The David Pakman Show - Trump erupts as Fed raises rates and TX Senate race stuns
Episode Date: September 17, 2026-- On the Show: -- Aaron Ford, Nevada Attorney General and Democratic nominee for Governor of Nevada, joins us to discuss the campaign -- The Federal Reserve under Kevin Warsh raises interest rates ...for the first time in three years despite Trump demanding lower rates -- Democrat James Talarico pulls ahead of Trump-backed Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race according to multiple polls -- Mitch McConnell appears unresponsive in new video before eventually voting on the farm bill after prompting from aides and fellow senators -- Donald Trump tells a North Carolina crowd that rising gas prices are a very inexpensive price to pay for the Iran war -- Donald Trump threatens to cut off trade with Europe over Canada and deflects questions about the Butler assassination attempt -- JD Vance asks voters to give Republicans another chance despite the administration already controlling Congress and the White House -- On the Bonus Show: Ed Sheeran faces blowback over tour chaos, Massie thinks the House shut down early to avoid his Hegseth impeachment vote, New Hampshire's Senate race is in play for Republicans, and much more... 🐶 Sundays for Dogs: Get 50% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://sundaysfordogs.com/pakman 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🧽 Blueland: Get 15% OFF sustainable cleaning products at https://blueland.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.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 (01:23) Fed raises rates despite Trump's demands (10:31) Texas Senate race turns into dead heat (20:18) Mitch McConnell freezes again on camera (27:17) Trump rallies voters in North Carolina (37:54) Aaron Ford interview (55:28) Trump makes confusing threats and claims (1:04:14) JD Vance asks voters for another chance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Coming up today, Donald Trump demanded dramatically lower interest rates and his handpicked Federal Reserve
chairman has now done the opposite and has raised rates for the first time in more than three years.
Kevin Warsh says the reason is inflation's too high.
Why is inflation too high?
Well, we know why.
And Donald Trump is not happy with him.
Then something remarkable in Texas, the latest polling, not the betting market.
The polling has Democrat James Talariko leading in just about every single poll and the betting
markets have now turned in its favor.
Trump hits the campaign trail in North Carolina.
He says the skyrocketing gas prices are a very small price to pay for what he wants to do in Iran.
Nice of him to tell you that he's decided you're going to sacrifice.
And then J.D. Van says a very interesting midterm pitch, which is please give us one more
chance. Plus, we have new video of Mitch McConnell. He has returned to the Senate. It's not clear
he can process language. We'll get to that. Scary. And Joe Rogan is now publicly criticizing
much of what he endorsed Trump for, but he doesn't like the way it's being carried out.
All of that and more today. If they'll allow it. Things just got really awkward for Donald
Trump with his handpicked Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh because he hired.
to lower rates, but inflation's too high. And the Fed is now unanimously decided we are raising
rates. And it's coming at really an inconvenient moment for Donald Trump. We are around 50
days, fewer than 50 days from the midterm elections. Cost of living is arguably the biggest
concern for American voters. And all of the promises about cost of living from this administration
have failed to materialize. And so now for the first time in more than three years, the Federal
Reserve said, we're not going to cut.
rates. We're not going to keep them the same. We are going to raise rates. And they voted to do that
by a quarter point bringing the target range to 3.75 to 4%. The critical part of this story
is for us to remember who is running the Federal Reserve right now. Kevin Warsh. Now, Donald Trump
spent years attacking Jerome Powell and demanding lower interest rates and saying Powell isn't lowering
them because he wants to hurt me. But Jerome Powell had strong economic justifications for not lowering
rates. So Trump eventually replaced him by appointing Kevin Warsh. And the whole point was,
this guy's going to do the right thing. He's going to lower rates. We need them at 1% or even lower.
And now Trump's own Fed chairman just participated in this unanimous vote to raise rates. Worsh
explained very clearly why inflation is too high and it's been too high for too long. Remember,
Trump says inflation has been solved as an issue. So the labor side of the Fed's congressional remit
is in good shape. Yet for more than five years, inflation has been running above target.
So our predominant focus is on the price stability side of our mandate. The plain fact is that
inflation is too high and has been for too long. This summer's inflation readings do not tell me
that underlying trends have meaningfully improved based on the most recent CPI and PPI data.
All right. So let me explain the mechanics of this because I don't want to assume,
David, you're explaining things to people like they don't understand them. Well, I don't know
if everybody understands this. Let me explain the sort of logic here. If inflation is too high,
why would the Fed raise this base rate? Here's why. One of the reasons that inflation can be high
is because tons of people are buying stuff at higher and higher prices. And so that can have an
inflationary effect. The federal funds rate dictates what it costs to borrow money. So in general,
When the federal funds rate goes up, mortgage rates go up, car loan rates go up, credit card rates go up.
This is speaking at the macroeconomic level.
When it gets more expensive to borrow money, fewer people do it.
If fewer people borrow money to buy stuff with that decreases demand pressure on prices.
And so the idea is prices might come down or at least they might not go up as quickly.
Think about it a different way.
Imagine that when interest rates are five per, when mortgage rates are five percent, you can afford a
$400,000 house.
And because interest rates are 5 percent, a lot more people can afford a $400,000 house.
And therefore, the competition for that $400,000 house raises the price of the house and bids
it up.
Inflation.
If you change mortgage rates from 5 to 6 percent, that same $400,000 house is now going to
have a higher monthly payment. It is going to make it unaffordable for some people. It will decrease
competition for that house and therefore it might sell for $400,000 rather than creating a bidding war
up to $410,000. This is the macro economic idea. And it's the most important aspect of what
Kevin Warsh is saying. He's saying we haven't solved the inflation problem. We still have it.
And it's not one bad inflation report. It's one inflation report after another.
And we are not in a situation where lowering rates make sense. In fact, he's saying lowering rates might
drive up inflation. Now, there's another very important part of this. The White House is arguing
that all of these price increases are just energy. And it's because of diesel and gas prices.
And as a result, the administration is saying it's an unfortunate decision. It's only because of
the energy supply shock. It's Iran. It's Russia, Ukraine. But Kevin Warsh made it very clear that that's not the case.
He said it for first of all, he acknowledged the Fed can't make oil cheaper.
That's true.
And it can't make groceries cheaper directly.
But what they can try to do is prevent an initial increase in something like energy prices
from spreading throughout the economy and creating these second and third or third order
price increases elsewhere.
