The David Pakman Show - Trump is setting Republicans up for total failure

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Producer Pat Ford fills in for David -- A disheveled Donald Trump makes nonsensical claims about wind turbines, Iran, and data centers during an interview with GB News -- Vice President JD Vance fills in as Press Secretary and struggles to answer press queries regarding rising gas prices and military strikes -- Senator Ted Cruz prepares a 2028 presidential campaign while trailing far behind other conservative candidates in early polling and betting odds -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is avoiding scheduling televised debates against Democratic Senate challenger James Talarico -- Fox News fires host Maria Bartiromo after she reportedly leaks network coverage guidance regarding election fraud claims to the White House -- Reverend Adam Hamilton runs a competitive Democratic Senate campaign in Kansas despite Republican attacks targeting his views -- The Lincoln Project releases a targeted media advertisement mocking Donald Trump as weak and airing it directly in his local viewing areas -- The official White House website launches a games section featuring politically charged arcade titles like "Flappy Bill" and "Build the Wall" -- On the Bonus Show: The military moves away from the "Operation Epic Fury" name, Markwayne Mullin says RFK Jr. is helping stop "birthright tourism," and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🥄 Magic Spoon: Use code PAKMAN for $5 off at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.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(01:09) Trump does an interview with GB News(09:11) JD Vance fills in as press secretary(23:28) Ted Cruz is probably running for president(29:02) Paxton is avoiding debates with Talarico(39:03) Fox News fires Maria Bartiromo(44:09) Democrats could win a Senate seat in Kansas(50:28) The Lincoln Project releases a devastating ad(56:29) White House website unveils arcade games Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the David Packman Show. I'm producer Pat Ford filling in for David today. David's heading back home from Martha's Vineyard, so it's me filling in for him. We have an awesome lineup. We're going to start things off by talking about Donald Trump doing this interview with GBN, a British outlet, and it looked like he just rolled out of bed to do the interview. Then we're going to talk about JD Vance, who did this press conference filling in for Caroline Levitt, who's now left her post as the White House Press Secretary. And he did not impress anyone, I got to say, especially when he said that Americans should feel great. rateful that gas prices aren't even higher. That's not going to play very well. Later, we'll get to Ken Paxton ducking a debate with James Talarico while fellow Texan Ted Cruz ways running for presidents. Very highly likely that he's going to run for president taking a look at all the steps that

he's taking. And then we have probably the best anti-Trump ad I've seen in a long time. We're going to take a look at that one. And then video games on the White House website? Are you serious? Is that what taxpayer dollars are being spent on? All of that and more on the David Pacman Show today. So happy to be here with you. Donald Trump sat down for an interview with G.B. News, which is like the British equivalent of Fox News here in the U.S. And I got to say, he looked just completely disheveled. I'm not sure if he just rolled out of beds to this interview, if he didn't know what was happening. And they had to rush him in last second. Maybe he's just having a bad hair day. Maybe it's the lighting or the angle. I don't know. But half of his hair

is just completely all over the place. We have Donald Trump here in this interview saying that the U.S. 17 months without a person crossing through the southern border illegally. Yeah, no, that's just not believable. 17 months in a country of hundreds of millions of people. You're going to say that no one came through the southern border. It's just on its face is totally a lie. Let's take a look at this first clip. I took it very serious.

I closed our border. We haven't had a person coming illegally into our country through the southern border in 17 months now. They just announced 17 months. Nobody. Nobody gets in. and you could do the same thing and so could Spain. And then we have Donald Trump rambling about windmills because it wouldn't be a Trump interview

if he wasn't spending some time complaining about how he doesn't like how windmills look and how he thinks they're ugly. But he comes up with this new claim that I haven't heard him say before, which is that they're somehow bad for the environment. I've heard Trump say that they kill a bunch of birds. I've heard him say that they're an eyesore,

but bad for the environment. That's a new one, I got to say. Actually, it's interesting. In Ireland, you don't see that many windmills. But when you fly over Scotland and you fly over the, you know, if you land and he throw, they have windmills all over the place. See, we are. And it's so bad environmentally.

You know, the environmentalists say, oh, it's wonderful. It's a big hoax. So there was about three minutes of windmill talk in this interview. I'm not going to subject you to all of that. But like 10% of the interview was about windmills and how Donald Trump doesn't like them. Next up we have him talking about Venezuela and Iran. And he calls both of those. was conflicts wars, which of course he sometimes will do and sometimes won't do, depending on

what's politically convenient at the moment. This time he says that they are both wars. And he brags about ExxonMobil and other oil companies going into Venezuela to steal their oil, steal their country's resources. He's making it seem like this is some big win that America should be bragging about. You know, Venezuela had oil, but they weren't using it because the system was bad. Yeah. And we have a very good relationship with the government. You know, we had an attack and we had a war. Yeah. And it lasted for a very short period of time, like less than a day. But we had a war. Now we have a war with Iran. And that one's for a different reason. Next up, we have Donald Trump asked about his decision to go to war with Iran. And the interviewer presents it as a real conundrum for him because it's not like Americans were thinking about Iran and their day-to-day lives before Donald Trump decided to enter this war. It's not like there was some 9-11 type events that rallied everyone around the flag and made them. unite against the common enemy. This we just found out about it after it happened, right?

There was no manufacturing consent. They just told us later, oh yeah, we attacked Iran very strongly. So Donald Trump has asked about how to sell this war apparently to the American people, given the fact that people weren't thinking about Iran before all this took place. It's been a tough sell to the American people because effectively what you've had to do and you're still having to do is to tell the American people that you're saving them from a threat, that they didn't know existed. When they woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning, they weren't worried about the Ayatollah with a nuclear bomb.

