating to go out and vote to hear that Kamala is not doing well. But this is not a political. My show is not political commercials. I just tell you what I see. And I honestly see right now that it seems overwhelmingly likely that Democrats take the House. And so I'm telling you that. That doesn't mean we stay home. That means we go awesome.
Starting point is 00:27:12 By voting, we will make that a reality. I think my audience is smart enough to understand that. And then in the Senate, it's roughly 50-50. The betting markets kind of bounce back and forth, 55-45, 45-45, 51-49. It's about a coin flip in the Senate. We can make it happen. We'll see. And the House looks really good.
Starting point is 00:27:30 Could we lose the House? Yes, but this is not a show where I go, well, you know, if I tell my audience, A, they might do B. So instead, I have to tell my audience C so that they'll do D. We've all got our big boy pants on and big girl pants. pants and skirts, whoever wants to wear skirt, pants, whatever, let me get away from this analogy. We all understand that it all depends on us voting, but we can still look at polling. We can still consider the direction that things are likely to go.
Starting point is 00:27:55 Donald Trump glitched badly and stunned his audience. Trump says he was at the Democratic National Convention 18 months ago and a Democratic friend of his came up to him wearing a chain with an ID on it. Wait a second. Trump thinks he was at the DNC. What is Trump talking about? Again, he is completely disoriented and confused. Take a look. When we had the convention not so long ago, a friend of mine came over and he actually is a Democrat, if you can believe it, but he's a friend of mine. I'm sure he voted for me. But he had the biggest identification card I've ever seen. He had like a chain and the thing was like this, like he was a prisoner, a murderer, you know, where they
Starting point is 00:28:39 put the picture up the number. And he had more stats about himself. He had his picture. He had everything. I don't know. They might have even had a social security number. But they had that because he's a Democrat going into the Democrat National Convention, like 18 months ago. And he came over and he had the card. I said, what do you do with that thing? It's massive. Are you strong enough to even carry it around your neck? And yet they do that. And you go to a grocery store you need identification. What the hell is this guy talking about? Is he talking about a Democrat, but he actually meant that the Democrat went to the RNC? Or is Trump so deluded that Trump believes that he himself was at the DNC? We just have absolutely no idea. He's delusional. He doesn't know where he is or
Starting point is 00:29:28 what's going on. He dumps a random word salad about good presidents that we've had. And it is almost syntactically impenetrable. We need linguists to analyze what the hell this guy is talking about. Even if you're a great president, we've had some good ones. We haven't none. We've had no great ones until I came along. I'm only kidding. Trying to be loki about it. But but but you know, I want to be if I don't say I'm only kidding, there'll be headline headline. He's a terrible human being. But no, we are though. We're doing a job like nobody's ever done. before but your your guess is as good as mine this is is is non compost mentis the appropriate analysis for what is going on here now in this next clip donald trump both glitches badly he says the
Starting point is 00:30:23 democrats reeked the economy he means wrecked but for how long is talking about democrats and joe biden a viable campaign strategy are voters genuinely going to fall for well repulsing Republicans have controlled the House for two years. Republicans have controlled the Senate for two years. Republicans have been in the White House for two years. But it's still Biden's fault, even though things have gotten worse since Biden left. I don't know. But here is Trump glitching and blaming Democrats.
Starting point is 00:30:54 Those are the things you have to talk about, but the Democrats reeked and wrecked the economy. I don't think voters are going to fall for it. I just don't. And I know that this country has failed a lot of national. I mean, listen, we have tens of millions of people in this country who went and voted for Trump in 2016 and they'd voted for him in 2020 and they voted for him in 2024. We have failed a national IQ test. But I think that even this country is not dumb enough to fall for.
Starting point is 00:31:25 It is still Joe Biden's fault. It is still the Democrats' fault. Another impenetrable word salad for Trump where he says for four months, there will be no pleasure. He won't be playing golf or something like that. In the last presidential election, four months out, I said, okay, no days off. If I didn't make four or five speeches a day, it was very bad. And I just went around and really campaigned hard. I have no day for 140, 120 days and 20 days before that.