So the concern isn't just oil as expensive.
It's what happens if higher energy starts feeding into transportation, manufacturing,
wages, services, exactly as I have been telling you is going to happen.
Now, Reuters also reports that this new statement from the Fed removed earlier language saying
that inflation is being primarily driven by supply shocks.
It's actually a much broader situation at this point in time.
And we will see what happens to inflation as a result of this decision.
Warsh also argued specifically that people without significant financial assets or home equity
have the most to gain from restoring stable prices because what inflation primarily does is it eats away
at wages. So this may not be over. It seems as though we may be expecting at least one more federal
funds rate increase before the end of the year. And Donald Trump wants the opposite. He wants
interest rates at 1% or lower. So a reporter asks Warsh the obvious question, which is,
listen, Trump has regularly demanded you cut rates. You were kind of hired to do that.
And you did the opposite.
What is your message to Trump?
And Warsh laughs.
And he goes, I got nothing for you.
What is your message here to President Trump who has repeatedly called to cut interest rates,
not raise them?
I've got nothing for you on a discussion with the president.
So listen, Warsh isn't going to get into a public back and forth with Trump.
I think that's the right instinct.
He doesn't have to.
The Fed already voted.
They made the decision.
They answered the question.
Trump says rates should be 1%. The Fed says inflation's too high. We want to raise rates to 3.75 to 4%.
And that's kind of it. And when Warsh was asked about these political questions, he actually is saying
the right thing, which is we stay in our lane. Other officials are responsible for trade.
Other officials are responsible for these political decisions. But Warsh is saying we're not going
to get involved in that. And this is actually, this is the institutional tension.
Presidents can complain about interest rates and they can advocate for lower or higher rates or whatever.
They appoint federal reserve governors when there's vacancies. But the whole point of the
Federal Reserve is that monetary policy is dictated by economic indicators, not what a president
wants, not what the political class is demanding. The White House doesn't like that.
Trump wants to be able to control and decide everything. And Trump responded to this again by saying,
we should have rates of 1% or lower. Now, there's one other irony to this that I want to mention.
And it's that Trump spent years attacking Jerome Powell because Jerome Powell wouldn't give him
the interest rate policy he wanted. And Trump said, we got to replace this guy. I need someone else.
So Trump got someone else. And that's someone else is Kevin Warsh. And when Kevin Warsh came in and he said,
all right, well, let's make a decision. What is the economic data say? He said, we've got to vote to
raise rates. That's the right thing to do here. And what is very interesting is that stocks,
initially barely reacted to the rate increase because investors largely expected it.
Warsh started talking and then we saw the Dow closed down 600 points. The Treasury yield went
back up. But now as we are recording this, all stocks are up and way up. So maybe Warsh is right
about something. Now, none of this tells us what will happen at the next meeting. None of this tells
us what will happen with inflation, but we have a real contrast here. Donald Trump operating
politically and wanting lower rates because he thinks it will boost the stock market.
And his own Federal Reserve chairman is saying, we have to look at the indicators and do what is right.
And that is what they did as far as Warsh is concerned.
Something is happening in Texas that would have sounded ridiculous not very long ago.
James Talariko is now leading Ken Paxton. The Democrat is leading the Republican, the Trump
endorsed Republican in poll after poll after poll in the Texas Senate race.
Take a look at these numbers.
In the real clear politics average of recent polls, Talariko is plus 2.9 in Texas.
And that includes an Emerson poll where he's plus one, a Texas A&M poll where he's plus six,
a Telemundo Mason-Dixon poll plus three, and a bunch of other Dixon poll.
different polls, the four of them from September.
Now, I am not telling you James Talarico is going to win.
Polling can change.
Polling can, you know, 2.9 at the end of the day is not that much.
It's not an insurmountable advantage, especially with still, you know, weeks left before the
election.
But Texas Senate elections don't normally look like this.
In 2024, you might remember that Ted Cruz defeated Colin Allred by 8.
a half. In 2020, John Cornyn defeated M.J. Hagar by almost 10. And now Republicans have Ken
Paxton, horrible candidate running in a race where the polling says you are losing. And the movement,
even if you just look within Emerson polling is fascinating. In August, Emerson had Paxton plus one.
One month has gone by and it is flipped and now it's Talarico plus one. Now it's a time.
movement, but directionally what it means is Ken Paxton isn't even leading the poll that had him
winning a month ago. Now, there's a subgroup in these numbers that deserve some attention,
and that is Hispanic voters. Hispanic voters in Texas currently favor Tala Rico by 54 to 39,
a 15 point lead for Tala Rico among Hispanic voters. Those same voters disapprove of Trump 53 to 41.
And this is really important because Hispanic voters in Texas moved towards Trump in 2024.
And so seeing them move towards Tala Rico now suggests a broader shift in the electorate doesn't
mean they will necessarily vote the same way in November as the poll today suggests.
And also it's important to mention subgroups usually have larger margins of error than the overall
sample.
But this is encouraging.
And I know that the Tala Rico campaign is looking at that very closely.
Now, Donald Trump has really publicly associated himself with Ken Paxton.
He's attacked Tala Rico for being vegan.
He calls, which he's not.
He calls him Tala frico and all of this stuff.
So this is a Senate race that is not obscure.
It is connected to national Republican politics.
Trump held his midterm convention in Texas.
He talked about Paxton every night, both nights, although he kind of criticized Paxton
in a lot of ways, but said he's still better than Tala Rico, even if you don't like the
way that Paxton dresses and all of this stuff.
In the betting markets, there has also been a.
strong reversal where if you look at Calci, Texas Senate winner, after basically leading the entire
time, Ken Paxton is now favored to lose this election with Talarico leading 54 to 46 in the
betting market.
So the polling has Talarico ahead.
The betting markets of Talarico ahead.
And we now have a serious opportunity to send a Democrat to D.C. representing Texas.
for the first time in decades. Now, I want to talk about the most important issues in this race.
36% say that the economy is the most important issue in this race. Only 14% say immigration. And this is a
really important thing, I believe. I'm going to be on a panel soon about the Latino vote going
into 28. And one of the points I'm going to try to make, which I think is backed by all of this polling
data is that just because you're Latino doesn't mean immigration is the most important issue for you.
In fact, for immigrants who are here legally or Latino voters who are not first generation,
in other words, they're not even immigrants.
They're just their parents immigrated or their grandparents.
