The David Pakman Show - Trump UN disaster as McConnell freezes again and diesel goes nuclear

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump renames artificial intelligence to super intelligence and muses publicly about annihilating Iran during a United Nations speech -- Donald Trump delivers disjointed remarks about the midterms and military power while warning of rapid foreign action against Iran -- Marco Rubio claims diesel fuel prices would reach $18 per gallon without Donald Trump despite current average prices hitting record highs -- Mitch McConnell recently returned to Congress in a wheelchair after a three-month absence while ignoring public questions about his capabilities -- Donald Trump searches for Marco Rubio despite Rubio sitting directly beside him and jokes about dropping him off in Cuba -- Donald Trump posts a late-night rant labeling reporter Kaitlan Collins treasonous and calling federal judge Timothy Kelly disloyal -- Donald Trump defends barring journalists from the Oval Office by arguing that negative news coverage harms the country -- Tony Fabrizio co-conducts an Alaska poll showing Mary Peltola leading Dan Sullivan as Donald Trump's local approval drops -- On the Bonus Show: Stories from David's travel and book events, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🐶 Sundays for Dogs: Get 30% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://sundaysfordogs.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 (01:42) Trump addresses the United Nations (11:23) Trump rambles during world leader meeting (21:35) Rubio defends high national diesel prices (30:29) McConnell returns to Senate amid scrutiny (39:00) Trump loses track of Marco Rubio (45:45) Trump attacks reporter over news coverage (54:02) Trump responds to media access lawsuit (1:01:15) Trump pollster survey shows midterm risks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming up today, the United Nations General Assembly, Trump off the rails, announcing that artificial intelligence has been renamed super intelligence, and then he waxes poetic about whether to annihilate Iran. Trump sat down with world leaders. He couldn't find Marco Rubio when Rubio was sitting next to him. And then he launched into this rambling sequence that is impossible to follow. Now, Meanwhile, Marco Rubio himself has an extraordinary explanation for record high diesel prices. And the explanation is simply, without Trump, they would be even higher, which is not exactly the big win that he thinks it is. And we also have troubling new footage of Mitch McConnell.

It's really becoming weekend at Bernie's wheeled to work, barely responsive. And we've got to figure out what is going on there. And the White House is melting down again over CNN reporter Caitlin Collins. media outlets start suing the administration. And finally, Trump's own longtime pollster has produced some of the most concerning numbers if you're a Republican that we have seen so far as we get closer and closer to the midterms. My book is out. Please review it on Amazon.

Please review it on Amazon. It really helps. We have pushed the book into the top 2,000 books on all of Amazon across millions. and millions and millions of books. Please leave a review. It really helps. We've got a show today. I say we do it.

The United Nations General Assembly is happening in New York. Extraordinarily important event. Maybe the most important diplomatic event of the year. American President Donald Trump gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. And there were a number of moments where we could understand where Trump was saying, where it was pretty difficult to believe that. this is really what is going on. Now, I want to start with the topic of AI, artificial intelligence. We're not supposed to call it that anymore. Donald Trump has decided that he has a better name,

and he announced, looking very sort of satisfied with himself, I must say. He announced that the name is being changed. It is no longer artificial intelligence. It is going to be super intelligence because calling it artificial makes it sound fake. And we don't want fake. It's very real. So here is Donald Trump, again, really thinking he's on to something brilliant, telling us there is a new name I hereby declare. Take a look. This is also totally rejects any attempt to construct a global scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now here and after officially called super intelligence, changing the name, and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence, It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. It's actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports.

From this point forward, all of United States documents, and hopefully the world will be changed to use the much more accurate term, super as opposed to artificial. So it's super intelligence. In other words, welcome to the new world. Welcome to the new world of superintelligence dash SI. S.I. Let's see if that goes.

It sounds much better. It is much better. And it's much more accurate. Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don't. We're going to find out pretty soon. We truly live in idiocracy at this point. And this explanation, the word artificial makes artificial intelligence sound fake.