I'm saving your country from the threat, too. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, they're more likely to use it in Europe where they do have missile capability than they are to America where they don't. Wait, Iran would be more likely to strike Europe first, not the United States? Well, that flies in the face of all the urgency Trump said

existed behind this Iran war that they were going to get a nuclear weapon and then use it to attack us here in the U.S. Now we're apparently doing Europe's work. It's Europe who would be the targets first before the U.S. Well, then that doesn't sound very America first, right? How do you square that with the America first worldview? It's already difficult for Trump to do that in the first place

because he came to office saying that he was going to be anti-war. He did a war that was not at all in America's interests. And now he's saying the reason is to benefit Europe. His base is not going to like this. I got to say next up we have Donald Trump asked about how he can't seem to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. And he says, well, it's because the leaders of those two countries hate each other. Yeah, I guess we just hadn't considered that before. No one had thought about how Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky do not like each other. But here is

Donald Trump coming to this revelation. I think we'll get it. You know, I ended eight wars, eight different wars. Of the eight, four of them were supposed to be much more difficult than this one. I thought this would be the easiest way. Why is it so difficult? Because they hate each other. You just can't get them in a room. President Putin and President Zelensky hate each other. And they have a hard time with it. Remember, Trump said that on day one of being elected presidents, not even as president, but elected president he was going to be able to resolve this conflict.

I guess he just hadn't considered the fact that Putin and Zelensky don't like each other. No one had thought about that until Donald Trump realized it two years into being president. Can you believe that? Yeah, this is just another example of Donald Trump having some sort of epiphany after he, got elected. Like before he got elected, he was all concerned about affordability issues, apparently, and he was all concerned about, for example, housing prices going down so they'd be more affordable. Now things are different. Now he realizes, well, actually, the economy is really difficult to control. It's really difficult to bring down prices. And actually, do we want

housing prices to go down? Because if they do, then existing homeowners would see the value of their homes go down. So that would be bad. Also, uh, yeah, Vladimir Pooke, and Vladimir Zelensky don't like each other, so it was a lot harder to come to an agreement than I thought. Yeah, of course we knew all of this stuff was complex. Donald Trump just acting like he just found out about it now, but really this was a ruse that he was able to pull on his voters. Next up we have Donald Trump pushing data centers on the American public backing up what Steve Scalia said earlier this week and talking about how maybe it was China putting up propaganda to turn Americans against data centers. Yeah, we don't need China. Chinese propaganda to be against data centers.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons why Americans should not want to see data centers put up in their neighborhoods. But here we have Donald Trump saying that Americans are mistaken when they say they don't like the data centers. AI is going to be positive. There's some negatives, but that'll be straightened down. Do you think? And we're building plants, data centers, which, you know, data centers are actually fabulous. They create tremendous wealth, tremendous jobs. salaries of people are going through the roof.

It's got a little bad press coming, you know, which it's been having for the last few months. It started a few months ago. Some people think it was started by China. Now, of course, people don't like data centers for a variety of different reasons. They suck a bunch of water and electricity. They're gigantic and don't create a lot of permanent jobs. They drive up utility costs, for example, for local residents.

A lot of reasons to be against data centers. It's not just Chinese propaganda. And another thing, Donald Trump spent a good portion. of this interview complaining about how he doesn't like how wind turbines look. So how is he okay with how data centers look? Because in my mind, they're way uglier than wind turbines. I actually like how wind turbines look, whether they are on land or water. I think they look actually pretty majestic, especially with a nice landscape and you got the

wind turbines up. I think it looks cool. But we have Donald Trump thinking that that's ugly, whereas these data centers, which are like football fields long, warehouses essentially, those are fine. those are the next best thing. So Donald Trump doing this interview with G.B. News, a different country's press outlet, but the same deranged Oren president that we know, this time apparently looking like he just rubbed a balloon on his head or something like that.

Well, since we still don't have a replacement yet for Caroline Levitt, the White House has decided to rotate a bunch of different cabinet officials to do these press briefings. We're not sure how long this is going to last, how long it's going to take them to find a replacement for Caroline Levitt, more of that. later on the show, by the way. But we had J.B. Vance filling in yesterday at the post, and apparently they're going to have Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent and some others do it in the future. But yesterday was Vance's turn, and he did not impress, especially when he told Americans that they should be grateful that gas prices aren't even higher. Yeah, we'll get into that one.

But here is first, J.D. Vance, saying that Donald Trump is the most transparent presidents ever. And that's always been a laughable claim when people like Caroline Levitt would say it. I'd roll my But J.D. Vance, he's positioning himself to be the next president of the United States, and he's lying this blatantly about Trump being transparent. Let's take a look at the clip. I do think, you know, not to brag on my boss too much, but I do think the president has set us about to be the most transparent administration in history. And we have done that with flying colors. If you just look back to the last administration, I mean, even the Democrats in the room, and I know you guys, if you're being honest, most of you are Democrats, you would have to admit

that the level of access, the level of access to the president of the senior team here, it's just completely off the charts. Oh yeah, the most transparent presidents ever, except when it came to the Epstein files, right, which they decided to cover up as an administration, or except when it came to the economic numbers that they tried to bury and fire people over, except when it came to the Iran War, which they're still lying to us about day in, day out, except when it comes to the president's health, which they're not being transparent about. Yeah, this White House is not transparent whatsoever. Give me a break, J.D. Vance.

Next, we have Peter Ducey asking him a question, asking why midterm voters shouldn't blame Republicans for why prices are higher now under Donald Trump. And what does J.D. Vance do? You can probably guess it. He decides to deflect and blame Joe Biden. Midterm voters are looking for somebody to blame for high prices on things like gas, energy. Why shouldn't they blame Republicans? Well, I'd say a few things. First of all, if you look at how endemic inflation became during the Biden administration, and this is not to cast blame because I don't really care who's to blame for it. I care about how to fix it. And that's what we've been working to do. So inflation under the last administration hit a record high of about 9.5 percent. And it's funny during the 2024 campaign, the president and I would say, this is the highest inflation in American history. Yes, of course, it's not about blaming anyone, but we're surely going to blame Joe Biden. for it. And it's about finding the solutions, which Donald Trump is, oh, by the way, not even focused on. He thinks that the affordability crisis is a democratic hoax. So he's not even prioritizing this matter. Makes it so that this answer from JD Vance makes no sense whatsoever. Then we have him talking about these cabinet officials who make these predictions about the

economy. And then we check in on those predictions a few months later. And they turn out to not come true at all. And in fact, things often end up worse than the position we were in when they made those positions. So an example is Scott Bessence in the beginning of July saying that by now, by around Labor Day, gas prices would settle at around $3 a gallon. We obviously haven't seen that come true. So let's take a look at how J.D. Vance responds when confronted with this. Well, in defense of Scott, he said maybe by Labor Day because we're talking about things that are inherently unpredictable. And I think it's important. I'm a strong believer that the American people are our fellow citizens and we should speak with them honestly about these things. Next, we have maybe the worst.