It's the economy that matters most.
It's the same thing that matters most to any voter.
Latino voters aren't special in that way.
And immigration is behind the economy is the most important issue.
And this is why we can't just assume Texas is automatically going to be Republican territory because
of the economic situation.
Now, none of this tells us what will happen on Election Day.
It tells us, okay, it's September 17th.
What does it look like today?
The polls look pretty good.
The betting markets look pretty good.
Does this context survive?
I guess it's seven or so weeks, six, seven weeks of campaigning.
If it does, just imagine if we take this Senate seat.
And by the way, as we think about the 50-50 toss-up in the Senate, when it's it's easy to go, well,
it's 50-50.
Right.
But look at the races that will decide it.
This is one of the races.
And I'm getting so wound up.
I just hit the microphone.
And I apologize deeply to the headphone wears.
This is one of the races that would be critical in having Democrats take control of the Senate.
So it's looking very good.
a race to follow, a race to get involved in, and we will keep an eye on it.
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I really hope that you will come out and say hello and maybe have me sign a book for you
at some of the upcoming events. On Monday, I will be with Don Lemon at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble
in Manhattan, New York City, New York State, United States, etc. You know where it is, New York City.
Please RSVP to that event. It is important that you RSVP if you want to go. Also, on October 3rd,
I will be in Springfield, Massachusetts with Jessica Tarlov. Also, signing books, the entire thing.
You can find info about these events at David Pakman.com slash attention at the bottom.
Events, RSVP to the Upper West Side event.
Also, I will be going in to do the final signing of signed books in the next few days.
So if you would like a signed book, make sure to order it at David Pakman.com slash attention.
There is a clear link for signed copies.
And if you would like to be entered into a raffle to get this copy that's been on my shelf
the last month or so, the first ever printed hardcover copy of this book, I will be giving
it away to someone who has preordered any version of the book, simply send your preorder proof
to info at David Pakman.com. There is a new video of Mitch McConnell that I have to admit to you
is very difficult to watch. My dear friend, Jackie Cople from News Nation, recorded this.
To call it an interview of Mitch McConnell is a bit of a stretch. I want you to see what happens here.
Mitch McConnell is being wheeled out of the Senate in a wheelchair.
Jackie is speaking to him directly.
And he doesn't respond.
Now eventually he kind of puts up his hand.
He has a frozen smile on his face.
And I got to be honest, I don't know if he is able to process language at this point or if he is barely
able to process language.
Take a look at this video.
He's, he's Senator McConnell.
How are you feeling these days?
You're doing okay, sir?
You're feeling better?
He's my brother.
How are you going to vote on that ag bill, that farm bill?
Voted for it?
Vote for it, yes?
Any other bills you're looking forward to?
Any other news?
Are we voting tonight, Senator?
When can we expect you back, Senator?
All right.
And then the door on his mobility van closes.
Now, I don't have proof of what's happening medically here, of course.
Now, if you're watching this, we don't know whether Mitch McConnell couldn't hear Jackie or if he was just really tired and choosing not to respond or I don't know.
But he really doesn't seem to be able to process language or process what's happening around him.
Here is another video of Donald Trump of Mitch McConnell at a Senate.
meeting yesterday. And I got to tell you, he seems non-compostmentous. I don't know how else to say it.
And as you see the video here, it zooms in on Mitch McConnell. I know this is so crazy because this is
what Trump used to say. He used to go, Biden doesn't know where he is. I don't know that Mitch
McConnell knows where he is where he is. And if he knows generically where he is, I'm at work.
I'm wearing my suit. He does seem completely disconnected from what is taking place in the room.
There was another scary moment where McConnell, who in this video is in the lower left in the
wheelchair, it came time to vote on the farm bill markup.
And McConnell clearly didn't know how to vote.
And he was told, you're voting.
Yes.
You're voting I.
And you actually see Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, a friend of the show across the table.
And she helps Mitch and goes, you're voting I.
Senator McConnell.
Senator McConnell.
All right.
There you go.
He did manage to lift a finger.
And I think that that was him saying I.
So the context, McConnell just got back to the Senate.
I guess he's back.
You know, what that means is kind of loose.
But he was gone roughly three months.
He fell at his home in D.C.
He was briefly unconscious.
He then caught pneumonia.
He was in rehab, physical therapy.
And I've been saying for a very long time that eventually if Mitch McConnell's condition was so limiting,
they would figure out a way to quite literally wheel him in.
They would physically get him into the building, surround him with staff, create the appearance
that he's participating and see if you can get some boats out of them.
And visually at least, we seem to be watching exactly what I was talking about take place.
And it's an observation at its core about how this is.
institution works when there's an individual senator whose physical presence is needed for a vote.
And they wheel them in. Other people tell him how to vote. We don't even know if he understands
what is happening around him. We don't know whether he has a brain injury that prevents him from
processing language in all but the most basic ways. And he has a history of being unresponsive
in public. Remember, it was a little different. But you'll remember that there were these multiple
incidents where McConnell stopped speaking almost like that. And we never really got an explanation. We were
just told, oh, he's feeling better. Feeling better from what? And then a month later, it happened again.
And a reporter said, what, what's going on here? And we didn't get any answers other than he's,
he's feeling better. And where we stand today is, I mean, listen, can we look at these three
videos and definitively determine what is going on? No, we can't. But, but,
But can we look at them and say, okay, significant medical absence, mobility clearly limited.
And from what we are reading on his face, it's not clear that he knows what's going on around him.
I don't know that anything in particular can or should be done. He's got really a matter of
a couple months left in his career if he makes it that long. But this gets directly.
to the broader point I've been making, which is it's less about, you know, to what degree is Mitch
McConnell functioning as a senator is expected to function? It's can they physically get him in the door?
And can they get him to just put his hand up even if he doesn't know what's going on and can the kind
of machinery around him keep operating? And that seems to be where we are. He's been in the
Senate since 1985. He's led Senate Republicans for decades.
He's in his mid-80s. He's retiring. The term ends in January. And we kind of have two separate
things going on here. There's the human question, very human question. Elderly man who is really
struggling physically. Okay. There's no denial about that part. Then we have an institutional
question. Does he even remotely understand what's going on around him such that he can sort of
in a weekend at Bernie's way be manipulated into having a presence that can determine.
whether legislation moves out of committee, even if he doesn't understand what is going on.