Starting point is 00:32:01 But the real, I just said for four months, there'll be no pleasure. I'm not going to go out and play golf. I'm not going to do anything. All I'm going to do is work, work, work, and fight, fight, fight and win, win, you know. But I'm going to fight hard. And I did. And I went for 120 days, three, four, five speeches a day. I don't know what he's talking about.
Starting point is 00:32:25 I mean, it's not clear what on earth he is talking about. But it does seem as though he has been playing golf throughout. I don't know. Trump then says to swing district Republicans, you guys need to campaign on all of your accomplishments, thanks to me, and then you'll win. Take a look. Bottom.
Starting point is 00:32:47 And the bottom is communism. And it's never worked under different names, but it's never worked. And we'll send true American patriots to the United States Senate, to the House of Representatives, to governors' mansions, and all over the country.
Starting point is 00:33:01 because with what we've done in just a short period of time, a year and a half, nobody's ever seen it before. There's never been anything like it. And all you have to do is talk about it. And you're going to win and you're going to win big. So I want to thank you all. I thank the media for. What is Trump talking about? What accomplishments does Trump want Republicans to go out and campaign on?
Starting point is 00:33:23 Do you want Republicans to go back to their districts and their states and go, listen, voters should reward us because we started building. a ballroom insofar as we knocked down a bunch of the White House. And we renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. And we renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America. And Trump made billions from crypto. And measles is back. And lockjaw is back. And food is dangerous to eat.
Starting point is 00:33:50 And there's explosive diarrhea all its diarrhea summer. So reward us for that and vote for Republicans to thank us for the great job Trump is doing. Who's going to fall for that crap? Trump then with his story about Ozempic. He has a fat friend. And Trump knows that the guy is fat, but he loves the drug. Or he doesn't love the drug. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:34:13 The story changes every time. 10 cents for a pill and we'd pay $2 for the same pill or for the fat drug, as I say, you know, a friend of mine very, very heavy. He's a very obese person. I said, you're an extremely obese person, but he's a brilliant guy. He's a Wall Street guy. He's a brutal, brutal man, but smart as hell, but he's got a serious weight problem. And he called me up, and he's from New York.
Starting point is 00:34:42 He's one of the top guys on Wall Street. He's begging me, because I've told the story a couple of times, not to mention his name because I'll destroy his reputation. But he's tough as hell, and he's smart, vicious, wild. These are the people we have to deal with when you're president. He used to call me Donnie. Now he calls me president. He'd say, Donnie, now he calls me president.
Starting point is 00:35:02 I'm shocked he does that, actually. That shows respect. But he said, you know, Mr. President, I was in London, and I paid $86 for OZempic. And in New York, I pay $1,300 for the same thing. That's a lot, that's a big difference. And I had it checked out. It comes from the same factory.
Starting point is 00:35:28 It comes from the same place. and then I have some other fat drugs. I said, are you taking this stuff? Yeah. I said, it's not working. You look like shit. It says, it's not working. But he got me going.
Starting point is 00:35:43 Remarkable midterm messaging, right? Super disciplined. Super disciplined. And this is really engaging voters. Finally, a classic. Trump says you need ID to go to a grocery store. And he came over and he had the card. I said, what do you do with that thing?
Starting point is 00:35:57 It's massive. Are you strong enough? to even carry it around your neck. And yet they do that and you go to a grocery store you need identification. You have a license. The only thing they don't want you to have identification is voting. And the re you know, the other day I went in. I love those golden Kiwis and the season is ending soon. So I filled my cart with golden Kiwis. And when I went to check out, they said, sir, give us your ID. This is too many Kiwis. We need to make a note of who is buying this stuff. I actually think that what's happening here. I have a theory. I think Trump is assuming because Trump, when has Trump
Starting point is 00:36:37 last gone to a grocery store, not as a photo op, but actually grocery shopping? That 40 years, I don't even know. Has he ever gone? And so what I think Trump is imagining is that people are paying by personal check. And when you go to the grocery store and you pay by personal check, they ask you for ID. When I worked at the great and now defunct circuit city selling computers and warranties when I was 16 years old. When people paid with a personal check, we said, oh, we'd like to see your ID. The idea was make sure that they have an ID that matches the name on the check. I think when Trump says you need ID to buy cereal, you need ID to buy Clementines and Rudebaga's. I think Trump is assuming it's because people are using a personal check, which of course, most people are not. Some people are,
Starting point is 00:37:20 and I'd love to understand why, but most people are not. I think that's what's going on. Let me know what you think. Scary stuff, thermonuclear glitching from the most cognitively perfect president of the United States ever. 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, phone number, data birth, employment history. If you put a bunch of that stuff together, people can then start to find.