moment from J.D. Vance during this entire press conference in terms of what Democrats can use in the future to clip and using campaign ads against them. Here is J.D. Vance saying that Americans should be grateful that Americans should be grateful that Americans should be grateful that Americans aren't even higher. They shouldn't be upset that Donald Trump decided to start this war that led to gas prices going through the roof. No, no, no, no. They should not be upset with Trump over that. They should be grateful, actually. They should be counting their blessings that the oil and gas prices aren't even higher because of all the great work that the Trump administration is doing. Who is buying this? Let's take a look at J.D. Vance's response here. And we're going to do what we have to do in order to ensure that their efforts don't lead to a worldwide energy crisis. Now, we've been quite successful up to this point. Gas, frankly, could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts. Oh, yes, Americans should be oh so grateful that gas prices aren't even higher because we have domestic oil production now and we need to protect those ships in the region. What if we just decided to end the war, J.D., and then we could be grateful for that. We could be grateful for the war being over.

And then gas prices would naturally return down to normal eventually. And we could be grateful for that too. What if we took that approach instead? But instead he asked to run cover for Scott Bessent and make it seem like the word maybe was doing a lot more work in that statement by Bessent than it actually was. You know, if the gas price is now or something like $3.25 and Scott Besson said they would be $3 by now, Okay, yeah, the maybe word as an excuse would work, I think. But when the AAA national average for gasoline is $4.14 up from $3.85 when Bessent made this prediction, this just as an excuse is not going to work, this maybe thing, because he's off by a great number. And the whole point of these two-month predictions is that people never follow up on them, right? So good on these journalists by following up on these questions and actually asking about them a few months later after these predictions clearly don't come true.

Next, we have J.D. Vance responding to Iran saying that the U.S. attacked a wedding celebration earlier this week. And Vance says that, well, you know, you can't trust what you hear out of the IRGC. Yeah, I understand you can't literally take everything that they say as gospel, right? You know, they have a dog in this fight as well. We can't just take everything they say at whole cloth because they're going to push their propaganda and everything as well. But you can't trust anything Donald Trump says either. So that's why this rings hollow, this statement coming from J.D. Vance. So I've been brief to the extent that I know that we're investigating. I've seen the same public media reports everywhere else. I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what's happened in the conflict thus far. So I'm extremely skeptical of this. What I can't say with 100% confidence is that unlike the IRGC, the United States never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that. And unfortunately, obviously, sometimes,

things happen. But in this particular case, I don't think that we have any information one way or the other. We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know. And if we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran. When our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them. So we're investigating it very fully. Yeah, I hate to break it to you, J.D. But we also can't trust Donald Trump when it comes to this war, really on anything. But when it comes to the war specifically, he says that we've wiped out Iran's nuclear capability. We've wiped out their military, we've wiped out their missile capability. We've knocked out everything, but also we have to stay there indefinitely. So even if you take Donald Trump at his word because he contradicts himself

constantly, he's clearly not telling the truth, at least some of the time. So we also can't trust Donald Trump when it comes to this. And by the way, the thing about how when the U.S. makes mistakes, we own them and all those things, Donald Trump carried out that attack against the elementary school over in Iran that killed something like 150 girls and teachers. And, And when every independent investigation said it was the U.S. Trump was playing dumb. He was saying, oh, well, maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. We just don't know at this point. He wasn't accepting responsibility. Give me a break. But of course, we can't undo the past. We can only look toward the future.

J.D. Vance is next asked whether the war is going to come to an end before the midterms. Caitlin Collins asked whether this is still going to be going on in two months. And we have J.D. Vance, not committing to anything. In terms of the war in the timeline, given this administration, and has put timelines out there before what you just said about no negotiations happening with Iran. Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections? Well, Caitlin, again, I don't, I wouldn't call it a war. Right now there is no active shooting. I recognize there have been places where this is flared up.

Major combat operations, again, major combat operations lasted for about six weeks. By the way, during another point in this press conference, Jady Vance calls the war, for what it is, a war, because he wanted to make a different point about how Trump is winning wars instead of losing them. So at that time, it was convenient for him to call it a war. Now it's not so convenient when you're talking about the war in the context of the midterms. Also, Donald Trump in this very same day called the Iran War, a war. So the administration really has to get on the same page when it comes to messaging on that front. And then no active shooting, places where it's flared up.

Give me a break, J.D. We still have ongoing missile strikes. We still have Iran, for example, retaliating this week and striking. US bases in Kuwait and the UAE. I mean, we just talked about that strike that kills four people at a wedding. Casualties are continuing. This is a war, JD. And yeah, it's not happening at the same pace as it was at the very beginning. But we don't know when this is going to end. We don't know how long the flare-ups are going to continue. So to just say that, oh, yeah, it's basically over now. You don't have to worry about it. Of course, that's maybe the message you wants to put out there

to voters before the midterms, but it's just not true. And if that wasn't enough of strategy talk, here is J.D. Vance talking about how Iran really needs to get their act together and stop acting like crazy people. Yes, this is the solution that Jady Vance has. He tells the IRGC, just stop being crazy people and then we can come to some sort of agreement. So my advice to the Iranians is stop acting like crazy people and stop shooting at commercial shipping. And in the meantime, we've got to do what we've got to do despite what a foreign country is going to do in the straight of war moves. Yeah, it was also very crazy for Donald Trump to start this war. I hate to break it to you.

I'm not sure exactly who this message is for. Is it for the Iranian government? Are they going to hear J.D. Vance say, stop being crazy people and they're going to change their ways? Is that what's going to happen? Like, who is supposed to be convinced by this? I'm not sure. But if this is the strategy that the Trump administration has for bringing an end to this war,

we can tell it's not going to end anytime soon if we're just resorting to begging at this point. Finally, we have J.D. Vance asked about the possibility of a Ted Cruz presidential run, which is actually the thing we're going to talk about in the next segment. And J.D. Vance sarcastically says that Ted Cruz is authentic and delightful guy. I got to say, this is a juicy preview of what's likely to come in the 2028 presidential election. Let's take a look at J.D. Vance, laughing off Ted Cruz's proposed presidential run. But most importantly, right now, I've got a lot of people that I'm supporting right now to get elected for the November 2026 elections. And on Ted Cruz, I mean, look, man, he's just clearly Ted is a very authentic and likable guy, and I'm sure he'll do great. Yeah, I can think of a lot of adjectives when it comes to describing Ted Cruz, but authentic and delightful are not the ones that come to mind.