Is the conclusion someone can come to only if they believe themselves to be much more clever than they really are Of course the artificial in artificial intelligence doesn't mean fake Artificial means created or produced by humans rather than occurring naturally It is not the sort of intelligence that a beautiful dog has which surfaced naturally over time humans created artificial intelligence and super intelligence is not like a cooler sounding synonym for AI it's already a term that is used in discussions of AI when a system's capabilities exceed human intelligence so like it already is a thing that exists but nevertheless nevertheless Donald Trump has proudly and courageously and patriotically said that from now on

U.S. government documents will use super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence. And you can add this to the list of it is no longer the Gulf of Mexico. It's the Gulf of America. It is no longer Lake Ontario. It is Lake America and blah, blah, blah, blah. This is being announced at the United Nations. We we cannot understate the degree to which this is pure globally humiliating idiocy. But Trump is unfaced. and he moves on to a pretty familiar portion of the speech where he lists accomplishments, he just brags to the room. What's notable is the room is silent. Again, Trump humiliating himself in front of world leaders.

Take a look. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, First Lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and fellow leaders, it's my great honor. to welcome the world to America as we celebrate 250 years of glorious freedom and independence. Two and a half centuries after the cause of liberty found its home on this continent, I can report to you with pride that America is back and our country is stronger today than ever before. Our economy is the envy of the world. Our military is the most important. powerful on Earth. Our technology is second to none, and we are leading in virtually everything.

Our energy is fueling the planet. America is rising. Our nation is growing. Our power is expanding. Our country is doing better than ever before, and our future is very, very bright. Since I took office, we have created more than one million new private sector jobs, and more Americans are working today by far than ever before. That is an extraordinary dynamic. Trump delivering what at times seems like a domestic political speech and at times seem really like the rantings of a lunatic, but this is an address to the United Nations General Assembly.

And he goes, America is the hottest country anywhere in the world. I had an incredible election victory. And the room is silent because they realize that this guy's brain isn't working. However, despite the idiocy and the confusion and the humiliation, there were consequential subjects discussed, including Iran. Listen to how the president of the United States publicly discusses this decision that he believes he has in front of him, which is to annihilate or not to annihilate? Let me count the ways.

I love you. I love you not. Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and quickly? Do I drive them into hell? And Trump just talking about it like do you want pizza or pasta for dinner tonight? But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world.

Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election. So Trump just kind of musing, musing about whether to destroy a country and kill all of the people in it. And considering the setting, the UN General Assembly, you know, an organization that was created after World War II, the idea being if there are international disputes, it would be nice to resolve them

without a catastrophic war. Maybe such a setting, a formally diplomatic setting like the UN, would be a useful one for resolving conflicts without catastrophic wars. And Trump goes up there, the president of the United States, in some generic sense, the most powerful person in the world. And he just kind of muses like, should I annihilate a country or shouldn't I? I don't know in the other country's government. Now, of course, Trump didn't say I want to kill every single one of the Iranian people, and that's what I might do.

But when you talk about annihilating the Islamic Republic, you are. sort of alluding to complete and total devastation. Now, he also says, I think ultimately we're going to make a deal. But he's been saying that now. It was going to be two to three weeks. We are now five days for mentoring the eighth month of this war. And the United States is already at war in the context of Trump addressing world leaders. And he kind of frames his options as we either reach an agreement or, you know, I destroy the entire thing, like whatever. And this is why, you know, sometimes Trump's bizarre rhetoric is funny. Renaming artificial intelligence because artificial sounds fake.

It's so stupid, but like it's kind of funny in some way that it's not the most consequential thing. But then in the same speech, he goes from that to, uh, I might drive a country into hell with no chance of survival. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't and maybe I'll have my steak well done or maybe I'll have it with ketchup. And it very quickly stops being funny. And if there's anything to praise here, it's that the audience.