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Starting point is 00:38:48 Trump was fully out in the Oval Office again. Like he had a serious episode on live TV and his condition is taking a disturbing turn. We have gone from Trump seemingly falling asleep occasionally in public to Trump falling asleep multiple times a week in the Oval Office. And the footage is made even more bizarre by what happens when Trump wakes up and starts talking. Within minutes, we go from Trump being completely out to a story about a friend bought a Gulf stream jet, Trump misunderstanding what people are asking him about Ukraine and just absurd answers. The entire thing is surreal. And remember, Joe Biden was too sleepy to be president, we were told.
Starting point is 00:39:32 Biden never fell asleep in public. Here is Trump dozing with his face drooping asymmetrically as some business dude in a big suit kisses Trump's ass. Take a look at this. Most visited destination. That's France today. It's been that way for decades. We'd like to work with you as an industry to go win that title back to make the U.S.
Starting point is 00:39:53 the world's most visited destination. And we think we've got the- Look at his face. His eyes are closed. His head is drooping. He's sitting there as this guy lavishes praise on him and Trump is gone, asleep again, moments apart when some other guy is sucking up to Trump. This summer, as you heard, and as you stated, was the best summer we've ever had in the history
Starting point is 00:40:17 of our business. Bar none, America's 250 was extraordinary. The World Cup was extraordinary. The Indy Cup here in my hometown was extraordinary. That was fabulous. But I think the bigger story, which you should be proud of, and we would like to thank you on is as a result of the most favorable... What makes this much tougher to dismiss as, oh, it was a frame of Trump blinking, is that
Starting point is 00:40:47 there's these long stretches. Trump drifts out and he's back and he's out again and he's supposed to be participating in an event at the Oval Office. You know, we've talked about Trump's schedule being compressed to 12 to 5. It's often not that busy from 12 to 5 and during a bunch of the 12 to 5, Trump's asleep. Now, Trump then telling a very relatable story. A friend of his was trying to buy a private jet and Canada wouldn't certify it because Canada has bombardier and bombardier and bombardier competes with Gulfstream. This is, what, what a relatable story. I had a case about a week ago where a friend of mine was buying a Gulf Stream jet and he said,
Starting point is 00:41:30 you know, it's a crazy thing. We're not able to, Canada won't certify Gulfstream, won't certify it. Golfstein is the best private jet, you know, considered the best of the best. And they won't certify it in Canada because they may a competitor, Bombardier, Global Express. And so their competitor didn't want them to have competition. So for approximately nine years, this has been going on. They won't certify Gulfstream.
Starting point is 00:42:02 Yeah, if you're trying to remind the audience that you're a super rich guy with super rich friends and you don't give a damn about them and you don't give a damn about your voters, talking about the follies of owning and importing private jets is definitely a way to do it. Who among us hasn't recently been talking to a friend frustrated about the international certification situation regarding Gulfstream in Canada versus Bombardier? Not winning too many votes with that, that's for sure. Trump was asked, sir, have you seen these horrible videos coming out of Ukraine of young men being kidnapped off of the street? Can I send them to your communications guy, Stephen Chung? And Trump completely misunderstands.