Janie Vance, for all the charisma problems that he has, next to Ted Cruz, he's going to look like Dwayne the Rock Johnson or Kevin Hart or, I don't know, someone with a lot of charisma because Ted Cruz is the most unlikable guy in politics. And JD Vance can only hope that he's the person that he's running against. All right. Let's go to a break. We'll be back with much more of the David Packman show right after this. If you're in debt before you decide another month of minimum payments is just the price of getting by, take 30 seconds and find out what your options are. Our sponsor PDS debt gives people a free personalized assessment to show them a path forward instead of guessing.

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Check out MagicSpoons new protein pastries, high protein, low sugar takes on the classic toaster pastries I grew up with. You can get $5 off your next order, including the protein pastries at magic spoon.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Welcome back to the David Packman Show. I'm producer Pat Ford filling in for David today. Ted Cruz is almost certainly running for presidents.

The Wall Street Journal has this report about how he's trying to get staffers. He's also been doing the podcast circuit. He has a new book out. Everything points to Ted Cruz throwing his hat in the ring for 2028. And he wasn't the first name that came to mind, I guess because people wanted to delete the memory that they had of him from 2016. And through his tenure in the Senate, people were thinking about shady vans. People were thinking about Marco Rubio. But in comes Ted Cruz as another possible contender.

He's been visiting Iowa, he's been doing the podcast, he has the book, and he's been making also some subtle digs at the other potential candidates talking about J.D. Vance and mentioning the vice president's role in the negotiations that led to the memorandum of understanding with Iran that Ted Cruz didn't like, and ultimately it didn't end up standing up anyway. I also saw Ted Cruz on the PBD podcast, and he was taking subtle digs at Marco Rubio by pointing out that Rubio only won one state. back in 2016 in the Republican primaries, whereas Ted Cruz was able to win 11. So clearly he's trying to position himself as the more electable option if he's going to say something like that. Now, the book is interesting because instead of him doing a memoir like most candidates do before they do a presidential run, he decided to write a book about Clarence Thomas of all people. It's called Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.

Yeah, a book glazing Clarence Thomas. That's not typically what you would see. from someone who's going to launch a presidential run, but I guess Ted Cruz is trying to act like he's going to be the intellectual in the race, willing to do a book about a Supreme Court justice, and he's willing to talk about the law, and he's going to push himself forward as some great legal mind like he loves to do. I guess that's the angle that he's going to take. Now, I mentioned he's been doing a lot of media appearances. Ted Cruz is really not shy about this. He really wants to make it clear that he is running without directly saying it, because I guess he

probably knows that there's not going to be a groundswell of support for people to try to push him into it. It's not going to be one of these grassroots efforts. So he has to go out there and do the podcast circuit and say things like, well, you know, I did run for president before. And I clearly do want to be president again, but then not committing yet until, I guess after the midterms to actually doing it. Here is Ted Cruz during a recent podcast appearance, essentially making the announcement. Listen, it's no secret that I want to be president. I ran for president. Are you going to run again? Are you going to run again? Time will tell. Oh, yes. Time will tell. How much time exactly? Well, yeah, a few more months. I think that would be convenient, right? Maybe right after the midterms, right, at the start of 2027. I think that's the time that we'll know. So it seems very obvious based on these course events that he's going to be running.

And also here he was on the PBD show recently, glazing Trump, which of course is going to have to be the approach that he takes if he wants to be the nominee in 2028. really, if any Republican wants to be the nominee in 2028, they're going to have to suck up to Donald Trump. And here is Ted Cruz doing just that. In fact, bragging about how he's been the biggest suckup for Trump all these years over in the Senate. And he also says that Trump has iron balls, which of course is going to get him on the president's good side. Let's take a look at Ted Cruz on the PBD show. I think this next election is going to be a debate about who is best prepared to continue Trump's legacy to continue winning victories and moving forward. What is the best thing about Donald Trump? The man has cast iron balls in a way that is epic, in a way that we have never seen in the world

this is documented. This is proven. He is fearless. Yeah, PBD chiming in there by saying that, oh yes, it's been verified that the president does indeed have iron balls, just the level of sucking up that they're doing here. And you know, the 2016 election focused a lot on Janitalia with Trump talking about his hand size and all those things. I would really love it if we could avoid this topic for 2028 entirely. If we could just not talk about the president's iron balls, as they like to say. That's just so pathetic, isn't it? So Ted Cruz, clearly he's going to be running for presidents. He's not making it official yet, but it's a little bit too early to do that. But he's making it very clear that he wants to do it. So how is this affecting the betting odds? Because one would think

that given the fact he technically came in second during the 2016 nomination process, he may be able to jump right up there in the rankings to like third or fourth in the betting odds, right? I mean, he's not going to be in first place. We have JD Vance and first and Marco Rubio and second, but you'd think that maybe Ted Cruz would be third or fourth? No, he's way down there. He's down at seventh place behind J.D. Vance, behind Marco Rubio, behind Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, and even Donald Trump himself,

someone who is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president for another term. So it's very early. We can't completely count out Ted Cruz, but he's a very unlikable figure. In 2016, he came in second place, mainly because he was the only alternative left to Donald Trump, and they were still dealing as a party with whether they're going to be okay with nominating Trump. So that's why he was able to stick in there and do relatively well. But he's a deeply unlikable guy. And if voters have other choices like J.D. Vance and Marker Rubio,

I think they're going to go with someone like that over at Ted Cruz, because they're just not going to want to see that face and hear that voice for the next four years. So often with the American right, there's this huge gap between the tough guy, alpha male persona that they like to pretend to put out there, and the sheer political cowardice that they show when push actually comes to shove or when they actually have to take accountability. So, of course, this is exemplified by Donald Trump and, you know, he's tacoing all the time. But it's also exemplified by Ken Paxton, who is running for Texas Senate. He's the guy who got indicted on felony securities, fraud charges, and then he was also impeached in an unrelated bribery scandal by his own party. Yeah, that Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas right now, running for Senate against Democrat James Talrico.

