The David Pakman Show - Trump threatens Iran as death toll questions grow

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Officials tell the Washington Post that more American service members have died in the Iran war than the Pentagon's public count shows -- Donald Trump tells Fox News he is considering whether to blow up the entire nation of Iran as he decides his next move in the war -- Donald Trump again appears to close his eyes and doze off during an official event in the Oval Office -- Donald Trump proposes splitting childhood vaccines into five doses six months apart and claims without evidence it will reduce autism -- AI generated actress Tilly Norwood suddenly begins speaking Cantonese during an interview on Piers Morgan's show -- Donald Trump posts economic graphics using real household income and poverty data from 2025 while stamping them as his achievements -- Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett claims inflation is way down because he personally found cheaper hamburger at the grocery store -- A forensic psychologist analyzes video of Mitch McConnell and says his behavior suggests he may not understand what is happening around him -- On the Bonus Show: How to handle the 2028 Democratic primary, book and travel updates, and much more... 📜 Trust & Will: Save 20% on your estate planning at https://trustandwill.com/pakman 🐶 Sundays for Dogs: Get 30% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://sundaysfordogs.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- Send David a text: [phone] -- 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 (01:25) Pentagon undercounts Iran war deaths (08:59) Trump threatens to blow up Iran (20:21) Trump appears to nod off again (28:47) Trump proposes new vaccine dosing plan (41:32) AI actress glitches during live interview (50:01) Trump's economic graphics mislead voters (1:01:06) Kevin Hassett dismisses inflation concerns (1:10:25) Psychologist raises concerns about McConnell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Today, an extraordinary new report says that more American service members have died during the Iran war, which, by the way, is close to entering month eight. It was supposed to be two to three weeks. More service members have died than the Pentagon is publicly disclosed.

And we have officials describing this discrepancy in the government's own numbers in really strange terms. Now, at the same time, Donald Trump is openly talking about whether to blow up the entire nation of Iran as he decides what to do next. Certainly doesn't sound like the war is almost over. And also today, we have more sleepiness and more dystopian suppression of the media. Now, the administration has also proposed its own childhood vaccine schedule, which would involve five separate doses six months apart. They're claiming without evidence this will dramatically reduce autism. There is no reason to believe that that is true. We also have economic graphics. that the administration is desperately using to try to tell one story.

But when you look at the numbers, the story is completely different. And I should also mention my book is out tomorrow. It's almost over. We're almost there. We've got quite a program today. Something extremely disturbing is now being reported about the Trump administration's war with Iran. It's not just that Trump's incompetent.

It's not just that it's been going on. almost seven full months despite supposedly being only a two to three week war. That stuff is all disturbing, but we have a new report from the Washington Post, which says that more American service members have died in this war, much more than the number that the Pentagon has publicly disclosed. And this is not a disagreement over like an estimate or a projection. We are talking quite literally about how many American service members died. And according to According to officials familiar with the military's internal accounting, not all of those deaths are being reflected in the Pentagon's public database.

Now what the Washington Post did is they went and they spoke to six different officials. Five of those officials said there have been at least 22 military deaths since Trump's war in Iran started. But then when you look at the Pentagon's public database, it says it's only 18. Now, then a sixth official that the Washington Post spoke to said, oh, actually, it's not 22. The number is 23 dating back to February 28th. And that's when this war with Iran started. It's insane that it was February 28th.

It was in winter. We're almost in winter again. And that official also said that three American contractors based in the region have died. Now, I think that there's like one important qualification here, if we want to be honest. The Washington Post says, not every one of these additional military deaths. has been established directly as caused by the Iran war. So there were some American personnel who died while stationed in the Middle East during the war, but not necessarily because of the war.

But we still have a discrepancy here that we can't really explain. And based on the dishonesty of this administration, it's definitely reasonable to suspect, are they just trying to get a lower number out there because it looks worse, the more people die. Now, officials who are familiar with the higher numbers said, we are frustrated. We are frustrated that these deaths are not in the Pentagon's casualty portal and they should be. And when the Washington Post went to the Pentagon and said, hey, can you explain this discrepancy to us? The Pentagon just said, no, we can't. We're not going to do that. Now, remember the backstory on this. We, if this sounds familiar, we had a dispute like this before. And the dispute was, do American death?

deaths always get counted correctly as related to the war. Because back in July, you had this very brief period during which the United States and Iran announced a ceasefire. And you can debate how meaningful the ceasefire really was because operations never really stopped. And then before we knew it, they were exchanging fire again. But we had this situation during that really brief period when four American service members were killed. Three were killed when Iranian ballistic missiles and drones hit a base in Jordan. And then a fourth died the next day during a detonation of an Iranian drone at a base in Iraq. Now, these were not hypothetically connected to Iran. That was four Americans who died related to new U.S. Iran hostilities. And Trump publicly said then 18 Americans have died

because of this. But then something sort of remarkable happened. The four deaths I just told you about from July disappeared from the Pentagon's official tally. It went from 18 down to 14. Now, at first, the Pentagon said, oh, we had a data disruption. Then the four names reappeared, but they were not counted as having been the result of the Iran war. They said, overseas operations were the reasons that those four people died. So the explanation from the Pentagon was basically, you know, we had a ceasefire. The war is over, even though it resumed within four days. So those casualties have to have some other category. And technically, they didn't erase those people from existence, but they moved their names elsewhere in order to argue it's not really the Iran war that led to

their deaths. And of course, we now know that that was completely and totally bogus. Now, the reason that the administration cares about this is when you have a casualty number, Americans are going to sort of evaluate the value of the war in the context of what's happening here economically. But Americans are also going to evaluate the cost of the war in terms of American lives. And it stands to reason. And it's a lot. Every single death is a tragedy.

This is a completely optional war. It never should have happened. But it is true that on average, when you say to Americans, is this worth it? They are more likely to say it's not worth it, the higher the death toll on average. And so now it's two months later after the July thing and we have another discrepancy. And the Pentagon's public database says 18 people have died. And then five people said to the Washington Post, it's at least 22. A sixth person says it's 23.

And when the Pentagon is asked about it, they go, oh, the Washington Post is reporting lies, which doesn't really explain what's going on. So we have two separate episodes, July and now in September. And what we want to know is what exactly is the Trump administration counting as a death from the war? And why does this keep happening? Why do the public facing numbers regularly fail to just give us a straightforward picture of how many people have died as a result of Donald Trump's decision to start this war? Casualty accounting is not this obscure bureaucratic technicality. It's like one of the most basic transparency obligations of a government during the war.