was recognizing the severity and the absurdity of what was taking place. And they didn't play along. You might remember in times past, the entire UN General Assembly would laugh at Trump. And I think that actually laughing at some of these people is a smart thing because they hate to be made fun of. And it really sort of triggered Trump when he was laughed at by the entire room. But it's gotten so serious that I think actually horrified silence, which is how I would characterize it, is far more appropriate. a lot more sense. Now, the United Nations General Assembly speech was not the only strange moment that Donald Trump had yesterday while sitting around with world leaders. There was another

event that took place where Trump sat in some kind of other setting. It wasn't the UN General Assembly. It was sort of like a working table of some kind with world leaders in New York City. And there are a couple different things going on here that I think are interesting to talk about. There is the rambling and disjointed Trump. We've seen that many times before. He's getting worse, not better. But then there are these genuinely consequential threats that come out in the middle of it. Now, let's start with Trump kind of reflecting on the United Nations speech that he gave earlier in the day, which we just looked at. And Trump starts talking about how people loved it and he got high marks. But what does that even really mean? So I just want to thank everybody for being here,

very special. Had a good time making a nice speech today. I've gotten actually very good marks. They gave me good marks. I don't know what that means. That's, uh, hello, Mr. Prime Minister. you and everything good. Look at look at you people. Who is they? Like what what are the marks? Who is the they? And if you don't know what it means, why are you telling everybody about it? Now, obviously, this is Trump doing what Trump does. Unnamed people said he did a great job and you're so smart and you're so good and you did such a big speech. But when we move to Iran, you realize this is not merely Trump's weirdness because he again goes, we're either going to make a deal or it's going to end very, very quickly so quickly your head will spin, which I think he's talking about

nuking Iran. Again, like it's sort of opaque. You never know, but see what you make of it. Look, it's going to go one way or the other. It's either going to, we're going to make a deal or it's going to end very, very quickly. It'll end very so quickly your head will spin. So either there's a deal, Trump says, or it'll end so quickly that your head, will spin. And the context, of course, is the speech we just watched, where during the actual UN remarks, Trump goes, we might reach an agreement or I might annihilate the Islamic Republic. And later, he said, you know, American representatives are meeting with intermediaries working with Iran. There's momentum towards a deal. How many times have we heard this? We were going to

solve Russia, Ukraine in a day. We were going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during Trump's first term. We were going to pay off the entire national debt during Trump's first term. And it's promise after promise that we all know is never going to happen. And now you've got the president talking about potentially annihilating another country. And then a couple hours later, he goes, if the negotiations don't work, we will end it all very quickly. Now, then Donald Trump pivoted to the midterms. And the midterms are an increasingly sore subject for Trump because they've got nothing to run on.

Trump's approval has reached the 20s in at least one poll. And Republicans are facing potentially historic defeat in November. And Trump just goes, no, we should do well because things have never been better. I didn't think about it that way. Interesting perspective. And there's nothing to do with the election. If we do well, we should do well because there's never been a time. time like it in the United States. There's never been.

All right. So there it is. We should do well because we've never seen times like this in the United States. What does he mean by that? Now, maybe you can reverse engineer what Trump is trying to say. The United States is doing extremely well economically. Therefore, Republicans should expect that they're going to do well in the midterms. But Trump keeps going.

And this is where I want you to listen. Rather than listening for specific factual claims, try to follow the train of thought as Trump Rants incomprehensibly about how he's not running, other people are running, great people are running. We'll get him elected, but he's not running. And everybody should do well, but someone once said our nation was dead. And you go, what? Take a look. So we think that the situation with Iran could end right after the midterm elections, maybe before, I don't know, you never know, but they don't understand What they really don't is that I won the election in a landslide. I won all seven swing states.

I won by millions of votes, the popular vote. I won the counties by 86%, which never happened before. It's the highest ever. And the electoral college by a lot, by a tremendous amount. And I'm not running. Other people are running. Other Republicans are running. They're great people, and I'll help them get elected.

but I'm not running. And I don't think about the election at all when I think about ending the nuclear threat for Moran. I just think about ending the nuclear threat for Moran. And that's all I do. I think about that and has nothing to do with the election. If we do well, we should do well because there's never been a time like it in the United States. There's never been any time like it. A man that happens to be sitting at this table right now, said that a couple of years ago, said that a year ago, your nation, sir, was dead. And now you have the hottest nation anywhere in the world.