It's actually becoming a toss-up race, believe it or not, even though it is Texas. And we've been discussing how Paxton has really centered his campaign around him being the Texas tough candidate, right? while James Talarico is some unmanly freak because he's a vegan, even though he's not a vegan, and even if he were a vegan, who would care? He also thinks that God is non-binary, apparently, which is really scary and unmanly somehow to think that. You have to think that God has a penis and testicles if you're going to be a true man, according to Ken Paxton. Well, the latest wrinkle in this story is that Ken Paxton is refusing to debate James Talarico.

He's too chicken or too yellow. I guess they would say in Texas to debate James Talarico. Talarico is saying, you and me partner at high noon, we'll go down to ye old country saloon, and we'll go to toe to toe, and we'll see who is the last one standing. Well, not really, but he's saying that we should do a debate sometime, right? And Talarico has accepted invitations from Texas media networks, a number of them. He's accepted all of these possibilities for televised debates in late September or early October. and Ken Paxton's campaign is claiming that they're just ironing out the details. Yeah, sure, they want to debate, but there's all these contracts that they got to sign. They got to lock on the dates. They got to commit to all who the hosts are, right? So they're just ironing the details. But ironing out the details makes it seem like, okay, you already have the dates set in place. You're just trying to figure out what the format is. Like, are the candidates going to be sitting or standing? Or are they going to have a clock? Like, who's the moderator going to be? It's not whether we're going to have the debates.

at all. It's not if we're going to have one, two, or three debates. So ironing out the details when we're less than two months away from the election, give me a break, Ken Paxton. You're clearly just trying to run out the clock. And as you know, as we suspect, I guess, James Talariko had to put out an ad about this because it's the perfect way to make fun of Ken Paxton and expose this alpha male stick as what it is, which is completely inauthentic and not something that Ken Paxton is consistent on because he is ducking this debate with James Talleyco. Let's take a look at the ad. This is Ken Paxton and this is Ken Paxton chickening out of a debate.

Are you ready for faces for Talarico in a debate, sir? Here's what happened. Three TV networks at dates, times, and locations for debates between U.S. Senate candidates James Tallerico and Ken Paxton. James Talleyco agreed immediately. Ken Paxton didn't. His handlers swear he's just ironing out the details. They've been saying he's close to an agreement for weeks. But we know Ken Paxton. He hasn't debated anyone since he was impeached for bribery. Uh, yes, I mean... He hasn't debated anyone since he was indicted for fraud. So I mean, I, I... He hasn't debated anyone since giving an Epstein-style sweetheart deal to an admitted child breeder. This is not going the way it should. In fact, he hasn't debated anyone in over 12 years. We get it.

Ken Paxton's billionaire handlers won't let him answer questions in public. They've got a lot riding on their favorite puppet becoming their own personal U.S. Senator, and they know that if he opens his mouth, he'll lose the election, and they'll end up losing a whole lot of money. But go ahead. Prove us wrong, Ken. Show us your billionaire handlers will finally let you on stage. Vote for James Daleroico. He's not chicken. Now, it's obvious why Ken Paxton wouldn't want to debate anyone, really, because he would have to answer for his scandals. He'd have to answer for his horrible track record as Attorney General of Texas. But I would argue that he especially does not want to debate James Talarico because

Paxton's not a great speaker. Talarico is an excellent speaker. And he's a lot more charming than Paxton is. He's a lot more genuine than Paxton is. He can also quote scripture, which in a place like Texas is going to play really well for him. Paxton doesn't have an honorable track record, whereas Talarico does. So that's another thing that's putting Paxton at a disadvantage. So what does Paxton have to do in this debate if we ever see them happen?

He has to basically just rely on being a Republican in a traditionally red state. He has to rely on having Donald Trump's endorsement, which is something that is that even going to help him all that much in this election cycle with Donald Trump being so unpopular. That's basically what he's going to have to fall back on. I'm the Republican in the race, and this is Texas, so you should vote for me. But if it comes down to the issues or the scandals or the values, then Kempaxon's not going to square up well against James Talarico. One more point I wanted to make about this. Sometimes politicians will strategically avoid doing debates because they don't think it's in their best interests. And typically it's because that candidate is up by a great amount already.

Like they're already winning by 40, 50 points. So what's the point of even doing a debate? Because you just run the risk of making some gaff that will tank your chances. And you're also putting yourself on an even playing field with the other candidate or candidates on the debate stage. So there are some times where politicians say, you know, I'm not going to do the debate. But it's not because I'm chicken. and I just don't see the potential value add for me, right? It's just not something that's worth the reward.

In this case, though, Ken Paxton cannot make that case. He cannot use that excuse because this is not a blowout election where Ken Paxton is leading by 20 points or something like that. Tala Rico is actually the one winning in most of the polls. There's a recent poll out, in fact, that has him up six percentage points. Now, is that actually the case? Seems a little bit optimistic to me. Republicans do have the legacy advantage over in Texas,

but I think there's a reason why the betting odds are something like 50-50. I think that sounds more reasonable to me. Talarico absolutely could win. Paxton may be still a slight favorite because it's Texas after all. But at any rate, there's no excuse whatsoever for Paxton to dodge this debate against Talarico because this is a toss-up by all accounts. And when you have a toss-up, you got to go out there and debate. You got to give it your all.

I think ultimately he may have to because if he keeps slipping in the polls, He's going to have to try to reverse the trend somehow, and maybe a debate is going to be his last-ditch effort to be able to do that. But Ken Paxton, at least so far, being chicken and not being willing to debate. Just like it says in the ad, Talarico, he's not chicken, but apparently Ken Paxton is. And it's Ken Paxton who opened himself up to this line of attack. It's not James Talarico who wanted to make supposed manliness an issue in this Texas Senate race. It was Ken Paxton in his campaign that decided to go down this road. and now they're getting what they deserve because they're being called cowards for not showing up to debate James Talrico.