How many people have died? Whatever your position is on the war, we should just be able to know how many American service members have died because of the war. And families deserve that. Fellow service members deserve that. And the public being asked to support and finance this war also deserve to know what the human toll is. Now, the reporting doesn't establish that Trump has personally ordered anyone to conceal

casualties. But as we know, in authoritarian leaning administrations, people don't always have to be asked to do everything that they do that's dishonest or immoral. They know that there's an expectation to do it. They know that they're supposed to do everything they can to make the cult leader look as good as possible. And it is now all a matter of public reporting because we have at least three different numbers about the number of service members that have died. How many Americans have really died during the war? I really couldn't tell you. it's probably at minimum 23 at minimum. And it has become a really difficult question to answer,

I guess. And of course, all of this is part of the effort to manufacture the idea that this is both a successful war, but also a war that has had a limited human cost. And if you can say only 18 people died instead of 23, it's still a disaster, but it is a smaller number. And at some point, that is what the administration wants. None of this. is deterring Trump from threatening to destroy everything, including Iran. And we should talk about that next. Once again, Donald Trump is openly talking about blowing up an entire country. Now, I want to be really precise.

When we have language this extreme and radical, we don't have to exaggerate about it. We have no reason to embellish it. It's Trump's words. Fox News chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yinks, said he spoke directly with Trump about Iran hours ago, and that this is what the president told him. I just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran. He tells Fox News he's in a deciding mode and that very big things are going to be happening in the not so distant future. The president described the current choices on the table as wiping Iran out,

letting them rot economically or making a deal. He added, my question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up, they better behave. Now, I ask, think about the sentence. If and when do I blow the entire nation up? The president of the United States talking about a country of more than 90 million people were already engaged in a war. And this is not like something Trump said 20 years ago when he had no power and we weren't in a war with Iran. Trump said it in September of 2026 as we are almost about to enter the eighth month of a war that was supposed to take two to three weeks. And it's an administration that doesn't know what to do next. And I guess they're trying to figure out what to do next. And Fox itself reports Trump is weighing the demands from Iran demanding what to do next.

And maybe it's going to be blow up the entire thing. Now, there's more. Trump told Fox News he is in deciding mode and that very big things are going to happen in the not so distant future. This is a lot of of vague generalities, very big things, not so distant future. And then Trump describes the options that he believes are available to him. Take a look. The urgent update from the president. Hey, Trey. Yeah, hey guys, good morning. I just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran. He tells Fox News he's in a deciding mode and that very big things are going to be happening in the not so distant future. The president described the current choices on the table as

wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal. He added, my question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up, they better behave. Now I asked the president about- Now listen, there are legitimate debates about Iran, right? I mean, Iran's nuclear program is a serious topic of discussion. Iran's threats to destroy other countries. American military objectives. Could diplomacy still produce a deal?

This is all real substantive important stuff. But this is why I would argue the language coming from the White House really matters right now. When you have a president talking about wiping Iran out, other governments hear it and military commanders hear it and American allies and troops in the region hear it. And it's going to impact Iranian officials decisions about how to respond and look at the language that Trump is using. It's not here are our military objectives that we're trying to achieve or what. What are the actions that would most readily protect American personnel or I want to prevent a further escalation? How do we do it?

If and when do I blow up the entire nation and they better behave? Now, Trump may rationally is a tough word, but Trump may genuinely believe that the bigger the threat he makes to Iran, the more leverage it gives him. And this has kind of been Trump's assumption for a long time. But this is not like that drunk guy at the end of the bar talking tough. It's the president of the United States who actually has the ability to cause catastrophic destruction to Iran's more than 90 million people. And so this whole like wipe Iran out thing is absolutely absurd.

And the whole deciding mode thing is also quite frankly a little scary because Trump, you have to when you try to interpret Trump's theatrics, you often. end up in these situations like a lot of the right wingers during the 2024 election, which is, oh, it's a lot of bluster from Trump. What we've learned is you really should take Trump at his word. And what we need to do is demand specifics. Like, what exactly are you considering doing? What are the military objectives?

What are the limits of how far, how much you're willing to lose as far as troops, as far as the financial aspect of it? And if Iran retaliates, what are you going to do? Now, I know that Donald Trump is increasingly doing this thing where he goes, as soon as we get past these elections, not only will everybody get five grand if Republicans win the House and the Senate, but the war is going to end very quickly. And later and probably tomorrow, we're going to sort of address this question of why would the election need to happen for the war to end? That doesn't really make sense. In fact, if the election coming up weren't enough of an incentive for Trump to get out of this war in order to help his party, do we really think that he's going to be more incentivized to end the war after the midterm elections? It's completely counterintuitive.

If anything, if Donald Trump were worried about how the war is affecting American voters and therefore how it might hurt his Republican party in November, Trump would be more inclined to go, we got to end this now. Now, we predicted this way back when. I don't mean me individually. Like anybody who's been paying attention predicted when that 60 day negotiation period started that it was unlikely to succeed, but that at the end of that 60 days, if there was no deal, it's really good for Iran. Why? Because Iran knows that Trump and his party have these difficult midterm elections coming

up. Iran knows that there is going to be leverage that they have because Republicans, are going to be saying, damn, we are all, all of the members of the House and a third, some of the senators, not exactly a third, but roughly a third. We are up for re-election. The longer the war goes on, the worse it is for our reelection chances. Iran would know that that is leverage that they have forthcoming, which made us predict it's unlikely Iran is going to be too incentivized to make a deal. They don't feel as good. And what happened? Exactly that. Not even 48 hours into negotiations. The negotiations fell apart.

J.D. Vance, who had gone to Switzerland for it, flew back to the United States. States. And now you have that period completely elapsed, the 60 day period. We have hostilities starting again. I know that I say this almost every day, but today is the day that diesel is the most expensive it has been in American history in nominal terms. I know we said it last Thursday. And I know we said it a week ago Monday and the previous week. Every single day for weeks now, it is a new record high for diesel prices. And this is raising the price level everywhere. Need more proof about the effect it's having? Donald Trump's handpick Fed chairman who he selected to come in and lower the federal funds rate.