Starting point is 00:42:47 what he's being asked. Take a look at this. You know, on Ukraine, something you've said for a long time is that the war should have never happened and something you used to say, which was proven correct, was that the Biden administration, along with much of the mainstream media, was lying about the number of Ukrainians who were dying in the war. And now we're seeing they're having a shortage of young men. There's these horrific videos coming out of Ukraine where they're kidnapping them off the streets. Their moms, their wives are being thrown to the ground and sprayed with mace while their loved ones get taken away. I'm wondering, have you seen these videos? Because
Starting point is 00:43:15 the mainstream media is also not reporting on those. If you haven't seen him, could I send him to Stephen Schonger? Sure. You could show him and I'll put them out. But I know about the videos. I heard about it very strongly. Look, it's a war that should have never happened. If the election weren't rigged in 2020, that war would have never happened.
Starting point is 00:43:31 And it didn't happen for four years. You know, I was there at 2016 to 2020. And I would talk to Putin, but it would have never happened. Zero chance. And I don't think Trump understands what this person is asking him. They're essentially saying, you're the president. of the United States. Here is something horrific, allegedly happening in Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:43:52 Can we get this to your administration so you can do something about it? And Trump seems to think he's being asked, like, can you repost these videos on truth social or something like that? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll put the videos out. Sir, you're the president. This is not like you've got to see this crazy thing on Twitter. I'll repost it. No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:44:10 You're the president. We're asking you to do something. And Trump's like, yeah, I'll post the stuff. Americans growing increasingly concerned about the cost of energy. Of course they are. We were told gas prices would go down. They're up. We were told they would only be up a few weeks.
Starting point is 00:44:26 It's been more than six months. We're in month seven of this war. And Trump goes, oh, those gas prices are going to come down very, very soon. Thank you. Sorry. Recent resumption of U.S. strikes in Iran have sent oil prices back up to $95 a barrel. How long will this renewed campaign? I don't think too wrong.
Starting point is 00:44:46 And also, given that what you've said about having destroyed the Iranian military, what is there still left to strike and why? Okay. We have controlled and we are controlling the hormone straight. We are bringing lots of boats out every day with millions of barrels of oil. This is the part that really gets me. Oil is back up because Trump has resumed military strikes on Iran. How long is it going to last?
Starting point is 00:45:15 Oh, I don't think very long, but that's what he's been saying for six months. The president talks about these active military campaigns. In terms of specificity, like you're being asked, how much longer is the pizza going to be in the oven? But this is of serious consequence. This is of serious consequence because there have been 18 American deaths. It's a serious consequence because of what it's doing to the American economy. And Trump is like, nah, it's not going to be that much longer.
Starting point is 00:45:47 The pizza will be done soon and then we can cut it up and, you know, have our slices. We are in month seven of what was supposedly going to be a two to three week war. So this is the presidency right now. Trump sleeping in the Oval Office, waking up and talking about his friends, private jet, misunderstanding questions about Ukraine, and then continuing to assure everybody like he's been doing for six months that this thing is going to be over very soon. Gas prices are going to come right down. As I said yesterday, this idea of we'll be back to 187 gas, we'll be back to 225 or 250 gas.
Starting point is 00:46:23 I don't think that's going to happen ever. The economic calamity it would take to see gas on that level would destroy this country. But Trump is just like, no, no, no, it's not going to be much longer. And then a question about Trump's friend came up. That's what we need to talk about next. I want you to watch what happens when Trump has asked a really simple question about Tiger Woods because the answer turns into one of those Trump responses where you can see him lose the threat in real time.
Starting point is 00:46:51 You can see his brain lose connection to the subject matter. And he delivers a bizarre word salad. But there's actually a bigger question here. Why is the president of the United States this personally invested in the driving record and legal problems of Tiger Woods? Take a look at this. I think you'll find it interesting. It doesn't make sense. So we're going to bring it back. Peter?
Starting point is 00:47:13 President Trump, what do you think about the plea deal down in Florida today? Tiger Woods, who famously called you as he was being arrested, has agreed to have a suspended driver's license for five years. Well, look, I know Tiger. Very well. He's a great guy. He's unique in so many ways, especially as an athlete, but also as a man. You know, he suffers great pain. Great pain. He's a very tough situation because they didn't find alcohol on him. You know, he didn't test positive at all for alcohol.