And we do with the hottest in the world. We have the best military, the strongest military. So suddenly we're talking about a man at the table who said America was dead a year ago. And America's the hottest nation anywhere in the world and the military is so good and America's friends. And then turning back to Iran, we're right. back to deal or everything ends very quickly. And when you look at a transcript of this entire thing, it is, you might say, well, you know, if you stitch it together in an unrelated way, it sounds very disjointed. That's the way it was. Trump's brain doing free association. What's coming out of his

mouth is like a verbal inkblot. Now, of course, people ramble, people lose their train of thoughts. Trump has spoken in what I would call a dissociative style for years. But when you know this is the oldest president ever and he's delivering these disjointed passages about elections and military power and diplomacy and potentially devastating action against another country, we have to be able to say, what are you talking about? Can you please clarify what you're talking about? I don't know what you mean by that. good marks and what what are you saying it is not amusing in any way and one of the things that i think

is is remarkable about the united nations as a venue we become very desensitized to the way that trump talks we're like 11 years into this disaster a long national nightmare um it's very interesting to sort of like gut check and sanity check the way trump communicates with an international audience and you have the u.n general assembly during trump's earlier speech and the world leaders sitting near Trump during this bizarre interaction. And they all just look stunned. It's sort of like George W. Bush's famous reaction to Trump's first inauguration speech. That was some weird shit. When people who aren't as desensitized as we are are presented with this sort of behavior, they go, something is very wrong here. And of course, they're completely right.

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Exclusive for my audience. The link is in the description. We've reached a pretty interesting stage in the effort to defend the energy prices under the Trump administration. Diesel prices, of course, are at record highs. And Marco Rubio's response, the Secretary of State when he was asked about it, is basically, if you think this is bad, if Trump weren't the president, diesel could be $18 per gallon, which sounds really difficult to believe.

So take a look at this and then remember that the context is that the promises were that energy would be down 50% under Donald Trump. Gas would be dirt cheap. Electricity would be dirt cheap. Oil would be dirt cheap. And of course, we've seen prices go up. And just about every single day for the last two weeks, there is a new all-time record high diesel price every single day. For the first time, today I look, today is September 23rd. And the record high price was September 22nd. So we finally got a day, although there's still time left. Maybe we'll do it again. We finally got a day when the highest price for Diesel wasn't today, it's yesterday. And here is Marco Rubio going, yeah, but imagine if Trump weren't president. Every American president says it. Every world leader you meet with tells the

president, we agree they can't have a nuclear weapon. Eventually someone has to do something about it, or it's going to happen. And then imagine North Korea, but in the Middle East, that would be catastrophic for the world. And you wouldn't be paying $6 or whatever diesel is this morning. You'd be paying triple that because Iran would control it and say, you can't touch us. We have a nuclear weapon. 18 dollars a gallon. So let's kind of try to establish what's really happening here. The latest weekly data from the Energy Information Administration puts the national average

price of diesel at over 650 a gallon. Now, that's an all-time high in the EIA series. It was under $6, two weeks earlier, then it went into the 620s, and then we're now over 650. Now, there are other measures that have been regularly setting records. And you've got diesel prices growing up, going up because of these disruptions to refining capacity. The energy markets connected to what's happening in Iran and Ukraine are part of this. So like, this is a real problem.

And as I've said before, I won't rant for 10 minutes about this, but it's not just about people with diesel pickup trucks. Diesel is about commercial trucking and agriculture construction equipment. Your food is transported with diesel powered vehicles. Consumer goods are transported with diesel power vehicles. So when diesel becomes a lot more expensive, it does trickle down. It trickles down through the economy. And Marco Rubio's defense is, oh yeah, but imagine how much worse it could be, which is always

a really convenient political argument because it's hard to disprove it. Now, we can still apply common sense and logic to it, but it's a whole. harder argument to disprove when you go, give me credit for something that didn't happen. Now, in general in politics, in fact, yesterday I got an opportunity to talk with former president Bill Clinton a little bit. And we were talking about the idea of things presidents do to just make no headlines. In other words, the success is nothing happens and nobody writes about it. And that in general, nobody really gets credit for that sort of stuff. You know, if the referees, referee a game so well that nobody notices them, there's no stories about that. It's only if the

referees screw up and become something that gets attention that you talk about it. If there's a big event and there are no security incidents, it's not like headline. Security went fine. It's nobody talks about it because it's background. And so in general, it is true that when something goes as expected, it doesn't make headlines. People rarely get credit for having done anything. But But that doesn't mean that you can just go, well, if it were Biden as president or Kamala or whoever, we would see $18 diesel. That doesn't make that a good argument. Diesel 650 without Trump, it would have been 10 or 12 or 18 bucks.