That is a really legitimate question.
What I don't think is legitimate is looking at this video and saying definitively, we know,
we know what's going on.
We really don't.
But it isn't clear that he can process language.
And the thing that I've been predicting for a while, which is they will find a way to wheel
him in and keep his vote counting to some degree is no.
longer hypothetical. It is exactly what they are doing right now. Donald Trump's audience is fed
up. And you could see yesterday in Gastonia, North Carolina, where he is campaigning for Republicans
in the Senate there, you could see that he is losing his own audience. Put aside for a moment that
Trump is more swollen than ever. Put aside for a moment that he was soaking wet with sweat and
disoriented by the end of this speech. Trump again is telling his audience, the sacrifices I've
volunteered you for are worth it. Trust me. Trump on the war in Iran saying it's going to end so soon.
I was right about everything. They want to make a deal. Does anyone believe this shit at this point?
That war, that war is going to end very soon. Watch, you just watch. Trump was right about everything you
watch they're getting decimated and they want to make a deal so badly they call we want to make a deal
we want to make it they're not ready yet i don't think but we could have a deal anytime we want
anytime whenever we want we can get a deal then why don't we have one we're almost going to we
we are 11 days from entering month eight of this war which was going to last two to three weeks
trump said so if you're worried about gas prices i have news for you trump says it's a
small price to pay. Okay. Look at the audience when he says this. The audience is sick of this. You're going to
tell me that higher prices on everything are worth it. Who are you to tell me you're a multi-billionaire?
You made two billion off crypto in the last couple years. I have to say you have a little higher.
You have a higher game. It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that it's a
little more. It's even if it was frankly, even it was a lot more.
But that's going to come tumbling down. That's going to be like a rocket ship.
There you go. Cool, man. Trump decided for you. If you were worried about gas prices,
if you're concerned about affordability, Trump has decided this is all worth it. It's a small
price to pay. Don't worry about it. They should make a campaign out of that. Democrats should.
Trump going this. You could make a compilation of Trump going,
ah, these people complaining about gas prices. I would have done it even if gas prices got
even more expensive. It's a small price to pay. It's worth it. I've,
decided campaign on that and Trump seems to be campaigning on that. Now, Donald Trump again mentions
if Republicans win the House and Senate, everybody gets five grand. You'll get it and you'll get it
and you'll get it. But Democrats can't do it. Completely incoherent. If we have the money now,
why can't you do it now? We got 65 billion barrels of beautiful or 500 years worth of oil.
65 billion, think of it, billion barrels of oil.
We got it for what?
An attack.
We got it for an attack.
And remember if the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue what we will all call from now on the Trump dividend to every adult in America.
A dividend that doesn't exist that no one will ever get.
We'll get $5,000 and you'll get it.
because we're taking in so much money.
And we can do it, and the Democrats can't say that,
because they don't do the tariffs.
Tariffs have made us rich.
You've heard me many times talk about tariffs.
I said, the favorite word in the dictionary,
the fake news killed me with that.
What about the Lord?
What about your wife?
What about your family?
What about so many other things?
I made it number five, and now they're happy.
So tariff is my fifth favorite one.
But we took in billions and billions and billions of now remember we didn't really take in anything.
We just had American companies paying tariffs.
And as has been pointed out so many times, the tariffs wouldn't the would not even come
close to covering the cost of five grand per adult.
None of this makes any sense.
He's made these promises before.
And it's all conditional on Democrats losing the House and Senate.
And almost certainly Democrats are going to at least.
take the House of Representatives. So this is all looking completely unlikely, but Trump's trying to bribe
everybody. A weird move to go to North Carolina and say North Carolina is one of the worst states in the
country. But that's what he does. And he attacks the governor there, who by the way, I met last week
and as a really nice, competent guy. It's a it's such a weird target because Josh Stein seems like
a great governor to me. So nobody used to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state,
criminally dangerous. It was like North Carolina. It was beautiful. It was apple pie, right?
And now it's one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation. And it all started
with Cooper. And you have a lousy governor right now too, but it started. It started with Cooper.
It's all been so terrible. This state sucks. Please vote for the people that I'm telling you to
vote for. Dear God, the, this is a very unorthodox way of campaigning. And I know Trump's unorthodox
as a politician to some degree. Maybe it worked for him in 2016. I don't think this stuff is going to
work. Trump continuing to use a word that doesn't exist. Mutilization. Mutalization.
He voted for the sexual mutilization of your children. They mutilized them. Mutalization.
That it's not a word. It just doesn't exist. Oh, but people on the left do the post.
postmodernism as what was that guy.
I forgot the guy's name.
Jordan Peterson.
Postmodernism where everything is about, well, Trump's just making up words and we're supposed
to believe that they're real words.
Give me a break.
And then finally, Donald Trump begging for votes, begging for votes for the midterms.
And we're supposed to pretend that this is a sign of strength.
Oh my God.
But in this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot just one more time.
I said that the other night.
Please.
I said that the other man.
Because when I'm on the ticket, I'm not bragging, but when I'm on the ticket, Republicans
have always done really well.
They go out, they vote.
Everybody gets elected.
Right.
Everybody gets elected when I'm on.
But I just want you to go out and pretend them on the ticket because essentially I am.
There you go.
He said it himself.
There it is.
Pretend I'm on the ticket because essentially I am.
And so do you know what that really means?
It's very simple to me.
what that means. All right. Well, I had a promise that was made to me as a voter that if Trump wins,
gas prices would go down and energy prices would go down. That hasn't happened. If Trump weren't on
the ticket, I might not consider that. But Trump is telling me pretend I'm on the ticket. All right,
well, then I'll hold you accountable for your failed promise. I have a guy who told me,
if you elect me, we will have no wars in the Middle East, no quagmires, none of that stuff.
And we got the opposite. We got a new war in the Middle East. And Trump says he's on the ballot. Well,
then I'm voting against that. That is what should be going through our minds. Every single time
Trump pulls this thing. You're on the ballot, sir. You have 33% approval. That is not going to
work out well for you. Now, can Democrats position themselves to really take advantage of this
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in the description. It is great to be joined today by Aaron Ford, the Nevada Attorney General
and Democratic nominee for governor of the same state. Great to see you. I appreciate you taking
some time today. Happy to be here. Good to see you, David. Listen, you are very well positioned,
both as attorney general and potentially governor to answer what I think is a very important
question to my audience right now, which is we are hearing all of this talk about a potential
national emergency around these elections by Donald Trump out of fear of doing very poorly.
