The David Pakman Show - Trump melts down over Natalie Harp, Darline Graham debate fail

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

-- This week's top moments from The David Pakman Show. Support independent media and become a member today! -- 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. At Desjardin Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business, to be exact.

Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price. Whether you rent out your building, represent a condo corporation, or own a cleaning company, we make insurance easy to understand so you can focus on the big stuff, like your small business. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. Insurance is entering a new era. Policyholders expect a fast and flexible experience from the insurers they trust. That's why modern insurers run on Adion.

From effortless premium collections to instant claims payouts, Adion's single platform automates your entire policy lifecycle. A single platform to reduce churn and claims fraud. Drive revenue. Stay in control of how your money moves. Adion, fintech built for your next move. Welcome, everybody. We have pulled together the most important stories and viral moments from the show this week.

If you want to keep this thing growing and get access to ad free main episodes and daily bonus content, check out join packman.com. Senator John Assoff, who is very good at this, just delivered a brutal and personal attack against Donald Trump. He brought up Natalie Harp, his potential new love interest. He said, why have we been lied in this? to yet another war. What John Ossoff did at a speech is he sort of used Donald Trump's strange relationship with

Natalie Harp to make a broader argument. And the argument is about war and it's about sacrifice. And it points out that Donald Trump is a president whose most important interest is just enjoying power. He doesn't want to do the job. He wants to have people cheer for him and play the proud to be an America every time he walks into a room. But he doesn't really want to govern.

While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trade stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. Listen, Asoff knows exactly what he is doing with this whole travel. with Natalie thing. A reporter asks Trump about what Senator John Asaf said.

Asaf said Trump would rather travel with Natalie Harp and build a ballroom rather than do his job as president. And Trump does not address the substance of what was said about him and Natalie harp. This is an insane answer if something weird isn't happening with Natalie Harp. Look at this. John Alsaf said if you'd rather travel with your aid, Natalie Harp, and build the ballroom than do your job as president. What is your response? John Ossef said, if you'd rather travel with your aid, John Osse. You mean Pee-Wey Herman? Pewey Herman look alike?

No, I would much rather do other things. We're building a great facility here. We're fixing a White House that hasn't been taken care of. You can look at this. This room was a disgraceful situation in the Oval Office, and it was let go. The whole building, the White House, was let go. The exteriors were falling apart.

The columns were falling apart. The whole place was a mess. In addition, they've been trying to get a ballroom for the last 150 years. And when I said I was going to build a ballroom, the military asked if they could see him. Remember, the question was about Natalie Hart. And here he is going after CNN reporter Kristen Holmes. Quiet! You're very disrespectful in front of this young man.

Obama, he didn't like anybody, but I get along with him very well. Now, what I'm doing is making things safer. Just the opposite. He doesn't. He asked him. Quiet. Quiet, quiet. You're very disrespectful in front of this young man. Okay, don't you find her disrespectful? He understands, quiet. Who are you with?

I'm with CNN. Fake news. You're a fake news. You're a loud, you're a loud, boisterous person. You're fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. You're a fake reporter and you report fake news. Go ahead. Darlene Graham, the senator representing South Carolina. Now she is running to actually be elected to be the full time, not just interim senator from South Carolina. She participated in a debate just hours ago and completely crashed and burned. One of the most embarrassing moments to come out of South Carolina since Miss South Carolina gave that viral answer.

It's like a car crash that you can't look away from. Darlene Graham was asked, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security threats to the United States? And she goes, I don't know anything about national security, but I do support the troops. Take a listen to this. Stunning, stunning the debate moderators. And rightly so. Senator, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? If so, why?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how? I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security. But I do support the military. My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military.

My dad was in the army. I'm not a polished politician up here. I'm not national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military. An answer that should truly disqualify her from the nomination. Now, I've been a big advocate of when you don't know something, you just say it. But if you don't know something relevant to a position you're interviewing for, we might go, well, It's good that you were honest, but you have no business in this position. It's sort of like, you know, if you've got a neurosurgeon, you're talking to and you go,

by the way, like, where is the brain in the body? And they go, hey, you know what? The truth is like, I'm not really the expert on where in the body the brain is located. We would go, okay, awesome that you told us that. We're not letting you do the surgery. After that humiliating performance, Darlene Graham goes on Sean Hannity's Fox News show to try to clean it up. And I have to tell you, a piece of her explanation is way more revealing than the original answer. Take a listen to this.

I did say several times that, you know, China is our enemy, our military and economic threat to the United States. Of course, Taiwan is our friend. But I think people are- They're our friends. The South Carolina are more worried about making ends meet. They're concerned about boys and girls sports. One lady talked to me extensively about that today. They're concerned about the Second Amendment. Yeah. I've got to give it to Darlene Graham. That is an astonishingly honest summary of Maga Brain rot. She's essentially saying, yes, I knew nothing about one of the most consequential geopolitical flashpoints in the world. But Republican voters were talking to me about trans athletes,

Boys and girls sports. What is in Trump's pants and is it related to some kind of new medical situation? Here is video from a recent appearance of Donald Trump. What you will see as he gets off this stage and he turns is that there is something really weird creating an unusual bulge out of Donald Trump's pants and suit jacket. Caroline Levitt posted this video and what is in there? It just it doesn't really make any sense. We'll show it again as Donald Trump comes off the stage.