That doesn't really make any sense. And you can invent these counterfactuals, but where are you getting $18 from? And I did a little bit of modeling. I was not able to find any economic model that would produce $18 diesel short of. of the complete breakdown essentially of society and the economy. And I don't know what assumptions Marco Rubio is making about oil prices or refining capacity or the Iran war or Russian energy infrastructure or global demand. He's probably not, I don't know that Marco Rubio was really calculated it. But without having that analysis, diesel would be 18 bucks if it weren't thanks to the orange God Trump is a counterfactual claim with zero.

evidence behind it. And what I think is particularly interesting is that this is a really different standard from the one that Trump usually uses. When energy prices were high under Biden, Trump didn't go around saying, well, you know, let's consider the international oil market. Let's be careful and see if this is really Biden's fault. It's like it's laughable. Of course, Trump just blame Biden. That was it because Biden's the president. And it must be the president's fault. The buck stops with the president. Now, Trump is president. Diesel is setting records almost every day. And now the argument we're supposed to agree to is you have no idea how high the prices would be if somebody else were president. You should be glad that it's Trump who's president. Now, to be fair, and you,

you all know that I don't play political games with this energy price stuff. Presidents don't directly set the price of diesel, nor of gasoline, nor of oil. We're talking about major global factors here. And the Iran conflict has disrupted energy markets. Russian refinery capacity has been damaged by Iran's, by Ukraine's defensive actions against Russia's invasion. You've got global diesel supplies that are tight and U.S. refining constraints are a factor and all of that stuff. All of that is contributing.

So it would be overly simplistic to say Trump's choosing the diesel price and it's only Trump's fault. But that's why I think the political rhetoric is so worthy of being examined. If presidents do deserve automatic blame for every increase when your opponent is the president, you can't suddenly discover the complexities of global commodity markets when you're the president. And if your defense is 650 diesel is fine because in a different universe, it would have been 18 bucks. You've got to show us some evidence because otherwise there's no limiting principle to just blame someone else. No matter how expensive diesel gets, you can all. always say Trump secretly saved Americans from imaginary higher prices. If diesel prices get to

10 bucks a gallon, Marco Rubio can come out and go, they would have been 30 under Joe Biden. And that doesn't really explain anything. Now, as I've said before, there are basically three things presidents can do to impact oil, gas, and diesel prices. Number one is you do a gas tax holiday. It's artificial, but there's a defined period of time during which there's no taxes when you go and you get gas or diesel. Okay, you could do that. Two, very short-term effect. Two, you can release petroleum from the SPR, the strategic petroleum reserve. And on a short to medium term basis, that will modestly decrease prices. And then they basically go back up unless you solve the underlying issue that's pushing prices up. And three, you can go to war. You can get into a war

that affects either the harvesting, refining, or transportation of oil. And that's something that Donald Trump did. And so this isn't about Biden versus Trump and blame and credit. The reason that those prices were so high briefly under Biden didn't have anything to do with what Biden did. You had a global demand surge as COVID waned combined with. Russia, Ukraine, and a summer demand season where people do more road trips and there's more demand for gasoline. Biden didn't have anything to do with that stuff. And it's not me playing games with