We'll see if they ultimately cave and decide to go along with the debate. But I think at this point, the damage has already been done because Paxton's looking scared. Not only to debate, I would say, but also about his chances at winning because day after day, things are looking worse and worse for Ken Paxton. Buying a mattress is one of those purchases where the options start to all look the same, even though there are really important different. is once you're sleeping on it every night. And that's one reason I like our sponsor, Helix sleep. They give you a structured way to figure out what are you looking for instead of just picking a mattress off of a page because on the Helix website, you take this short quiz about the

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news host, Maria Bartarumo is a Fox News host no longer. She's been abruptly fired from the network is the reporting effective yesterday. Fox released a brief statement saying, we thank Maria for her work over the last 12 and a half years and we wish her all the best on her next chapter, but that was all they had to say about her, which suggested that this was more like a firing and less like a resignation. And Donald Trump himself posted about the decision on truth social. He said, quote, I can't believe Maria Bartaromo is no longer going to have her great shows on Fox News business. Three different shows, always number one. Maria is a total professional and a true warrior.

Her fans of which there are many will not be happy. God bless you, Maria. Now, of course, the story is still fresh. We're still learning about the details. But by all accounts, this was not a resignation. This was not Maria Barbaromo's decision. This was indeed a firing. And it appears to be over a specific violation that Maria allegedly committed.

rather than her ratings being down or something like that. According to the media watchdog group status, around the time that Trump did that election interference propaganda speech from the White House back in July, Fox News told its talent specifically to avoid talking about Trump's unsubstantiated election fraud allegations. I guess because they're still licking their wounds from that $787 million settlement with Dominion voting systems. They want to avoid this voter fraud topic if they can at all costs.

And the report is that Maria Bartaromo gave that information to the White House, that she told the White House and Trump about that instruction that she got from Fox News, I guess as a way to warn them. And that went against her employment agreement, that went against basic journalistic practices. Even though it's Fox News and they have this cozy relationship with the Trump White House, Maria Barteromo found a way to break the few journalistic ethics rules that exist over at Fox News. Now, if you think back to 2020, Maria Bartaromo was one of the most loyal Trump defenders on Fox News after Trump lost the election. She pushed adamantly his bogus voter fraud claims, and she was able to survive over at the company even after the lawsuits came in, even after the settlement.

When other talent was being fired for similar remarks and because they clearly had to make budget cuts, Maria Barteroma was able to keep her job. but this was, I guess, a bridge too far. And when we first heard that Maria Bartaroma was out at Fox News, there was speculation that it was because she was chosen by Donald Trump to be his next press secretary. So what happened is that over at Kalshi, when she lost her job, the odds of her becoming the next press secretary surged from around 1% to as high as 36%, because people thought, oh, obviously she's going to be the next White House press secretary. That's what we're going to find out about here soon.

But then J.D. Vance at the podium yesterday was asked about this very issue, and he said that he doesn't know if Maria Barbaroomo is going to be the next press secretary, but he certainly did not announce that she was going to be, and he certainly sounded caught off guard by the entire thing. Like he had no idea why exactly she was canned from Fox News. So let's take a look at that clip, and this is what sent the betting odds back way down from Maria Barteroma becoming the next press secretary, because it's clear that this was not part of the plan. Just left Fox News. Is she going to be the next White House press secretary? I don't know, man. No, I don't think so. You know, I just saw the news literally as I walked out before. I love Maria. I think she's an amazing person, amazing talent. I don't get involved in the personal drama of media stations. In fact, I'd like to invite Peter. Yeah, J.D. Vance apparently still working on how to laugh authentically. He's going to have to master that before he launches his 2028 presidential campaign. But after this response, the betting odds for Maria becoming the next press secretary tanked. Now they're at about 13%, which I got to say is still a pretty good shot. She's still in third place in the rankings. And I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately Trump does decide to choose her as press secretary.

We know that she didn't leave Fox News to take the press secretary position. But now that she's available and Trump has expressed his support for her and probably likes, by the way, the fact that she chose her loyalty to him over loyalty to her job, I could definitely see Donald Trump saying, oh yeah, all that stuff's qualifications for you to become my next press secretary. So that absolutely could still ultimately be the end result of all this. And what a turn that would be. Maria Barteromo's Fox News career is over. And we'll see if her career in general is over or if she's going to go somewhere else or maybe even in the White House. She once upon a time had this storied career once she was an apolitical reporter. She reported from the floor of the

New York Stock Exchange. I believe she was the first reporter to do that. And then she went to Fox News and just became another Trump nut. It was this really weird career move that she decided to make. Maybe she'll make another one now entering the White House Press Secretary position. But that all remains to be seen. What we do know now, though, is Rio Barbaromo is out as a Fox News host. The midterm picture for Republicans right now is looking so bad that Democrats actually have a shot at winning Kansas. Kansas, folks, a Senate race over in Kansas is now in play.

The Democratic nominee is Reverend Adam Hamilton. He's the founding pastor, believe it or not, of the Church of the Resurrection in Leewood, and it's the largest United Methodist congregation in the entire United States. They have about 25,000 members. So not the typical Democratic candidate, a megachurch pastor, but that's exactly who Reverend Adam Hamilton is. He's running against incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who is an OBGYN and a fifth generation farmer.

Now, if you didn't have Kansas on your list as potential pickups for Democrats in the Senate, I don't blame you because Kansas hasn't voted for a Democrat to win a Senate seat since 1932 and they in fact haven't even come within 10 points in 50 years. So it's been a long time since Democrats have been competitive in the state of Kansas. However, they do sometimes vote for Democratic governors like they currently have a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly. And they also overwhelmingly decided to vote to protect abortion rights in 2022. So there are some signs. that Kansas is not the reddest of red states anymore and that they would be open to potentially voting for a Democrat to win the Senate race. Now, one would think that Republicans would have a

difficult time dealing with someone like an Adam Hamilton because, again, he's a megachurch pastor. And so all the attack lines that they usually use against Democrats about them being ungodly and those sorts of things and having bad values, that's not going to work so well against a pastor. And of course, they're going to try anyway because they're going to to try to take his greatest strength and try to make it into a weakness. But so far, it hasn't been working all that well for him. These Republicans have been doing their opera research. They're trying to uncover something controversial that Hamilton has said at one point or another. And they found something that they think that they can hang their hat on. I just don't think it's going to be