Starting point is 00:47:48 But he, because of his horrible back, because he had a, in my opinion, a bad doctor, but he had a back operation that did not work out well. And he is under pain. And so it's a tough deal when you're taking a painkiller because you're under pain and tremendous pain. And you have a problem and you test positive. He would have told him that. I mean, it's a prescription painkiller. But I thought it was very fair.
Starting point is 00:48:15 I mean, I think he's going to have somebody drive him. I told him that a long time. What do you get somebody to drive you? So he's going to have somebody drive him from now on. And, you know, he's just a very special guy. I'm glad that was resolved. Mr. President. It just came out that James Tolerico in tech.
Starting point is 00:48:36 What are we even talking about? He is under pain. So it's a tough deal when you're taking a painkiller because you're under pain and you've got a problem and you test positive. He would have told him that the president. And I understand the basic point Trump is trying to make, which is listen, Tiger Woods has back problems. He's taking meds and Trump believes that the fact it's so why am I cleaning it up for Trump?
Starting point is 00:49:02 is saying the fact that Tiger has such a bad back problem and is taking pain medication should mitigate how we think about yet another DUI by Tiger Woods. But listen to the language and the repetition and the fragments and the detours. He starts talking about Tiger is unique in so many ways. And he had a bad doctor. And you take a painkiller when you're under pain. And he just like runs out of runway. He doesn't know what other words to use. And the substance of this is again about this elite group, you know, Trump earlier talked about his friend with a Gulf Stream. Trump is describing this as a tough situation for Tiger Woods. Is it really that tough of a situation? Tiger Woods is extraordinarily wealthy. If you have repeatedly had problems operating a vehicle safely,
Starting point is 00:49:50 you as a very rich person have access to a solution that more than 99% of Americans couldn't ever contemplate. Hire a full-time driver. Hire five full-time drivers. You could have somebody available, just sitting there in a car ready to drive you anywhere you want 24 hours a day for the rest of your life. Driving is not a constitutional requirement. If this were a random guy without money or celebrity or powerful friends, does anybody believe the president of the United States would be saying it's such a difficult situation for him? It really is. Of course not.
Starting point is 00:50:25 But it's Tiger Woods. And he can call Trump when he's in trouble. Trump knows the details of the case well enough that he's giving us his assessment of Woods's doctor and of back surgery. And that raises another question. Why is this occupying space in the president's brain? We have wars going on. We have economic issues. Trump's own administration is dealing with massive domestic problems and international problems. And the president apparently has enough bandwidth remaining to closely follow Tiger Woods' driver's license situation and give this lengthy defense. Now, meanwhile, Speaker of the House Republican Mike Johnson has perfected
Starting point is 00:51:05 this amazing technique where something seriously significant happens in the news. And suddenly the Speaker of the House hasn't heard about it, hasn't seen it, can't comment on it. I'm going to have to get back to you on that. We don't believe it when Mike Johnson goes, I haven't heard about that. Trump has the opposite problem, which is he doesn't know about a lot of the stuff going on around the world. But celebrity gossip, golf, who's feuding with who? We've got rain man here all of a sudden. Ask him to coherently explain a policy issue or, sir, how do tariffs work? Good luck. But if Tiger Woods is the topic, you're going to get the complete oral history of the man's back pain. And even then, Trump still can't get through an explanation without this bizarre linguistic soup about being
Starting point is 00:51:51 under pain and painkillers and these are the priorities. This is presidential discourse now. People are going to have a chance to vote for something different. It'll be up to you. You will get to decide, do we want more of this sort of thing when Trump's time finally comes and he sails off into the sunset in January 2029 or sooner, right, if he doesn't live that long? You will get to decide. Do you want another Trump as a country, of course? I think my audience mostly never wanted. this Trump, never mind another Trump. Or are we going to go in a different direction where presidents sort of behave more normally, socially, have the right priorities or have priorities that are relevant to the American people and it can actually get anything done. We're going to have a choice.
Starting point is 00:52:36 But before we get to that choice in 28, we have to make some choices in November. And I think the choices are take away every bit of power that we can from this deranged man. The David 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. Let me show you what a cult looks like. There is something very revealing happening inside the Trump movement right now.