And we've spoken to lawyers about really what that means.
But in such a situation, I think people in my audience may not understand that states run their
elections.
So as attorney general and potentially the governor, does it mean anything in terms of what states
must do if Donald Trump were to attempt that between now and election day?
Or is it basically states are going to do the things that states do, including run elections,
and it doesn't matter what Donald Trump says in Washington, D.C.
Yeah, no, David, look, it's a great question.
And again, thanks for having me on.
Look, I just fundamentally believe that the Constitution means what it says when it says that states
run elections. And Congress has a say in this and those as well, but the president does not.
And he cannot buy executive fiat, whether it's an executive order or whether it's him
directing the United States Postal Service to create a brand new
list of folks and determine what the envelopes look like, for example, and this is the lawsuit
that I just won that I'm describing right now.
It doesn't matter what he says and does.
The Constitution means what it says.
And that's the reason why I have taken him to court as a co-lead for each of these past
lawsuits defeated him every single time.
And if he has another trick up his sleeve, we'll meet him in court and we'll beat him again.
When we think about the state of Nevada, there is this history of voting for Democrats.
Trump has a 37% approval rating in your state. But the race you're in for governor is rank the
toss up right now, which is maybe sort of surprising in some sense. Why do you think that is when in so
many parts of the country, everything's looking like it's going to be better for Democrats than it was
in the 2024 election for Trump? And it's not so clear in the state of Nevada right now.
Yeah, well, look, there are a couple of things. First of which we need to highlight the fact that
Donald Trump has an acolyte right here in Nevada and Governor Lombardo, who has kowt,
capitulated and kissed up to Donald Trump at every turn, lies down and there's been a doormat
for Donald Trump on every issue, including the election issue you just asked me about.
You know, they both complain about mail-in voting, but they both voted by mail.
And so it shows the hypocrisy they both have, but it also shows, again, the capitulation
that Joe Lombardo undertakes when he is interacting with Donald Trump.
Now, look, we are a purple state, and I am taking on the incumbent Republican who has spent upwards of $30 million in this race already, probably two-thirds of which have been in negative ads against me dating back since February.
He has been shaking in his boots, knowing that we are on his heels and that we are going to win.
And, in fact, a poll just about a week ago has us in the lead by two points.
Now, I don't want folks to get comfortable.
They need to understand that this is, in fact, a horse race.
It's been listed as a tie ball game from the moment my name was mentioned in the race.
Every objective poll, you've removed Democratic polls and Republican polls.
Every objective poll out there has shown this as a tie ball game within the margin of era.
I'm confident that we're going to win.
You talked about the fact that Democrats have won statewide here.
You know, to be sure, Donald Trump won last election cycle here.
But so did Jackie Rosen, who is a Democratic senator.
When I was on the ballot last in 2022, I won by more than anybody.
else running statewide, David. I've got more votes than anybody in the history of our state for
midterm. I would have beat Joe Lombardo. I believe they told me about three and a half points had we
been running head to head then. I'm the first Democrat in over a decade to win a rural county.
This is the reason why we're going to win this score around because we know how to talk to
everybody, take no one for granted and be responsive to what those questions are that they're
asking and the concerns that they have with the Lombardo Trump economy that is decimating our economy
and making it difficult for folks to even survive, let alone thrive in Nevada right now.
Yeah, it would be a very important red to blue flip in as far as governor's races go.
And there is only one poll that qualifies as good enough to be on the real clear poll,
real clear politics polling page for your race, which is an Emerson poll from about 10 days ago,
where indeed, as you said, you were leading by two, not by any means a comfortable enough
margin where anybody should say, hey, this is over a very important race to get involved in.
I'm curious in the law enforcement component to your race.
You're essentially the top law enforcer of the state of Nevada.
And from what I'm seeing, the major law enforcement organizations have endorsed the current
governor, your opponent, the Republican.
Why do you think that is?
Well, a couple of points.
First of which he was a former sheriff.
He is their colleague.
And it doesn't surprise me that his first.
former colleagues support him. Number one. Number two, frankly, when I date back to my state
Senate days, I have never shot away from holding law enforcement accountable and trying to
improve relationships between law enforcement and the communities that we, and I say we,
because I'm in law enforcement now, that we serve. And so I pass bills that require them to
wear body cameras. I'm sure that Donald, that Joe Lombardo is upset about that because body camera
footage caught him misbehaving, so to speak, most recently in a traffic stop. But I made him
wear body cameras. I've passed laws that hold law enforcement accountable. But there's something to
note, someone who worked under his tenure as sheriff, one of his undersheriffs, or maybe not
under sheriff, I can think of his exact title, but he's endorsed me. And he's indicated that he's
watched both of us work. And I'm the one who he believes will lead the state in a better way
when it comes to issues that are of import to Nevadans. One of the other critical issues that
sort of surface nationally and it plays a role in your state is about data centers. Yeah. And one of the
things that I think Donald Trump is getting wrong is he's going around saying, hey, these things are great.
More people should have data centers, more set data centers everywhere. And you've got Democrats and
Republicans who say, hey, listen, we may or may not want data centers, but we definitely want to
say and we don't want to pay for them if they're coming in. Now, you've talked about a moratorium on new
data center tax breaks. If I understand correctly, there are,
about 70-something that have already opened, 70-something data centers that have already opened in Nevada.
Does anything happen to the ones that are already there under your plan?
Well, listen, you're right. This is an important topic of conversation. And everywhere I've gone
around the state, I've done two statewide tours in the last 10, 11 months or so. The first time
I recall this being broached was my first statewide tour at the, you know, last fall. And I was in a
rural county at the time, talking individuals who were concerned about.
the contemplation of a data center being placed in another rural part of Nevada.
They don't want it.
They're concerned about the cost of electricity that these data centers are going to potentially
transfer over to consumers.
They're concerned about the water usage.
We live in a desert.
They don't want them taking our fresh water.
They're concerned about the tax breaks that they're receiving that they no longer need,
for example.
And the unfortunate reality is that we have Donald Trump saying that the data centers
are a golden goose.
And then you have Joe Lombardo, his acolyte, saying that data centers for Nevada are a gold rush.
And the fact of the matter is, the only gold rushing is from the data center backers to Joe Lombardo's coffers for his campaign.