There is something in there and nobody can figure out what it is. It seems rigid. It's it's rectangular. It's protruding out from his suit. What is it? The conversation on social media has of course been wacky. A lot of people saying these are diapers. some saying it's a full diaper.

I mean, we're starting to get a little bit crass, but there's speculation about medical equipment. There's speculation about colostomy bag, a Brazilian butt lift, like just wacky stuff. And by the way, we don't have any evidence that Trump got a Brazilian buttlift or anything like that. Donald Trump has discovered that outgoing White House press secretary Caroline Levitt is loyal to her own children over Donald Trump. How on earth could this possibly be? And even when Trump presents this as sort of a joke, the joke reveals Trump's understanding of loyalty. Here is Donald

Trump being interviewed. And he goes, I'm concerned that Caroline likes her kids more than she likes me. But if you look at Donald Trump's expressions, if you look at Donald Trump's demeanor, you can tell that while this is couched as a joke, Trump doesn't really get it. Trump isn't happy. Trump is furious that Caroline Levitt is leaving and he looks genuinely resentful. Take a look at this. Is Caroline Levitt replaceable? No, she's not.

She really isn't. She's standing right over there and she's done a great job. You have somebody in mind? She likes her children more than she likes Trump. I'm very concerned about that. It's a lot to juggle, right? And you said you support that going back. Is there somebody have in mind that you'd like to see up at the post?

podium to take over. You, how about you? She could do the job. I think so. What do you think, Carolyn? I like it. The debate is about something called woke 1.0 and whether it was crazy and whether woke 2.0 should replace woke 1.0.

What are we talking about? Woke 1.0, woke 2.0. A lot of this discussion started after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Port Cortez repeated the line quoting someone else, woke one was crazy. And the context was that she was talking about old progressive positions like abolishing the police, abolishing prisons to a smaller extent canceling Thanksgiving. And AOC weighed in and said, you know, I, there's a council member who says to me, woke one was crazy. This is from her interview with Jonathan Carl. Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate. She's moved away from it. Right. She's moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman

that has this saying woke one was crazy. Boat one was crazy. And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying. Did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police. Well, you know, I think that during this time, and during, especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the overtime window. that we were shut down.

There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. So listen, AOC is getting hit hard for this woke one was crazy thing. But if you listen to her whole answer, it's pretty nuanced. She's like, well, listen, COVID was a period that opened up the door to discussing a lot of different ideas and not all of that was productive. We should evaluate candidates.

on what they advocate for now. So that I think is a sort of an interesting statement. Trump with a little grift. There's always some grift. It's go by Dell computers or Mike Ron is a great computer. This time it's Scott's Miracle Grow. They contributed to my campaign and they're a great company. And of course, the stock price of Scott's Miracle Grow spiking after Trump said the following. Sunk in areas in here and it was pretty bad. He's in bad shape. But this grass was the highest quality. It was given free of charge by Scott's Miracle Grow, Scots. And Scots is a great company.

They actually contributed to my campaign. I must be honest. Oh, intro, of course. That went out. And they said to me, sir, would like to replace the grass at the White House with the highest quality grass and do a real job. So Scots, I want to thank Scott's miracle grow. Always a little grift.

What has Trump invested in lately or who has donated to Trump lately? Well, they're going to get a mention. That's for sure. This should be a campaign at. Trump goes, I hope we have bad economic numbers. You know, I almost like to hear bad numbers. I'm saying, I hope we have bad numbers that the interest rates will go to. Trump is saying that because he is so desperate for the federal funds rate to come down because

that's the decision, of course, that the Fed would have to make. anything that will push the Fed to lower rates he likes. And often it is bad economic numbers that push the Fed to lower rates. The only little problem with that is that bad economic numbers mean the economy is suffering, meaning that Americans are suffering because Americans make up the economy. He doesn't care. He has been obsessed for years with what he believes will be politically advantageous declines in the federal funds rate. So if it screws Americans, it screws Americans, so be it. Donald Trump just staged an entire photo op to brag about an article that he apparently did not read because the article says Joe Biden deserves the credit. Look at this. Donald Trump walked

up to reporters holding a printout. And in that printout, you can see that there is an article. And the article is of a Washington Post story. And the headline is prescription drug prices record sharpest drop in more than 60 years. And Donald Trump had it printed out by his human printer, Natalie Harp. He proudly displayed it. He asked reporters, hey, have you seen it? He made sure that the cameras would capture it. And he read aloud the headline and declared, I told you that this was going to happen. And then the White House took the image and blasted it all over social media with the caption, P.OV, you bring the receipts. Trump taking credit. But there was only one little problem.

And this is why we read the articles. This is why we don't just stop with the headlines. This is why we don't allow Donald Trump and people like him to bamboozle us with printouts. The receipt says it is thanks to Joe Biden. Had Donald Trump been able to read or had anybody working in the White House communications operation bothered to read the article, they would have noticed that the article is talking about a Biden era policy as the explanation for the drop. in prescription drug prices. That does it for this week's top moments. Today's roundup is free for

everybody, but our daily operations do depend on support from listeners like you. Head over to join pacman.com to become a member, unlock the ad free show and the bonus show, and support independent media.