Starting point is 00:53:17 And I want to use it as an opportunity to talk about how these cults of personality actually. work. A lot of times people hear the word cult and they have a very specific image. Everybody's wearing the same clothes and, you know, they live together on some compound and there's a charismatic leader making bizarre predictions about the end of the world or it's a sex cult or who the hell knows. But political cults of personality don't necessarily look like that. And one of the defining characteristics is really simple. Loyalty has nothing to do with ideas nor institutions nor principles. It's all about one individual. It's usually a guy. And Lara Trump gave us Trump's daughter-in-law an almost perfect example of this. She goes on TV and she says what we want is for Trump
Starting point is 00:54:05 to have a house and a Senate that support everything he does. Take a look. I think, you know, that the Republican Party is feeling good about the way that Kemp-Axton has been campaigning so far. He has like a million dollars in the coffers. Tala Rico has, you know, tens of millions. I think the Wall Street Journal said he has 80 million dollars. So it seems like the Republican support is way behind the game here in terms of Texas. Well, I don't know if that's the case. I know a lot of people talk about it, kind of being a toss-up state. I generally think that this is going to be and continue to be a red state. I think this is going to be coming down to enthusiasm and people getting out to vote. to talk about the fact that people need to come out in this election, in these midterms,
Starting point is 00:54:54 just like it's 2024, because that's ultimately how it will impact this country. We know what the Democrats, Martha, have said they want to do to America. They want to do crazy stuff. You have these socialists who want to eliminate things like the Senate all together, the presidency, pack the Supreme Court, open our borders and jails. I mean, think about the implications of what is at stake here, not the least of which is this president continuing for two more years. to do all of the great things that he has planned for this country. So we want him to have a House and a Senate who votes alongside of him, who's going to be supportive of everything he does.
Starting point is 00:55:28 So I think we're going to have to continue to encourage people to turn out. That's really what is going to determine these races, whether it's in Texas or these other tight Senate races like in Michigan, Maine, and North Carolina. Yeah, let's talk. This is an incredible statement when you think about it. Lara doesn't say, we want a Republican House and Senate that is always, is going to work to advance conservative policies. Now, that's not what she says. She doesn't say, we want legislators who share the political philosophy of Donald Trump. She doesn't even name policies.
Starting point is 00:56:01 She says, we want a house and Senate that will support everything that Donald Trump does. And this is a key distinction between political parties and cults. If you've got a healthy political party, you start with a set of beliefs. And then you support politicians to the extent that those politicians are going to advance those beliefs. Maybe you're a Republican because you want lower taxes and fewer regulations. Or maybe you're a Democrat because you want universal health care and strong labor protections or whatever. The ideas theoretically come first. In a personality call, it's reversed. The leader comes first. And whatever the leader decides becomes the position. Are we against war? Well, that's what our position is. Are we for war? That's what our position is.
Starting point is 00:56:43 And we've watched this happen over and over again with Trump. Free trade was the conservative orthodox. But then Trump became obsessed with tariffs and protectionism. So I guess that's what we're for. Russia was America's geopolitical adversary per Republicans until Trump started saying, why wouldn't we want to get along with Vladimir Putin? And he's a pretty good guy and he's a smart guy and he rules so strongly. Deficits were supposedly an existential threat until Trump became the guy adding to the deficits. And then it was, well, he's adding to the deficits for the right reason.
Starting point is 00:57:15 So it's okay. And then Republicans have spent decades talking about states, rights and limiting executive power and using the, uh, staying, abiding by the constitutional constraints that exist. In comes Trump. And suddenly it's like, well, how much power can we give this particular president? What? And this is how the loyalty test keeps escalating. At first, you support the leader because you agree with him, I guess. Then you're expected to defend him even when you disagree with him. And eventually, if you ever disagree, you're disloyal. And you're out.