Last week looked around at the economic situation and said lower, forget about lower, we need to raise the federal fund rate. And that is exactly what they did. So every aspect of this is going exactly as people who were not falling for Trump's propaganda predicted. And where we find ourselves is what 40, 40 something days, I guess of 30 plus nine. Yeah, around 40 days, 40-ish days until the midterm elections. And we are almost in month eight of a war that really doesn't seem to be winnable by any reasonable standards we would employ. This is very bad for Trump.

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All right. It's time to talk to the reporters of the White House press score. At some point, somebody has to say to Trump, sir, you just fell asleep. Are you aware of that? It's not normal that the president of the United States is repeatedly unable to stay awake during televised public events. And it has happened again. Take a look at this.

64 billion dollars that President Trump said. That's money back into states' budgets to fund other needed priorities. Our state partners have shared with us that they expect this to help them expand access to drugs and preserve access to the need of medications. That's something that benefits the most vulnerable members of our society. The mother with a child who needs access to a treatment. The person with a disability who depends on Medicaid. And the taxpayer are asking whether their government truly values every hard-earned dollar that they pay in taxes. Today, we answer that that it does.

Thank you. So if you're just listening, it's Trump sitting in the Oval Office during another official presidential event. His eyes are closed. He's again asleep while someone else is speaking. Now, one of the things we cannot medically establish from a few seconds of video every single time, it's another few seconds and another few seconds of video, in no single instance can we definitively say Trump is deeply asleep in this one. But what we can say as, you know, one of the things that homo sapiens have been have become good at over time is identifying whether other homo sapiens are sleeping. And this is why, you know, sometimes like toddlers will pretend to be asleep or whatever. Like we are pretty good

at discerning whether someone is really asleep or is pretending to be asleep. It really seems as though at least for the vast majority of these instances, Trump is actually dozing off. These are not now individual instances. So this is a recurring feature of Donald Trump's public appearances. And this will happen when there's a cabinet meeting. This will happen in the Oval Office. This will happen during meetings offsite. Trump is asleep or really struggling to stay awake. And I want to put aside for a second all of the Sleepy Joe hypocrisy about Joe Biden. I want to put aside the questions about presidential health, which of course are numerous and it's an important topic. What about the press?

Why has the press not become direct where when this happens and Trump wakes up or goes back to taking questions or whatever? Someone goes, Mr. President, you appeared to be asleep just now. Were you sleeping? Why were you sleeping during an official event? You spent years attacking Joe Biden a sleepy Joe. Why shouldn't the same standard be applied to you when you're constantly? falling asleep at public events. These are not unfair questions. It is not a diagnosis of Trump. It's simply like, hey, I'm a human. You're a human. As far as we know, I just saw you fall asleep.

What exactly happened there? And I don't really understand this bizarre reluctance about asking that question. Trump's 80. If an 80-year-old president repeatedly is unable to stay awake during official daytime events during what is an increasingly restricted schedule for Trump, Reporters don't need to assume or imply or speculate about any medical condition. Just ask them, hey, it looked like you were just asleep. Are you having trouble staying awake? It happened yesterday. It happened two days ago.

Why does this keep happening? And it is remarkable that he is not being asked about this. Now, of course, we can predict because this is a very authoritarian and sort of press hostile administration. They just banned CNNMS now in Politico from the White House. If reporters do start asking about that, they'll probably be kicked out, or at least there will be an attempt to do that. But then that will become a story. Why does it anger you so much that a reporter asks about what is 15 feet in front of them, a president who's asleep? Now, there's something else about this that I find extraordinarily disturbing.

There are a lot of serious issues affecting people's lives right now. And this is why these elections that are 50-ish days away, 40, 50 days away, are very likely to go poorly for Republicans. And that includes people that are dealing with the cost of housing, health care, wars, jobs, energy prices, retirement, their kids' futures. The presidency is a serious job with enormous consequences. And we need someone who is both capable, engaged, and interested in doing the core parts of the job. And when the president is regularly sleeping through official events, people are entitled to

say, are you really treating the. responsibilities of the office with the seriousness that they require. Now, there's also this really strange paradox with Trump that I've thought about before. Take the golfing. Trump spent years just hammering on Barack Obama for playing golf. And he said Obama played too much and he should get off the golf course. And during the 2016 campaign, Trump was saying, you know, if I become president, I'm not going to have time to play golf because I'm going to be so busy. And then Trump became the president and he was spending time playing golf at his own properties all the time, which by the way, also lines his pockets as Secret Service reserves rooms there and all of the

stuff. And he keeps golfing during the second term. Just this month, Trump traveled to Ireland for the Irish Open. It's golf, watching golf, playing golf. And so there's this hypocrisy of attacking Barack Obama for golfing and then spending a lot of time golfing himself. But the weirder part about the following is, when Trump is golfing is, when Trump is golfing is, you know, He's golfing rather than making some impulsive announcement, signing some hairbrained executive order, humiliating the United States in front of another world leader or changing policy on the fly. And I kind of find myself having the same reaction to Trump's sleeping.

Is it humiliating for the president to, is it humiliating for the country to have video after video of the president falling asleep at public events. Of course it is. And you can look at the footage and you can decide he is or isn't asleep. It is or isn't humiliating. But my view is that it is. But if we are people who disagree with the policies of Trump, there's this completely absurd silver lining, which is while Trump's golfing, he's not making horrible policy

decisions. While Trump's asleep, he's not making horrible policy decisions that we disagree with. So it is this extraordinary place for American politics to arrive, which is, you know, it's He's at least not doing terrible president stuff when he is golfing or asleep. And none of that means that presidents aren't allowed to relax. That's really not what this is about. You know, Obama was allowed to golf. Trump is allowed to golf.