all that effective. Let's take a look at the clip that Republicans uncovered that they think is going to be hugely damaging to Adam Hamilton's campaign. Now, the truth. is that a Muslim would say through Islam they see the most clearly and a Hindu through Hinduism and a Jew through Judaism and so so I recognize we all are you know we all have a different lens that we're seeing through and sometimes we think you know depending how we were raised and how we think one lens is you know clearly a better lens for me and when it comes to other faiths I believe as a Christian that they are going to when they get to heaven they're gonna see Jesus

they're gonna say ah it was you all the all along that I was searching for but I don't fear that those folks will spend eternity in hell You asked me, I kind of like this answer. I'm not a religious person myself, but I think he does a decent job of squaring that circle. How can different people of different faith still go to heaven when Jesus said, no one comes to the father except through me? Well, maybe, as Hamilton says, they were just mistaken about who they were worshipping, and they thought they were worshipping Krishna or Buddha or Muhammad or someone like that, but it was actually Jesus the whole time. You know, I've heard Christians take far greater liberties when it comes to religious interpretations than that one. And here they're trying to claim Republicans are that this was just heresy, what Reverend Hamilton said, and that this should disqualify him from becoming the next senator from Kansas.

Yeah, this is a party that has Donald Trump as its figurehead, who is by no means a righteous or religious man. And they think that this attack line is going to work. They're claiming that Reverend Adam Hamilton, yes, he may be a megachurch pastor, but he's actually a, heretic. So we have Ted Cruz who posted the video and complained about it, writing, quote, Why do Democrats keep nominating, quote, preachers who reject the central tenets of Christianity? This heretical, quote, sermon directly contradicts the Bible. Quote, Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me, John 146.

And then Roger Marshall, the incumbent Republican senator who Adam Hamilton is running against, posted that tweet and followed up by saying, Thanks for bringing this up, Ted Cruz. This is only one of hundreds of examples. Wait until you hear about the hundreds of mistakes in the Bible my opponent claims to have found. So I really don't care to nitpick the claim too much about whether non-Christians can get into heaven. I mean, it's one of those things that sound really hopeful to me. I mean, it sounds better, like messaging-wise to say that even if you're not Christian, you can still find a path to heaven. Even if you weren't born Christian, by the way, because this is ultimately how it often works,

you can still find a way to get to paradise. Like, all that stuff sounds hopeful and optimistic and positive to me, but apparently to these Republicans, that's heresy, at least to some of them anyway. And I think Marshall's going to have to find a new line of attack because Hamilton currently has a 17% chance at winning the election, which is quite remarkable as a Democrat in the state of Kansas. And we've actually seen a number of religious Democrats do well in recent years, especially in these more religious parts of the country. You're like Rafael Warnock, for example, in Georgia. He's a reverend and was able to win that Senate seat. We have James Talrico who's polling really, really well in Texas. He is a Christian.

He's a seminarian and constantly talks about religious values. So there is a case to be made that in some of these more religious areas in the country, we should focus on maybe running these more religious candidates. I'm surprised to see a megachurch pastor as one of the options. But in a place like Kansas, let's give it a try, right? And so currently he has a seven. 17% chance at victory. Hopefully we can get those odds up before election day and maybe he can even pull off the victory there. All right. We're going to go to a break, but we have more of the David

Pacman show coming up right after this. Hey, if you're hearing this, that means you're listening to our podcast on one of the many podcast networks that we stream to. And first, I just want to say, thank you for being a listener of this show. It really means a lot that you're tuning in here. I would love to ask you for a quick favor. We are so close to reaching 4 million subscribers on YouTube. YouTube is where we post everything you get through the audio podcast and a lot more stuff. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick second to pop over to YouTube, search up the David Pacman show, and hit subscribe.

Every bit helps. I would love to have you as a subscriber there. Oh my goodness. Donald Trump is going to absolutely lose his mind if he sees this ad. from the Lincoln Project. You all know the Lincoln Project, right? They're this group of anti-Trump Republicans who want to strip the MAGA influence from the Republican Party. They want to roll back the clock 15 years or so to restore the Republican Party of old, founded by people like Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, Rick Wilson, who we had on the show recently. Now, despite being conservatives or moderates or

however they want to classify themselves nowadays, despite them not being progressives really is what it comes down to, in my opinion, they're really doing a much better job at bringing the fight to Donald Trump and getting under his skin. And case in point, there's this brand new ad out. I have to show you. And Donald Trump is going to be pulling out his cotton candy hair plugs if he sees this thing because it exposes every weakness that Donald Trump has in just a 60 second ad. The ad itself is called weak and it's absolutely the right messaging, I think, going into the midterms. Let's take a look at the clip. Hey Donald, it's been a minute. We just wanted to say we're sorry about your sagging poles. Minus 20 points, minus 19 points two months ago, minus 20 points a month ago,

and now minus 21 points. They're so limp, so weak. We're sure you heard that before about other things. And you know what they say about men with small hands? Don't let them tell you it happens to every president. Net uproborating is low. It is staying low and there is no sign that he's getting out of the basement. He is stuck. Americans really hate you because you're a failure. You wrecked the economy. You lost a war to Iran because they're smarter than you. It's embarrassing, humiliating, and you know it's true. So I think there may be some people who don't like the ad because it's childish and it sounds like, you know, middle school bullying. And also it reinforces these stereotypes about alpha versus weak and all these dumb, toxic masculinity things. But we have to

remember that this is chiefly for a right-wing audience, right? And it's the Lincoln Project putting out these ads. It's not Democratic-aligned PACs. I think that we can take the high road when it calls for it, you know, when we want to talk about our own progressive policy initiatives to put out a forward vision. We should be doing all that stuff, but we also have to talk about the disaster that has been Donald Trump. And getting under his skin and getting him to lash out is a great way, I think, to accomplish that. So if these Democratic candidates are able to focus on the policy initiatives that they want to put forward, while the Lincoln Project is doing the dirty work, getting down in the mud and doing the anti-Trump content, I think that that's a recipe

for success, if you ask me. And it also exposes the whole strength versus weakness. thing that Republicans push for the bogus hoax that it is, really, because they don't even live up to the standards that they put out there for how men should behave. Taking a look at that ad, Donald Trump did absolutely look incredibly weak. He has looked weak during this whole Iran war and through a number of other examples. And so it goes to show that for all the talk about alfannists that they claim to have, they don't really, when push comes to shove. Now, what's also interesting about these ads is they don't just blast them all.