Starting point is 00:57:50 And that is why people who were once considered perfectly conservative Republicans are suddenly rhinos as soon as they criticize Trump. You know, when we think back to Liz Cheney, Liz Cheney didn't become a liberal who shares any values with progressives. Mike Pence wasn't all of a sudden a Democrat because he was like, sorry, I can't steal the election. What they did is they violated their loyalty requirement. And notice what Lara Trump is describing here would completely undermine the purpose of Congress. The House and Senate are not there to support everything a president does.
Starting point is 00:58:29 They're a separate branch of government. They exist as a check and a balance on the president of the United States. And sometimes even members of the president's own party are supposed to say, sir, that's a terrible idea. That's not a sign of dysfunction. It's part of the system. It's the way it's supposed to work. But when you have these personalist movements that are cults and cult like, they see independence
Starting point is 00:58:54 of an institution as an obstacle because an independent Congress might tell the leader, no, you can't do that. And if a court is independent, they might say that's against the law. And if the media is independent, they might say the leader is lying to you. Independent members of his party might say on this, I think that you're wrong. But when it's a cult, the solution is always the same. take away their independence. This is the way individual cults work take away people's, um, uh, driver's licenses or take away their cars or, uh, stop letting them get their own groceries
Starting point is 00:59:26 and decide who it is they're going to be romantically involved with. That's the way these general cults work, you know, the people's temple, Jim Jones and others. With the political world of it, it's replace loyalty to any set of beliefs or constitution or institutions or whatever, with loyalty only to the leader. And until Lara Trump can go on TV and kind of say explicitly what the objective is, Trump should, we sort of have the idea that maybe there are institutions that are still there as checks or balances on Donald Trump. But then she goes and she says it. The House and Senate should support everything he does just because he wants it. It shouldn't be about the Constitution or a political philosophy or an agenda. It's just if Trump wants it,
Starting point is 01:00:09 it should be done. Now, I want to remind you of something, which maybe Lara Trump has forgotten. This is the way that Republicans in the House and Senate have operated. And I'm not going to do my entire rant again because I've done it a bunch of times recently. But I want to remind you, Trump basically has Republicans in the House and Senate with very few exceptions. Thomas Massey sometimes disagrees with Trump in the House, but he mostly agrees with him. Rand Paul sometimes disagrees with Trump in the Senate, but he mostly agrees with him. The people that have been elected by the Republican Party who have been in power the last two years are the rubber stampers of Trump's agenda.
Starting point is 01:00:48 And they also deserve to be held accountable for that. And I encourage you to do it. So it's funny because Lara Trump is giving up the game in saying their ultimate loyalty should be whatever Trump wants. But that is what their ultimate loyalty has been with very few occasional exceptions. God have a cock. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. I think sometimes we make American politics a lot more complicated than it needs to be. If you want to understand the difference between what at least some people on the left are trying to talk about and what the MAGA movement
Starting point is 01:01:26 has become obsessed with. I have the perfect example for you. People on the left are talking about health care, money in politics, wages, housing, child care, the material conditions affecting people's lives. And MAGA wants to know, is God a man or a woman? Does God have a penis? And I am not exaggerating. We have a great example of this. Our good friend Adam Mockler was debating Caroline Sunshine on CNN. And Adam is trying to seriously talk about the Texas Senate race. And Adam points out, listen, James Tallerico is talking about money in politics. He's talking about doing things for people. And Ken Paxton is pursuing policies that would take money from people. including the people voting for him.
Starting point is 01:02:09 And Caroline Sunshine responds with what I guess is keeping her up at night. Is God non-binary? Does he have a penis? Watch this. Recent history. Of course, I don't agree with that, but James Tilariko isn't running on that. When James Tilarico and Ken Paxson are facing off, they're talking about the economy while Ken Paxson is cheating on his wife.