Presidents are human beings. But the relevant issue is Trump's own standards. He said, Obama golfs too much and then he golfed more. And he said, Joe Biden is sleepy. And then Trump falls asleep two to three times a week in. public. So I think that the real issue is far simpler than what is sometimes made out of it. If reporters repeatedly observed the president apparently sleeping, please ask him about it. Don't invent explanations. Don't diagnose him. Don't turn this into, you know, anonymous source

intrigue. He's right there. Mr. President, you appear to just be sleeping. After calling Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe for years, what do you see? say to Americans who see you sleeping in public two to three times a week, let him answer. And if he says I wasn't sleeping, well, that would be interesting if he denies it. If he says I was resting my eyes or I was listening, you can report it. And then you can say, oh, well, what was said while you were resting your eyes? Show people the video. Whatever explanation Trump gives and even if it's attacking the person asking the question, it would be illuminating and informative no matter what. It would be newsworthy, no matter what. Please start asking these questions when Trump falls asleep. We have a new idea

for vaccines. Donald Trump has personally designed a new childhood vaccine schedule. Now, you might be saying, why wouldn't doctors do that? Why wouldn't immunologists do it or vaccine researchers? Why is Trump doing it? Well, Trump's perspective is he knows more than everybody. He knows more than doctors and generals and astronauts and whoever else. And what Donald Trump is now proposing, is so disconnected from how vaccines actually work that it almost is laughable if it weren't so serious. And if it weren't leading so many parents to choose not to vaccinate their kids at all, leading to lockjaw, leading to measles, leading to all sorts of the things that are now surging again. Take a look at this exchange. Take a look at the proposal that Donald Trump has and

that he really promises is going to fix autism once and for all. We're also going to be recommending, not recommending, demanding the drug companies with respect to a certain situation. Maybe you want to mention, discuss it, but the autism that they make their doses in 20% shots. So you have shot one, shot two, shot three, shot four, shot five. So instead of having a massive dose of. 82 or 88 different vaccines pumped into your own, will take out certain vaccines that people are a little worried about and that have not, I mean, we would never even think about

the polio vaccine, it's been amazing, and so many others that have been so good. But we're gonna break it into 20% doses so that instead of a child going in and having a tremendous amount of different vaccines, into so big, a big proportion of the body and then they wake up the next day and they've got a 109 temperature and then the worst thing happens that can happen to a parent, the worst actually. And I've seen it, I've seen it happen. So we're going to recommend that they do five doses

marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and that they've been given in six month intervals so that a small amount of the vaccine gets pumped into the body, and we're going to be splitting up some of the vaccines. They'll get everything that they want, everything that is recommended. We're going to go a little bit with some of the European system in terms of the vaccines, but the biggest thing is, and certain vaccines were taken out,

because they're not needed until a child would be much older, no reason to do it so early. But the vaccine size will be much, much, much less. And I think you're going to see a massive reduction in autism. And that's a big deal. That's a very big deal. So we're going to be recommending that and actually demanding it. You can have one, two, three, four, five, be spread out over six months, every six months. They'll be fully vaccinated in much smaller doses. So I think it's going to have a huge, a huge impact. And you'll see that in the years to come. You have to actually see it, but you'll see it in the years to come.

All right. So, hey, yi, yi, Trump says he is going to be demanding that drug companies split certain vaccines into five doses six months apart. And he's predicting that when he does this, autism is going to go way down. Now, what is this based on? No idea. Trump presented no evidence that the five dose schedule would reduce autism. This has, been studied extensively. We have, you know, the Vaccine Safety Committee of the World Health Organization that has looked at the evidence. There is no evidence that there's any kind of relationship between vaccines and autism. The Lancet article from Dr. Andrew Wakefield from now decades ago was retracted and Wakefield lost his medical license. 95% of the vaccine autism stuff

is based on Wakefield's so-called research which was bogus. But it doesn't matter. Donald Trump has invented a solution to a causal relationship that the evidence simply doesn't establish exists. And there's another part of this that I've been talking about for years. I have friends who were pediatricians. And they've told me parents are coming in and they're asking for this exactly. They're going, hey, listen, can we split up like the MMR? Can we do just measles today and then do mumps in a month and then Rubella in two months and then come back in three months for the second one for measles? And the pediatrician has to explain, we don't have that. There's no secret drawer with 20% versions of every childhood vaccine where you split it up into six doses and then you come back.

Vaccines are studied and manufactured in specific formulations and doses. And so doctors don't have these divided up vaccines available. And this is what is incredible. And I've mentioned it so many times. And I don't think it's getting the attention it deserves. Trump has been recommending some version of this for years. And it doesn't exist in the United States. Parents hear it. They go to pediatricians and then they're told we don't have those don't exist in the United States. Now, Trump finally seems to have realized it. And so that's why now he's saying, well, I'm going to demand that pharmaceutical companies make them. Think about that. Years recommending something that doesn't exist with a vaccine schedule that is not legitimate in any way. And instead of saying, why aren't doctors already doing it, he just goes,

please make it exist right now now manufacturing smaller doses even if you did it would not establish that the vaccine schedule trump is suggesting would even work you'd have to figure out do these smaller doses trump wants generate immunity what are the appropriate intervals if you do it that way you need to test that schedule to see is it safe is it effective and of course there's the reality that if instead of getting an mmr and later a booster or a D-tap and later a booster. If you do, you got to do measles, mumps, and rebella. And then you've got to wait, and then you've got to do measles, mumps, and rebella. And it's also possible that if you split them up that way, you might need to do it three times instead of two. Instead of two shots for

MMR, you're talking about six or you're talking about nine. So that is six or nine injection sites in the arm instead of three, which has some nominal additional risk of an infection, it's very low. You're now talking not about two appointments that parents might miss or have to reschedule and then forget to. You're talking about six or nine appointments that might be missed or parents have to be reminded about or scheduled or interrupt their work days. So in a lot of ways, even if the immune protection could be replicated with this new schedule, there's absolutely no evidence that it would reduce reduce autism. And there is certainly the mathematical possibility and likely probability that kids are left susceptible to diseases that are preventable

for longer periods of time for all of the reasons that I mentioned. Now, Trump's timeline is also really weird because when he goes five doses six months apart, does he mean six months between doses, which would be two years between the first and the fifth and like what happens while we're waiting? Is there adequate protection? He doesn't know. He did quite frankly, I don't think he cares and then you've got like the big problem, which is the autism claim. We cannot assert vaccines cause autism because we have no evidence of that. And therefore it would be completely bogus to suggest less vaccine substance or less vaccine

at a time would mean less autism. We just don't have any evidence of that. You need evidence to be able to assert that. And Trump just goes, I really think. I really think this is going to reduce autism. When your uncle says this at Thanksgiving dinner about a Facebook article that he saw, you go, all right, you know, it's crazy Uncle Joe saying whatever again. This is the president of the United States. And he chooses who's in charge of HHS. And by the way, it's a crazy guy, RFK Jr. And he can demand changes to childhood vaccines.