He's taken $2 million from these data centers and has said he wholeheartedly supports them.
The difference is I wholeheartedly support Nevadans, and I have been listening and I have been responsive to what their concerns are,
which is the reason why I rolled out a plan that is, in fact, going to stop any future tax abatements or tax breaks to these data centers until I can do what Joe Lombardo has failed to do.
He's supposed to be auditing these data to ensure that in return for their data, pardon me, for their tax breaks that they have, in fact, delivered on their end of the bargain.
He has not done that. In fact, some headlines indicate that there's been a lack of transparency and probably some criminality.
I'm not opining on that latter part, but these are concerns people have.
What happens to the ones that are already there to that point?
Yeah. Well, I'm going to be auditing them to ensure that that, in fact, to see whether
they have or have not. And if they have not complied with their end of the bargain, we will hold
them accountable per the terms of the agreements, but also per the terms of statutes.
When we announced that you were going to be on, I heard from a bunch of people in my audience,
left-leaning folks in Vegas and in Reno. And a couple of concerns kept coming up where it was,
listen, I don't like the governor we have now. Here is a hesitation I have about Aaron Ford. And a couple
of the things that kept coming up were the use of footage of a retired police officer from your
2018 campaign that made it look like it was a current endorsement, which as we talked about,
that there was not that current endorsement from the current police union. And then time spent
outside of the state, 137 days according to the review journal. Talk to me about are those legitimate
concerns from, you know, those weren't even things I was tracking, but some of your potential
constituents wrote to me about that. What about those concerns? Yeah. So let me address the,
the commercial issue. It is one that I have acknowledged our team made a bad decision on.
Okay. And the buck stops with me in that regard. And I have said that, you know, although we have the
the right to use footage from previous campaigns. We do have that right because the people
signed waivers. What should have happened is that we should have ensured that those in our
commercials had in fact agreed to be in these commercials. So it wasn't purporting to be clear
to have endorsements from unions. That was never the purported. It was simply using old
footage in a new commercial. And I have in fact apologized to that individual. I've apologized
to the police unions in that regard.
And, you know, again, the buck's opposite to me on that.
So, you know, I will leave that there.
But when it comes to the questions about my work with other attorneys general outside the state,
my response is simple.
Crime doesn't stop at the state borders.
And it does, in fact, require us to convene Democratic and Republican attorneys general
as frequently as possible to discuss ways to stop cybercrime.
Sex trafficking, human trafficking, social media eels.
issues related to fentanyl trafficking, gun trafficking. We have convened with one another in different
places. They even convened with me in Vegas in March of 2024, I believe it was, when I was the
chair of the bipartisan alliance of a pardon me, it's called the Attorney General Alliance. I was
elected by my Democratic and Republican colleagues to lead. And so, you know, what I'm doing is
always working for in Nevada. And that applies to the time outside the U.S. as well? Absolutely.
And in fact, what I have said is that I was able to get the first settlement of its kind in the nation with Roblox, a social media game of sorts that had allegations of predators praying on our children.
And I was able to, beginning with the conversation that took place in a conference room in Spain, begin a conversation around fixing this.
And that conversation culminated with a conversation in my own conference room right here in Las Vegas.
They got us $12 million and they got us the first settlement of its kind with protections for our youth.
That's always a priority that I have protecting evadden's. And that work manifests itself in litigation
and prosecutions and in legislation that we've been able to accomplish and pursue because of these
convenings. When it comes to jobs, not even just in the state, but in Vegas, one of the things
that's happening right now is because of the diminished reputation of the United States around
the world because of Donald Trump, which has nothing to do with Nevada specifically.
Tourism is down nationally.
And there are people all over the world who are saying, I am not going to go and spend my money
in the United States at all, even if no one in Connecticut or New York or Nevada did anything
to me because of Donald Trump.
And of course, because of Las Vegas being so dependent on leisure and hospitality, and
this is a problem for Las Vegas. What can you do as governor with Trump's still president for two
years to get tourists to come back despite being, I guess we would say, discouraged or disaffected
by the fact that Trump is president?
Listen, you raise a great point. And, you know, it's another example of a governor that we currently
have who kisses up in catawas and doesn't stand up for Nevadans.
I would get to your question about what I can do as governor, but it is important to note
that when Donald Trump passed these tariffs, our governor, instead of saying it's going to be bad for our state, tourism, he said maybe we should feel a little pain.
And I put that in quotes. He said we should feel a little pain from these tariffs.
I disagreed. And I said we need not pain. We need leadership. And so I took the illness upon myself to sue Donald Trump over these tariffs, and I won.
And even after the lawsuit, Joe Lombardo said that it was unfortunate that I was suing. And even after I won,
Joe Lombardo says that we don't deserve refunds.
This is, again, an example of the poor leadership that Joe Lombardo has shown in the state,
and the contrast couldn't be clearer.
And as governor, the first thing he should be doing is being the biggest cheerleader for our state,
standing up, being willing to have a backbone and not lie down at every turn and tell Donald Trump,
this is a bad idea.
And not claim ignorance.
He says he doesn't know how tariffs affects our state.
Well, that's because he's hiding in a bunker.
The fact is, I've spoken to small businesses.
all across our state.
They're being decimated by these tariffs.
And in fact, I was riding down the street to a meeting yesterday and I saw Ocho Taekwazine.
It had been around for 30, 35 years.
It had to close its doors because of these tariffs.
And these are the types of things that Joe Lombardo has been complicit in because he's
afraid of Donald Trump.
When I'm governor, I will not be afraid of Donald Trump.
And in fact, I would do what other Democratic governors have done.
And that's aligned themselves with actually attorneys general who are willing to stand up and
push back against this and protect our state. Okay, but now on the question of as governor,
how do you get people who say, I'm kind of off traveling to the U.S. right now, Vegas sounds great,
but I'm not going for as long as Trump is president. What can you do because there's so many
jobs in your state that depend on that tourism? Well, part of it begins with direct outreach.
Part of it could be conversations that I could have. And in fact, I've endeavored to have
conversations with some of my counterparts in other countries to see what we can do to convince
them at least to come to Las Vegas because we, some of us, I mean, governor aside, some of us
disagree vehemently with the approach that Donald Trump has taken. And again, you need to be the
biggest cheerleader for the state. And it begins with reaching out, even having direct conversations
with leaders of other countries and other provinces in Canada to convince them, maybe this is a place to
come. This is a critically important race, the race for governor of Nevada, currently held by a Republican.