Starting point is 01:02:29 James Tala Rico is talking about money in politics while Ken Paxon is taking money out of the hands of his voters. Like, you realize his own staff third of me. Who cares? This is just such a- What are- What do my prices look like? What's interesting about this exchange is that maybe this is exactly an encapsulation of the race. And I'm telling you, Caroline, you are making the argument that has been Ken Paxton's campaign,
Starting point is 01:02:53 and it seems to not be working. What are we doing, guys? What are we doing? You've got Adam trying to have a real conversation about money in politics and money for people and health care in people's lives. And the response is, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what are God's genitals? Does God have a penis? Do you think God is non-binary, you stupid left-winger? These are the apparent pressing public policy questions of 2026. And listen, I guess theology can be interesting. It's never been particularly interesting to me. But people can debate the nature of God and the nature of the universe and the origins of what
Starting point is 01:03:34 That's fine. But imagine being a normal person trying to pay your medical bills and your health insurance premium is up and your deductible seven grand and your rationing medication because it's too expensive and is my kid going to lose coverage and can I afford for them to stay in soccer and a political movement is saying we've got to figure out how to get people health care and to do away with this thing called medical bankruptcy. And the other side is going, does God have a cock? Come on, guys. Come on.
Starting point is 01:04:04 And this is not an isolated example. Look at what Trump is doing. The president of the United States posting videos of himself taking a Sharpie to a sign for Lake Ontario and changing it to Lake America. This is politics reduced to the intellectual level, not even of a middle school lunch table. The stuff I was talking about with my friends in middle school at the lunch table were more real and more impactful than this crap. And notice what's not.
Starting point is 01:04:31 part of the defense. Nobody says this is going to make your health care cheaper. Nobody says this figuring this out is going to make housing more affordable or increase wages or make child care easier to afford. Nobody is even attempting to explain how God's gender or renaming Lake Ontario or the ballroom are going to help even a single American's lives. The achievement is someone on the internet got annoyed. These liberals are getting so triggered by renaming the lake or whatever. That's all they care about. We triggered the libs. And I think this tells you a lot about where this movement has ended up. Politics becomes entertainment for people who aren't asking government to improve their lives. And so if you're kind of like checked out on the idea that government
Starting point is 01:05:19 might do things to help people with your own damn tax money at the end of the day, then you see this kind of trolling as an accomplishment. The fact that it gets attention is, all that matters. If Trump writes Lake America on something and liberals complain, we won. If you can force a Democrat to keep talking about whether God is non-binary, absent any substantive policy discussion, you've won because we don't even think government can or should be doing anything for people. And meanwhile, there are people out there saying, you know, a lot of countries don't have this thing called medical bankruptcy. Maybe we should figure it out. Oh, that's boring. That's apparently not interested, not, not as compelling and titillating as figuring out, does the creator have
Starting point is 01:06:01 male genitalia? And Republicans will complain. Democrats aren't talking enough about the issues people care about. Well, let's talk about health care. Talk about wages. Talk about housing. Talk about corruption. Money in politics.
Starting point is 01:06:15 Or whatever issue, anything that will make people's lives better. And maybe when they're done figuring out, if God has a penis, they can join us. Now, our politics will be responsive to that which we make it respond to. If elected officials or the party or strategists or whoever, if they can get away with stuff like, you stupid leftists must think God is no gender, don't you? If we reward that implicitly by not challenging it in media appearances and continuing to elect Republicans who support or believe this kind of crap and want to talk about it, then we're going to keep getting more of it. And this is why, you know, when I say America got what it
Starting point is 01:07:05 deserved when it elected Trump a second time, I don't mean that those of us who didn't vote for him got what we specifically deserve. But what I mean is that if as a country, we fail this national IQ test for lack of a better term. And then we elect such an incompetent, self-centered egomaniac who doesn't give a damn about any of the people who voted for them, then there are consequences to that. And they are predictable consequences. And that's where we have ended up. Let's pick a different direction this November. Now, on the bonus show today, what would Republicans hate more than a childless female non-white president? As people talk about AOC or the possible return of Kamala Harris, who is a stepmom but doesn't have biological children, to be clear, that is a picture,
Starting point is 01:07:56 the childless female non-white president that MAGA is furious about. If you were hoping gas prices would go down, well, they're going to set a new record. That's the expectation. And the Trump White House, including staffers, aides and people around Trump, are preparing to be investigated when, if or when Republicans take control, Republicans lose control, rather of the House of Representatives in November. They are planning ahead. I'm going to tell you what plans they are making. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join pacman.com and get instant access. I will see you then.

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