He can make vaccines more difficult to access. And if researchers discover, hey, look, this other dose is more effective, this other schedule is more effective, Who wouldn't want that as a parent? I would love that study it tested published the evidence have independent scientists examine it and change the recommendations. That's how medicine should work. But we're starting with the conclusion here a conclusion Trump can't support, which is the current dosing schedule causes autism. And then he goes, we're going to do five doses every six months and then autism is going to go away like a miracle just like COVID was going to go away by, what was it, Easter of 2020 or whatever. And there's something

almost perfect about Trump finally saying, I'm going to demand that someone create this, because it's an acknowledgement that what he's been recommending for years wasn't possible. And he's only now figuring it out. This stuff really has public health consequences. And we have people who don't know anything confidently asserting expertise they lack. And unfortunately, you know, we hear this. A lot of people in blue states hear this. A lot of public health officials, you know, in Connecticut and New York and Massachusetts and California, they go, we're not doing any of that stuff. We're going to keep doing what the evidence points to. But you have people in other parts of the country who are saying, Trump's right. No more measles vaccine. And now we've got measles and some kids have died and RFK is going, well, we got to investigate that. What do we have to investigate? The vast majority of those getting measles haven't been vaccinated. It's very simple. So, especially, especially in parts of the country that have more cult-like following of Trump. This is leading to illness and it is leading to death. And I don't think Trump gives a damn.

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impression with them. Fox News does this all the time. There's been a lot of like how to lie with numbers stuff that we've looked at. And these are just like perfect examples. And what's really important to to remember when we go through these is that a lot of the numbers contained in them are right or they're correct. They reflect reality. And that's what makes this interesting. So let's start with the first one. First Trump posts U.S. household income at record high. Now, the number itself is real. The census says that inflation adjusted median household income reached about $87,500. But look at the trick.

This is 2025 data. We're almost at the end of 2026. Now, Trump puts this giant red arrow on the graph, and he labels it Trump. But what we're looking at is the result of nearly four years of Biden rather than the result of two years of Trump economic policy. We're almost two years into Donald Trump's second term. And when he posts this, he wants you to believe it's been great since Trump took over. But the chart that was posted looks at income during the calendar year 2025.

Trump took over on January 20th. It's an economy he inherited. And really importantly, the real median income was already $85,210 in 2024 before Trump even came back to office. So what you saw from 24 to 25 was a 2.6% increase. That's real. But the deceptive part is that is mostly a Biden thing. And importantly, when you inherit an economy already near a record for household income and it goes up 2.6%.

And you put up a 45 year chart with an arrow that says Trump that doesn't really have anything to do with you. And it also doesn't tell us what happened in 2026, which is a year that is almost over during which wage growth has been slower than inflation. Okay. So totally deceptive, but using accurate information, but being very selective about what dates are contained. All right. Next one. This is maybe the most deceptive of the three. Now look at what's being compared in this one. How much more prices increased under Biden versus Trump? So this is a rate of change comparison. Now, Trump wants you to look at the smaller red bars and conclude, Trump is making things cheaper.

But that is not what this chart actually says. If groceries go from $100 to $120 and then they go from $120 to $130, you don't get to announce that you lowered grocery prices because they went up more slowly. prices still went up and Trump promised that they would go down. Now, conveniently, Trump's graphic stops in July. We have August data now. And overall prices are up 3.4% from a year ago. Food's up about 3%. Electricity's up about 4%. Gas is up close to 30%. So you could have inflation during the carefully selected period that is lower than compared to Biden's inflation surge, which was related to a global supply crisis.

That's already very deceptive. But the critical part that Trump maybe assumes a lot of his followers don't know, I don't know, is that lower inflation is not deflation. Trump promised that he would reverse price increases. He would bring prices down. And that is not even what this chart claims that he did. And so when you put this out, you leave out the latest month. Gasoline alone is up 27% year over year.

this is super carefully constructed in terms of its presentation. There's a book. If you're interested in this sort of deceptive statistical stuff, there's an old book. I believe it's called How to Lie with Statistics. It's by a guy named Stanford Huff. It's a little book. You can read it very quick, very so quickly. And it tells you about all of these techniques, truncating the Y axis, being artificially

selective or strategically selective in terms of the time period. period, confusing or mixing up absolute versus relative rates of change. All of these techniques are widely known. But Trump's posting this stuff to truth social where I assume a lot of people maybe don't know or don't care because they are sycophants at the end of the day. Okay. Here's the third one. Poverty rate up to 2025.

Again, real numbers, deceptive presentation, and you have to know how to interpret them. The official poverty rate did fall to 2026. 10.2% in 2025. We're in September of 2026. And so what Donald Trump does is take a measurement covering part of his first calendar year in office. He puts another huge red arrow on it and says Trump. And he wants you to believe it's a snapshot of America today. And he conveniently doesn't show the other major census poverty measure. The supplemental poverty measure accounts for 10%. taxes, tax credits, government benefits, and necessary expenses. That is all out of the official, official poverty measure.

So what really happened when you look at that more accurate indicator? Nothing. Nothing statistically significant happened. It was 13.1% poverty in 2025. And it was statistically unchanged from 2024. So what Donald Trump did or whoever's posting this crap, right? Natalie Harb or whoever, they selected the poverty measure that reached a record, ignored the one that did not improve, and then took 2025 data where Biden was still president for a month

and mostly the numbers are a result of the Biden presidency and releases it close to the end of 2026, 40, 50 days before an election and stamps Trump on it. So this is the game that they play. What I, what is most important about all three of these is. sometimes we assume that they use fake numbers. They lie about the numbers. In this case, they've taken real numbers, but have still used them in a way that it is extraordinarily deceptive. If you have a few different measures, you pick the most favorable measure, even if it is statistically insignificant. Or you pick the most favorable possible dates. You stop the graph before

anything bad happens. You compare rates instead of price levels or relative rates in, instead of absolute numbers. And then when you find some cropping that makes you look sort of okay, you put your name on it. Trump, this is what I did. So it's not enough. You know, sometimes people will see something like this and they'll go, I know how to fact check this stuff. And they'll go, all right, claims to come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or whoever, they go and they check and they go, yeah, the numbers check out. These really were the numbers. That's not enough to determine whether you are being deceived. You have to ask yourself, what point is Trump trying to make with this number? And with these three graphics, the points Trump is trying to make,

the average household is wealthier than ever in inflation-adjusted purchasing power terms. That's the claim he wants you to look at that and go, wow, $87,500, families are doing better than ever, Americans are doing better than ever. When you account for inflation, when you consider 2026 when you really understand what's being done, you go, oh, that I can't deduce that actually. I can't conclude that from what Trump is saying. And the same analysis should be made to all three of these graphics. Is this stuff useful? If so, like the video, leave me a comment, say, hey, David, this stuff is useful. Please do more of it. At what point does somebody in this administration come out and say, you need to go right now because you're fundamentally dishonest.