across the country on every cable show or anything like that. They do these local ad buys where Donald Trump is likely to be. So like in Bedminster and Palm Beach, they also play these ads specifically on Fox News at times when they suspect Donald Trump may be watching, which I guess would be all hours of the day if it's Trump and Fox News. So they're really trying to appeal to an audience of one here. It's a form of psychological warfare is what they're calling it. They're trying to get under Donald Trump's skin and they're trying to exploit his Fox News addiction. I wouldn't be surprised if they have Natalie Harp stationed next to the TV whenever Donald Trump is watching Fox News so she could flip the channel or turn it off or mute it or something

when this ad comes on because Donald Trump is not going to be able to hold himself together if he sees this thing. Reminder that when it comes to the Lincoln Project, their ultimate goal is not to bring about progressive change. It's not to bring about like AOC. is the next president of the United States or anything like that. Again, they want to strip the Republican Party of MAGA and restore it to what it once was. So it's important to keep that in mind.

Yes, right now our interests are aligned, but they may not be forever. So we have to make sure that we remember that at all times when it comes to the Lincoln Project. But I do think that this is an effective ad. It's also cathartic, for us, I would say, watching it. But I think from an electoral standpoint, it really could be good to undermine Donald Trump's image as this alpha and to point out how we're not doing well in the Iran war, and it's highlighting a bunch of different issues in one ad. So I think it absolutely is very much effective.

And I would actually make the case that doing ads like these are important for democracy itself, if you can believe that, because these authoritarian movements like Trump's, they depend on this aura of being invincible, right? They depend on this aura of being super strong. And so when you're able to pierce that armor, when you're able to expose them for the hypocrites that they are, you bring them back down to size and it makes people realize, oh, these people aren't as powerful as they claim to be. So I think it's absolutely the right approach that should be taken, whether it's the approach done by Democrats or the Lincoln Project or however it's accomplished, I think it should be done.

And I would love to be a fly on the wall in the room that Donald Trump sat where he sees this ad for the first time because actually, I guess I would run the risk of ketchup being thrown at me. So maybe I wouldn't want that. Maybe I would be a fly that gets splattered by ketchup because Donald Trump got so angry watching this thing. So maybe I don't want that. But Donald Trump clearly not going to be happy taking a look at this Lincoln Project ad. We've seen plenty of weird stuff from this Trump White House, but I got to say, this one ranks right up there. They decided to put racist video games on the whitehouse.gov website. You're just not going to believe this.

So the Whitehouse.gov website has historically been the primary portal for access to information from the White House, right? official transcripts, executive orders, press briefings, all that stuff is available on whitehouse.gov and has been for a long time. And of course, the White House website, it's going to talk about the president's accomplishments, but it's not typically used for direct campaign purposes. It's not used for posting memes and stuff like that. It's about official government business until Donald Trump came around, especially in the second term, and he's basically turned the whitehouse.gov site into an extension of truth. social. They added a media offenders page, of course, which you all know about because David himself made it onto that page. She became a White House media offender put on the Whitehouse.com website.

And now what they decided to do is put together a video game page because, yeah, that's what the American people need. That's what taxpayer dollars should be going to. White House arcade games that absolutely no one is going to play. So let's take a look at the website here. It's over at Whitehouse.cov slash arcade. And you can see that they have these retro video games here. There's Flappy Bill, which is a game featuring an eagle navigating through obstacles on the National Mall while trying to carry a bill through the skies over Washington, D.C. There's the game Build the Wall, which is essentially Tetris with the added twist of

the structure you build becoming a wall that keeps out people trying to cross it. Which, when you think about Tetris doesn't really make a whole lot of sense because the point of Tetris is not to make the structure get too high because if it gets too high, you end up losing. But whatever, it's the Trump administration after all. And then we have this one here, Rio Run, which is the most overtly racist one out of all of them. It's this Pac-Man style game, not Pac-Men, but Pac-Man, where you have this white character who goes around and arrests a bunch of brown characters who are presumably migrants. Then there's this other game where you have to sort out at healthy lunch and you have to eat things like beef tallow while avoiding seed oils. And then finally we have Trump's saving tycoon where you have to go around with a net and claim a bunch of money from these Trump accounts.

All right, let's take a look at one of these games. I'm definitely not going to play one of the racist ones, mind you, because I think that would go south really fast. But let's play Flappy Bill. Let's just see how it is as a game. All right. So we have the game Flappy Bill here. Let's see how well I do with it. So you just got to hit the space bar a bunch of times, I guess, to get through these monuments and then deliver your bill. Oh, oh, no. I already hit one. All right. One more time. One more time. I can do this.

Yeah, so we're flying. We're flying through them. I'm trying to not get too close to the ceiling here. I mean, I just can't imagine playing this for more than a couple minutes, though. This is not the most entertaining thing I got to say. I think all right. I thought it was getting better, but apparently not. Okay, apparently I got to get away from these Trump video games because I'm just not the best at them. I can't wait to tell David, by the way, that I turned the channel into a let's play channel instead of doing politics. Now we're doing video games exclusively. I'm sure that will go over well. But seriously, like, who is this for? Is this for Trump supporters? Is this for gamers?

Like, who's going to go to the Whitehouse.gov site regularly and play these arcade games? Just about no one. So it's a total waste of money. It's not the role of government anyway. If you want to do this on like a campaign site with your own dollars, sure, but taxpayer dollars are going to this. What a total waste of money. So that's the latest from the Trump White House. If you're questioning why they're not focused on Iran and the economy and health care, well, it's because they're focused on dumb projects like these. All right, that'll do it for today's for today. That'll do it for today's do it for today. That'll do it for today's told explicitly to stop calling the Iran conflict Operation Epic Fury. I wonder why they're going to get away from that language. And then we also have Mark Wayne Mullen going on Fox News and sounding like a total dunts as he so regularly does. So join Pacman.com. That's how you get the bonus show.

We're going to be off on Monday because of Labor Day here in the U.S. Long weekend. But David will be back with us on Tuesday. Have an excellent weekend, everybody.