We've been speaking to the Democratic candidate, Aaron Ford, who is also currently the attorney
general. I know my audience is going to be following this race. I really appreciate your time today,
and we're wishing you the best of luck here. David, listen, I appreciate it. And I'd like to ask
your visitors to please check out my website, Ford,4Nevada.com. We cannot win this without you.
This is going to be a horse race down to the end. So please check up.
the website and consider supporting us with the donation would be grateful for that.
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Donald Trump made threats he doesn't even understand going to and leaving his rally in North
Carolina.
But maybe one of the most shocking things was Donald Trump was visibly struggling to breathe
after simply walking downstairs.
This is not the picture of fitness.
Here is Donald Trump coming down the stairs of his plane and you will see that.
that as he approaches the mic and starts speaking, some deep breaths as Donald Trump is clearly
struggling cardiovascularly.
We're going to be doing a good job tonight in North Carolina for Michael Watley is a great candidate.
And you see that Trump is work.
We're doing a great job in North Carolina.
And you see that Michael Watley.
Okay.
So he does the rally.
And then he comes back to the plane after the rally.
And he is asked, sir, why are you suggesting that Democrats had something to do with the assassination
attempt against you in Butler, Pennsylvania?
You don't have any evidence of that?
Can you give us any information?
And Trump goes, I can't give you any more information.
But it's all very strange.
And he attacks a whole bunch of people.
Mr. President, on the assassination of him in Butler, in Pennsylvania, can you provide us with more information of the evidence that you're murder?
No, I can. The Butler thing is strange, very strange situation. It was handled by the Biden administration and a very bad, very bad head of the FBI at the time, as you know. Christopher Ray, who's a terrible, he was a dirty cop, in my opinion. But you'll have to check with the law enforcement.
Check with somebody else.
I can't tell you anything, but Ray was a horrible FBI director.
Who appointed Christopher Ray, by the way?
Oh, Donald Trump did.
How weird and how strange.
Dear God, none of this, none of this is making any sense whatsoever.
And it is just the rantings of a madman.
And think about the level of irresponsibility of suggesting that Democrats played some
roll in or dropped the ball on the investigation of the assassination attempt or the assassination
attempt itself.
It is delusional stuff, the likes of which I don't remember probably ever seeing for a president.
Donald Trump then threatened to cut off all trade with Europe if Canada associates with the European
Union, which by the way, we'll be talking about on the bonus show today.
a dangerous threat that Donald Trump doesn't even understand.
This guy does not even understand what he is saying.
He wields such power.
He arguably the most powerful person on the planet, certainly in the United States, at least
in a nominal sense.
He goes, well, I might just like drop major tariffs and like stop trading with all these countries.
I don't know.
I might do that.
And what he doesn't even have the capacity to understand is the degree to which that would be so
destructive for average Americans, the people he claims to care about, which we know he doesn't actually
care about. He doesn't give a damn about that.
Trump has asked, why is it important to have your name on the Kennedy Center?
And Trump, I guess, tries to explain it. But my argument is these are random words. He is saying
things and I recognize the words as English, but this is not an explanation of why Trump's name
must be on there. It makes no sense.
If I'm doing something as president, my name better be on it.
They were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and some of that hundreds of
million before I got involved.
So for the Trump administration to be to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry
or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have
recognition.
Because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close and it'll end up being ripped
down.
It's very, very bad saying, very dangerous.
You see steel falling down.
You see a lot of danger.
It's been very badly maintained for 45 years.
Can you imagine?
What?
You're doing work as president?
And you need your name on everything?
I mean, this is just, it's a childish, self-centered egomania.
The topic of the raising rates by the Fed came up.
As we talked about earlier, inflation's too high.
So the Fed decided, no, we're not going to lower rates the way Trump wants.
We're actually going to raise them to try to cool inflation.
Trump has asked a very direct and good question.
Do you acknowledge the reason they need to raise rates is because prices are high?
because of the war in Iran and Trump goes, no, it isn't.
Uh-uh.
No.
No.
You know that they're raising these rates to bring down prices that are
raising the rates to make Trump to as bad as they can possibly.
The problem they have is that we have the greatest income.
$21 trillion.
You know, it's so insane because we were told Jerome Powell is the guy who's not.
lowering rates for political reasons to hurt Trump. Powell's got to go. Too late Powell. He's
incompetent. He's stupid. He's not a smart guy. Low IQ. All of that stuff. So Trump goes, we're going
to get in the right person. And it's going to be Kevin Warsh. And Kevin Warsh comes in and he goes,
I've looked at the factors. I've looked at the economy. We've met as a board of governors of the
of the Fed. And we've unanimously decided not only should the rates not come down.
They shouldn't even stay the same. The rates need to go up. And Trump goes,
No, no, no, they're doing it for political reasons too.
You appointed this guy.
You said this was the guy who was finally going to understand what needed to happen with rates
and execute.
And when he analyzes it and they all come to the conclusion, we've got to have we've got
to have rates up.
It wasn't 17 out of 18 votes, but Warsh said they've got to come down.
No.
Unanimously, they said actually the economic circumstances point to rates have to go up and
Trump dismisses it.
And he goes, it's for political reasons.
These are truly pathetic people.
I want to hear from you.
By the way, did you?
You can text me now.
This is not like a weird.
You can genuinely text me.
I'm on here.
646-531-4-333.
We are taking control of our data.
If YouTube or whoever shuts us down, I have no way of getting a hold of you.
Okay.
We are building a texting list for my top supporters.
If you want to get on this list and this way, we will always be in touch.
646.531, 4333.
Like 1,500 people signed up overnight.
We're going to have to cut it soon because every text we send is money.
And like, we just don't have an unlimited budget for it.
But if you want to keep in touch outside of these algorithmic systems and tell me, by the way,
what's going on with prices in your community, simply send a text to 646.531 for 333.
3. J.D. Vance is now just begging for votes. Begging for votes. There's a phrase that politicians
generally don't want to find themselves saying when they're in power, which is give us another
chance. Just one more chance. But that is quite literally J.D. Vance has pitched to voters with like
fewer than 50 days remaining before the midterm election. And the context of this is really weird because
it's not like Trump and Vance are running against an incumbent administration and going these people
have failed you put us in power.