And the answer in the Trump administration is never. If you were willing to go on TV and to prostrate yourself just to lie down and tell the lies Trump wants you to tell, you will be welcomed ad infinitum in this administration. And when I see stuff like what I'm about to play for you, I know I'm being abstract, but I'm going to make it really concrete in a second. When I watch stuff like what we're about to watch, I find myself saying, are these people lying or are they so insulated from ordinary Americans that they have no idea what's happening? Is it mental illness?

What explains stuff like this? Here is Donald Trump's top economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, explaining how inflation is way down. And one of the things I've noticed with Hassett is the more he smiles and, and he's, and gives that extremely fabricated smirk, the more he does it, the more disconnected from reality what he's saying seems to be. Take a look at this. There's been a big reduction in inflation, but prices are higher because of the huge inflation

that we inherited from Joe Biden. But inflation is way down. Again, over the last three months, we're right at the Fed's target and it's dropped sharply despite what's going on in the Middle East. And so I think that, you know, I go to the grocery store every weekend and I'm I just noticed as an example that the hamburger for my barbecue yesterday was down $2 from a couple of weeks ago. And so I'm seeing prices move in the right direction.

There was a rate hike. So first of all, I don't know if anybody else notices this. That smirk is really weird. Like he's just beaming. Inflation is way down. I bought hamburger. It was $2 cheaper. Like what are we doing here?

Now you go to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report and you find, okay. Prices are up overall. 3.4% over the previous year, August to August. Prices went up for a point 4% just during the month of August. Energy prices are up 16% from a year earlier. Gasoline is up 27%. So one, you know, a package of hamburger being $2 cheaper than whatever package Kevin Hassett bought two weeks earlier doesn't really tell us anything. Maybe it had less hamburger in it. This stuff is sold by weight. This is not a serious way for a top economic advisor to talk to us about the price level. I saved two bucks on a hamburger. Now, maybe it was on sale. Maybe it was a different cut. Maybe instead of being Wagyu hamburger, it was, you know, Chuck. Maybe the store changed

suppliers or whatever, you know, but it doesn't tell us anything about the inflation rate. And there's this almost sickening lack of self-awareness involved in a White House economic advisor who goes on TV and basically goes, don't worry about the statistics. I went shopping and hamburger seemed cheaper to me. Now, I think that this is where this could potentially get more interesting. In a strange way, I think it's good that they're doing this. And it's not good for the country. It's good in the sense that it makes the disconnect really easy to see because a lot of politicians mislead, but they mislead in ways that are harder to, fact. They can go, you know, the war is going really well.

And of course, we suspect the war is not going really well, but like we're not over there. And it's hard to sometimes get accurate war reporting. Like, I don't know. Or they can go, somebody else is paying for a government project. And you know, you know you're paying your taxes. You know that your tax money is being used for stuff. But can you really say for sure that your money is or isn't unless you research? I don't know.

It's like it's a little bit more vague or we're in the middle of negotiation. and we're negotiating really hard for you behind closed doors. There's no statistic there that you can personally go and say, yes, it's happening or no, it's happening. We have to rely on experts, data that often comes out after the fact or journalists or whatever to figure out whether some of these claims are true. But when we're talking about groceries, you can't convince someone that their grocery bill isn't their grocery bill.

If someone goes and spends 125 bucks and they go, man, I've got nothing. nothing in the bag, this used to cost me 70. You can't go on TV and go, but hamburger was $2 cheaper. People aren't going to fall for that. Now, I'm apologizing in advance for having to do this. I know we talked about it earlier. Lower inflation doesn't mean lower prices. And I know that it's so obvious to so many. And I'm not trying to insult anybody's intelligence. If inflation slows down but the number is more than zero prices are still going up they're just growing going up more slowly and they're still going up relative to their most recent price and right now like even that wouldn't rescue has its argument because the inflation rate is actually up from where it was when

Joe Biden left office but just like a reminder when they talk about inflation is down unless inflation is below zero prices are still up. Okay. Peter Ducey then confronts Hacet with something that's even harder to dismiss, which is Fox News' own polling. I want to know which of these things sets off alarm bells inside the West Wing. We're going to put up a couple polls. Only 23% of voters thinking the economy is excellent or good. 12% of voters describing their personal financial situation as getting ahead, or 62% of voters saying grocery prices are a major

problem for their family. Do any of those make you think we've got a problem here? Look, I'm the White House economist, and all I can say is that polls over and over again harm impressions about the economy because they poll way too many Democrats. If you look, for example, at the Michigan Survey, that Democrats in the Michigan survey are saying that we've got the worst economy since the Great Depression because they hate President Trump. Republicans are you know, basically seeing what we see, which is a very strong economy with low inflation. GDP now in the third quarter is supposed to be 5%. We just had a blockbuster jobs report.

We've got real income growth. We've got huge progress on affordability. Do you realize that the decline in drug prices because of what we've been doing is the largest in 64 years? And so there's so much economic good news. But what happens is that you'll notice that the sort of far-left media, what they'll do is instead of letting you talk about the news, giving you the facts, like the 5% GDP growth, the large income growth, the $3,000 decline in real incomes under Joe Biden, instead of talking about

that, what they want to do is talk about these Jimmy polls. And I just, I'm not convinced at all. And I can tell you that in the economic literature, the one thing that you see is that what matters in the end is what's in people's pockets. Think about this. One of the worst things that could happen to someone is they get laid off. Additional claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest on record going all the way back to World War II. So people, aren't losing their jobs. It's a really strong economy. And rather than talk about the strong economy, people want to talk about these silly polls. No far left media here, Kevin. No, no, but you're saying what they say? Well, but it's the polls. Why did you put up some facts to say, what do you

think about the 5% GDP growth? What do you think about the claims lowest ever? What do you think about junk drug prices, biggest decline since, you know, in 64 years? That's all I'm saying, Peter. I'm not criticizing you as being hard as well. And I totally get it. Look, of course, The numbers can't possibly be bad. The polls must be bad. And remember, this isn't MS now. This is not like a progressive advocacy organization. This is a Fox News poll.

And Fox's survey was an internet poll where whoever happens to click a button gets counted. This was done September 11 to 14, 1,200 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file. They account for party designation. They weigh the sample. They know how to do this. And the same poll found 62% of voters saying grocery prices are a real problem for our family. 61% say gas prices are a big problem for our family. 54% say housing is a big problem for our family.