He's the vice president.
Trump is the president.
Republicans have controlled the House and the Senate all of Congress for two years.
And after nearly those two years, J.D. Vance is going, give us another chance.
Give us another couple of years.
We're fixing.
Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing
things that we've been doing for the past two years.
And the second argument, that is the pitch.
Now, to be fair to J.D. Vance, he also said, listen, we've made some changes.
like on tips and on overtime and we've deported a bunch of people and you know. And then he argues
voters shouldn't put Democrats back in power because Republicans are fixing all of the problems
Democrats created. But there's an obvious question voters can ask any incumbent making that argument,
which is what have you actually delivered? Because Vance is saying, give us credit for everything
we've done. Give us time to accomplish what we haven't done yet.
But elsewhere in the same appearance, we get some interesting examples of what it is that they have done.
And the accomplishments that Vance claims are disasters.
Now, let me explain to you why he is releg- I'm going to play for you in a moment the big success that he touts.
Okay.
But understand that if they could just really make the case that the economy has been surging
and booming since Biden left, they would be making that case.
They really can't make that case because voters know, damn, this isn't going so well.
If they could make the case, hey, we held true to no new wars in the Middle East.
Can't do that one because we got a new war in the Middle East.
So listen to what Vance touts as a success worthy of re-electing them.
Oh boy.
The way the SNAP program, this is the food stamp program that ensures that low-income Americans
have access to food that they need.
Obviously, one of the most important things that we do in the federal government is make sure
that, you know, poor kids can eat.
But that program is rife with fraud.
So he is saying, look, we've got this great thing called food stamps.
Hungry little kids get to eat because of food stamps.
They regularly brag about kicking kids and people off of food stamps.
But now he's going, no, listen, we feed we feeding all these hungry kids.
One of the things that the Trump administration has repeated endlessly is we have lifted
people off of food stamps.
Now, when you hear lifted, you hear, oh, wow, they, you lifted them out of poverty.
They no longer need food stamps.
You lifted their wages.
They no longer need food stamps.
No, no, no.
They've just made the requirements more laborious.
And they've put in place new requirements and paperwork and people have been kicked off.
People who deserve food stamps.
People who are entitled to food stamps.
And then they go, we've lifted all these people off, kicked them off.
And then he goes, we're feeding hungry kids.
This is what they're relegated to.
And we should look at what actually happened to snap with that 2025.
reconciliation law, which they put in place work requirements, new eligibility restrictions,
changes to state financing.
And the estimates from the Congressional Budget Office are that that it'll reduce
SNAP spending by about $187 billion over the next eight years by kicking people off
of the program.
And we've seen participation fall.
And indeed, 1.5 million kids appear to have lost food stamp benefits since Trump signed that.
And he is going around bragging about how they're one of the most important things is we're making
sure poor kids can eat.
You kicked 1.5 million off of it.
And then we get to the deficit.
Listen to this Whopper.
You're not going to get back to a balanced budget by cutting $2 trillion out of a $7 trillion
budget overnight.
What you can do is you can cut smartly, but also grow and get the economy in a position where
that fiscal deficit is closer to 3% of GDP.
Now, yes, we've got to make more progress.
But if you look at what Scott has done at the Treasury, I think that we are on pace to get to
a point where we can get the fiscal deficit to a sustainable level.
And then of course, you get us to do a sustainable level and you continue to make progress
from there.
But it is certainly a very serious problem, something that we're very focused on.
And I guess what I would say to markets is we've got a secretary of the Treasury but also
a president who are-
I have- This is, it's nauseating.
The United States just passed $40 trillion in debt.
it's an all-time high. Now, we can debate to what degree does the debt matter? What are we deficit
spending on? Things that are economically stimulative or things that are economically destructive?
To what degree does the number of dollars of debt matter relative to debt as a percentage of
GDP? All totally legitimate economic conversations. They promised that we were going to have
a surplus and start paying off the debt. Trump promised in his first term that the debt would be gone.
It actually went higher than ever. And the national debt is
is again higher than ever. So when you make the standard that this is what you're going to do with
debt and deficit and then you fail and then you try to run on it. And this is where by the way, we do
need to separate two numbers that are often mixed together. The deficit is how much more the
government is spending than collecting in a year. So if like if in one year you spend 200 and you only
collect 100, you have you ran a hundred dollar deficit. The national debt is the accumulated total.
So if in year one, you run a $100 deficit and in year two, you run $150 deficit, your total
deficit is now $200, your total debt is now $250.
The U.S. crossed $40 trillion in gross federal debt for the first time ever.
And Donald Trump continues to go in the opposite direction of what he promised.
So the reason they're relegated to running on this sort of stuff is that they don't have anything
real to run on.
Now, J.D. Vans can argue, you know, future economic growth and spending changes are going to put
on the right trajectory and it's going to be sustainable. And but what it's not going to happen.
They've got two years left. And this whole we're on pace stuff is about the future. What we see now
is a deficit approaching two trillion dollars for the current fiscal year pushing the gross federal
debt like I said above 40 trillion dollars. Compare that against their promises and their claims.
And this gets us back to the original clip. Give us another chance. Please. Please, sir.
Politicians asking voters for more time isn't new. And in,
incumbents regularly say, we're not done yet. We need we need one more election to really
finish the job. And then in 2028, they'll go, listen, you got to vote for Trump's replacement to
finish the job that we started. What is fascinating is inside of Vance's arguments, there are these
tensions where he goes, we have spent two years as Republicans doing amazing things. There's a lot of work
to do. Feeding, feeding hungry kids is so important. But he's defending an indebted.
administration whose legislation reduced the number of kids on SNAP.
And he goes, we're moving towards sustainability on the deficit.
But you're borrowing more than ever. And so these aren't even really judgments.
Like, it's a separate question whether Democrats should replace these people. You might go,
well, the Democrats might be worse or there might be better. That's a different argument.
What we're looking at are factual comparisons between the rhetoric of the administration and the record that
voters have in order to evaluate it. And that's really the question underneath every incumbent's
midterm pitch. Not what are you promising to do with another couple years, but what did you do
with the last two? And by the way, if this is what you did with the last two when you had the
House and Senate, why on earth should we believe that you're going to do anything more than that
after you lose at least the House, which is almost certainly, almost certainly going to happen?
Let me know what you think.
Text me at 646-531-433 or send me an email info at David Pakman.com.
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