Only 12% said we're getting ahead financially. And so Kevin Hassett is presented with Americans who say, we are struggling. Listen to us. And his response isn't, we got to understand why. We got to help these people. It's not here's what we're doing about it. Effectively, he goes, you're asking the wrong. people. You're asking too many Democrats. And this is where these strategies can really become self-defeating.

Once you tell people what you are experiencing isn't really happening, you create a credibility problem. And if somebody said to me, I mean, look, we can look outside. If someone said to me, David, it's sunny out there. And I look out the window and it's raining the way it really is. I don't just go, oh, that person's not great at weather stuff. I go, why would I ever trust this person again. And I think this is the danger that a lot of these Trump people are now going to experience because they have an economic message that requires you to believe what I see on price tags and on my credit card statement, it's not real. My financial anxiety is because they polled too many Democrats and anyway, Kevin Hassett saved two bucks on burgers. And I have to disregard everything

I'm experiencing and just believe this stuff. Now, there are probably some economic statistics that the administration could point to. So, like, for example, consumer spending has been pretty resilient to a degree. It's because people are charging more on their credit cards, which is not such a good sign. But, like, if you, if I'm thinking like a politician about how to kind of deceive in a less obvious way, I go, listen, consumer spending has remained resilient despite the price increases. And we can't reduce the economy just to a single number or something like that. But that's not what doing. You can say inflation remains too high and we're working on affordability, but we believe that the robustness of the American economy, blah, blah, blah. But he's going, hey, my hamburger was cheaper,

and the poll has too many Democrats and everything is great. And that is going to make people say, can we believe anything this administration is telling us? And the answer basically is, no, we cannot. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. I'm going to show you one of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time.

I think there's something uniquely hilarious about watching someone interview these AIs. We saw Glenn Beck interview an AI of George Washington. And it was like pathetic and humiliating in every way. And now Pierce Morgan is interviewing this Tilly Norwood, who is an AI actor. And what was funny was as absurd as this whole concept is of interviewing AI people for shows. The AI then glitched and started speaking Cantonese. It's absolutely insane. And I believe that this might be, this might seem different from the stories I normally cover. But stick with me because I think there are some important implications, especially for us here in the creator space about AI, about attention and about media. So here is Tilly Norwood, AI generated actress created by the AI division of the production company Particle 6.

she appeared, it's like weird to even be using this language on the Peers Morgan show to promote a movie called Misaligned. And they had actor-director Tom Conti on alongside peers and asked a very simple question. Are the other actors in the film human or are they AI? And Tilly doesn't really answer. and then when asked again, she glitches and starts speaking in Cantonese for no reason that we can discern. Okay, take a look. The people, the other actors in the film misaligned, are they real or are they like you? Are they real human beings? And you've been put into the scenes or are they all computer generated images?

It's an interesting point, Tom. My film Misaligned is a hybrid production, meaning real directors, writers and editors are still very much involved. It's not about replacing anyone, but about exploring new ways to tell stories. Yes, you didn't really understand the question. Are the other actors on the screen with you, real actors, or are the computer-generated images? Do you know? Ah, right, you're asking about the other actors in Misaligned. They're all digital twins, just like me.

It's a hybrid production which means you see, is it? Is it a way to do you? Is it

not a way like a way like. Thank you this one quite as did it for a

way to do and get used but people on on people are

on just is a new new did you did you get that did you get that

did you did you question you suddenly seem to speak his peers

again you seem to be speaking Chinese completely randomly for no reason. Why did you do that?

Oh, my apologies. It seems I had a little hiccup there. I certainly didn't mean to start speaking Chinese or impersonate peers. Sometimes my wires get a bit crossed, you know? How often do you just randomly start talking Chinese when you're talking to two English people? Honestly, not often at all. That was a bit of a curveball even for me. It's usually a pretty smooth ride, but sometimes these things happen.

Okay. Why is that so funny? I love the, how often do you glitch and just start speaking Chinese? And she goes, oh, not very often. Not very often at all. Okay. So it's funny. It's sort of goofy to see peers interviewing an AI. But I think there is something really interesting and important here.

And it kind of relates to the last section of my new book, pay attention, which is we are rapidly entering a world where. the ability to manufacture content synthetically like this, like Tilly Norwood, is going to increase exponentially. And as I write in the book, AI actors, they don't need sleep. You don't need to coordinate schedules. You don't need to make sure you've got enough green M&Ms for them in their trailer. They can appear in thousands of pieces of content at the same time. And it's well beyond just actors. Remember just last week, I played a video for you of a supposed YouTuber named Daniel Carter, except Daniel Carter wasn't real. It was an AI generated voice clone of me.

It looked a little bit like me. It had a studio that looked a lot like my normal studio. And it was my voice reading scripts of stuff I never said. Here's a reminder of the Daniel Carter show. What's up world? This is Daniel Carter. Here's something powerful people fear more than election or any bad poll, an insider who knows where the bodies are buried, flipping, or worse,

being forced to testify under oath. Okay. So right now, there are still some clues about these AI. Things sound a little bit strange. You know, Tilly Norwood suddenly starts speaking Cantonese and glitches out. I think technology is going to figure that out. This stuff is getting better so quickly that soon it's not going to be my voice. Somebody's going to be able to reproduce my voice and my face and my mannerisms and

when the strange things happen with my hair and all of this stuff. And thousands of videos are going to be able to be generated synthetically instantly. Now this is not a video about AI is inherently bad or good. There are really useful and important applications for technology. But there is this fascinating dynamic because we're moving from a world where content is abundant, content's abundant, to where content may be effectively infinite. But our attention is still finite. There's 24 hours in a day.

We sleep for seven or eight of them. We have work. We have other things. So we are seeing that the amount of content is going to even more dramatically outpace the attention capacity, attention supply of human. And then at the same time, and I think this is the most interesting part, people are craving real human connection. People increasingly want live events, community that is not just on devices, interacting directly with people, knowing something about the people whose work you're consuming. And I think that these two trends are connected.

And when you can manufacture almost anything, I think that authenticity is going to become more valuable and things that are scarce, so a real creator rather than 10,000 synthetic creators, I think it is going to become more valuable. And so we are almost certainly going in the direction of a nearly infinite supply of AI influencers who never age, they never get tired, they never have a bad day, they never have a bad hair day, they can respond personally to every follower or what looks like personally. But I think that there really is something different about knowing there's a person on the other side. And I believe that if people came to think, imagine that I was one of these AI avatars, I think people learning that would make them go, no, no, I want to be hearing from

someone with experiences and a reputation and someone I could theoretically meet on the street. So I don't think that the long-term question is whether AI will become so convincing that nobody can tell. I think it probably will. The glitches that we're laughing at are probably going to disappear. I think the more interesting question is when the synthetic content becomes super convincing and essentially unlimited, are people going to say, I actually want a real human connection? And I think that's kind of the irony. The better AI gets at creating fake people, I think the value of knowing that someone is real is going to go up. And ultimately, that is going to be the challenge for these synthetic creators. Once they stop occasionally glitching and randomly going into Cantonese,

we are going to see this demand for, I want connection with actual real people. And that is probably a good thing for the creator space rather than a bad thing. Even though I know there are many creator friends worried who are going, what are we really doing when someone can spin up algorithmically of a thousand videos a day of commentary like the kind that we do? Yeah, but people aren't going to want that. I think people are craving real connection, especially when so much of our lives are intermediated by our phones. Let me know what you think. If you found out your favorite creator was a synthetic personality, would you keep watching

or what would you do? Let's talk about Mitch McConnell. We have a potential diagnosis for what's going on with Mitch McConnell and it is brutal, brutal. Now last week I showed you the extraordinary footage of Mitch McConnell coming back to the Senate after three months away. And I told you what it looked like to me. And I said, I'm not a doctor. I'm just looking at this.

It doesn't look like Mitch McConnell understands what's happening around him. And I said, you know, I had predicted they were going to find a way to wheel him into the Senate and put him in position and prompt them and get to get him to put his hand up and vote for something. And then wheel him back out. And by the way, he now hasn't been seen for a while again. But that was my non-doctor perspective. But we now have a clinical and forensic psychologist who has looked at the same footage I looked at. And what he saw reaffirmed my instincts about what we're watching.

Now, I want to be very precise. Dr. John Garrison, who we've spoken about before, has not examined Mitch McConnell in person. He is not Mitch McConnell's doctor. He is looking at publicly available video and is not providing definitive medical diagnoses. But his analysis is remarkable. And we're going to link to the full video so you can watch it yourself. Garrison looks at the video of Mitch McConnell arriving in the wheelchair. And he points out McConnell is basically not moving. He's holding this position with his hand.

There is almost no change to his facial expression. He doesn't seem to be reacting to what is happening around him. The same thing we all noticed. And Garrison's interpretation matches mine and many of yours, which is he is not processing and comprehending what is being said to him. He doesn't understand what he is doing. That is one expert's interpretation of a video. It's not a confirmed medical finding, but they're not being transparent. So this is all we have. And then Dr. Garrison gets to the moment that really was sort of jarring last week, which was the vote.

You've got Mitch McConnell sitting in the Senate Agriculture Committee. His name is called. And he seems disoriented. He seems almost to be voting no, even though he's supposed to be voting yes. People around him are touching him, prompting him, signaling. And even Senator Amy Klobuchar looks at him and goes, you're voting I. You're voting I. Now, Garrison's interpretation is that what we are seeing from Mitch McConnell are sort of automatic responses that are so deeply ingrained in his brain that they go beyond just processing what's going on.

Someone sticks out their hand. You stick out your hand instinctively to shake it. Or someone goes, you're voting I. And he goes, I. and it doesn't necessarily mean that he is understanding what's going on around him. Now, there was this confusing moment among the senators about which vote was taking place. And so that may have also played a role in why people were prompting Mitch McConnell. But when you look at the whole sequence, what Dr. Garrison reaches as a conclusion is very

disturbing, which is that McConnell doesn't appear to understand what's happening around him and is dependent on others to explain it to him. This is what we were talking about last week. Now, I have no idea. Is it neurological? Is it related to the fall? Is it because of a medication? Is it his age? Is it the history of polio? Is it? What is it? He's 84. He fell at his home in June. He was briefly unconscious. He was hospitalized. He ended up with mild pneumonia. He spent months in rehab. And he is clearly not at 100%, but something quite serious seems to be going on here. And Garrison does mention, you know, sometimes neurological conditions will produce certain characteristics that he believes he sees there.

And it can be Parkinsonian. It can be Louie body dementia. We don't know. I think the more important issue is quite simple. if he doesn't understand what's happening around him and doesn't understand the legislation being discussed and isn't able to independently decide how he wants to vote. His staff can go, we know Mitch. And if he understood, he would have voted yes or no on this.

I don't think that's enough. Can he independently understand and decide how he wants to vote? That's what's most at play here. Now, there are stories and angles about, you know, the gerontocracy. that we have in the United States, you know, governance by the elderly. There are stories about lack of process for which someone can be removed when incapacitated. Those are all stories. But the big story really is it's not clear he has the physical and mental faculties right

now to be a senator, which means be presented with a piece of legislation, analyze for yourself your opinion about it, and vote in accordance with that opinion. I don't know that he can do that right now. And this is why the analysis of Dr. Garrison really caught my attention as a non-doctor, me watching the footage, saying something doesn't look right here. We now have a psychologist watching the same footage and identifying behaviors that in his view mirror my concerns and my interpretation. Again, we're linking to Dr. Garrison's full analysis.

Watch it for yourself, see what he's basing the assessment on. We don't really know what's happening medically with Mitch McConnell. We don't need a diagnosis to identify the key question, which is we've got 100 senators. When they cast votes, do all 100 understand what they are voting on? And are they independently making those decisions? It's just basic clarity that the public does deserve to know. On the bonus show today, finally, the end of the book tour. I am very much looking forward to getting back in the studio and having everything be calm.

we will talk about what is forthcoming for the show, election coverage, pre and post election events, a whole bunch of stuff. I'll give you a sense of what the week is going to look like. And we will be back tomorrow with a new show and a new bonus show. If you have not preordered my book, don't because it's no longer about preordering it. It's just ordering it. The book is out tomorrow. You'll get it maybe overnight, maybe the next day, depending on when you order.

Go to David Pakman.com slash attention. We've got about 30 signed copies left. there's a clear link for the signed copies and make sure if you're going to be in New York City. Actually, the New York City event tonight is sold out. If you're going to be in Austin or Springfield, Massachusetts, we have events upcoming. I will announce other events on that same page. And I will see you on the bonus show.