Republicans, Democrats. You go back to George Bush. There were periods under George Bush's presidency where gas was expensive and gas was cheap. And it really didn't have much to do with George Bush at many of those times. At some points, it did. So it's not about playing politics. It's just there are three things presidents can do. And Donald Trump has done one of the big ones, which is the war with Iran. So that's where we are. If you are satisfied, if it's, if it's reassuring to you, prices wouldn't, uh, would be even higher. If Trump weren't president, go for that. There's simply no evidence whatsoever. We have to talk again about Senator Mitch McConnell. The situation is getting stranger. It's getting more serious. And I got to be honest,

it's getting pretty sad. Mitch McConnell is now back in D.C. He's nominally back to work after being gone from the Senate for three months after he fell, lost consciousness, was hospitalized, caught pneumonia, and then was in rehab. Mitch McConnell's 84 years old. He's now using a wheelchair. He doesn't seem able to communicate. We've really not heard Mitch McConnell speak other than a gravely and confused eye after he almost voted no for something that his party was all trying to vote eye on. And we have questioned whether he can process language. We've questioned doctors have looked at it and said, it's not obvious that he's able to process language. And we have new footage now of Mitch McConnell being wheeled out of his home to go to work. And I'm using that term very loosely at the U.S.

Senate. And it is really becoming like a weekend at Bernie's kind of situation. Now, I want to be careful here because as I said when we covered Mitch McConnell last week, I'm not a doctor. I'm not diagnosing Mitch McConnell. We don't exactly know what's going on with this condition because there's no transparency about it, but we also have eyes. And Mitch McConnell being wheeled towards a waiting vehicle, reporter is asking questions. He doesn't verbally respond. His chief of staff is holding an umbrella over him. And he is not communicating anything verbally. And it is not obvious to me that he is able to process what he is being asked. Take a look at this. Watch what happens. How is your weekend, Senator McConnell. Did you have a good weekend, sir?

Are you ready for a new work week? Hi, Senator. Good to see you, sir. Welcome back. Terry, is it safe bringing him back to the Senate like this? Senator McConnell, do you want to go to work? Do you want to be at work, sir? Would you rather be home?

You'd rather be home? I'm sorry this is happening to you, sir. That's just really sad. And if this were not one of the most powerful and senior senators in the country in one of the most powerful hundred positions of power in a country of 345 million people, then we would go, okay, this is like really just a personal matter. But this seat has been held for him while he's been missing three months. Now, I know some of you might say, listen, the longer McConnell is essentially incapacitated,

the better because it's a vote Republicans don't have. Oh, I totally get the strategy of it. But there's a whole other issue here about the gerontocracy and about what systems and checks and balances we have when someone appears to be incapacitated. Here is Mitch McConnell returning home from a big day at work. Senator, are you here against your own will? Be senator. Have a good night, sir. So a bunch of media outlets, dear God, a bunch of media outlets, including the Daily Beast, said he appeared frozen.

And the reporter who recorded these videos said he seemed delayed in his processing of what was he being said. Now, again, we don't know what's happening medically. We now have a dozen of these videos. And last week, we showed you McConnell coming back to the Senate after about three months away. And he was sort of like wheeled in. And it was unclear to what degree he was aware of what was going on around him. We had the Senate Agriculture Committee meeting where he was there for this farm bill vote. And there was confusion around like, what is he, is he confused?

Is he voting? Yes. Is he voting? No. Amy Klobuchar had to kind of go, no, you're trying to vote I. And eventually Mitch McConnell was able to repeat I, barely audible. And the bill went forward 12 to 11. So it's like, is that really representation?

Is that Mitch McConnell analyzing the substance of a bill and deciding? I don't know. I don't know. So where I think the real issue is, you know, it would be great to have some diagnosis of what's going on. And I got a couple emails from people saying, you know, he seems to have a brain injury that resulted from not getting oxygen. That's like one opinion. I don't know. We don't have that. I don't know that we can determine that from these short videos. I think we have a simpler question, which is what this is not a HIPAA question. HIPAA applies to medical providers. What level of transparency should the public expect of an elected U.S. senator when they disappear for three months because of a serious health event, come back in a wheelchair,

and he was using a wheelchair before at some points as well. They've acknowledged he's not yet fully recovered. And it's not even that he's declining to answer questions. It's not even clear that he's capable of answering questions, but he's still voting somehow, barely as people say, Mitch, raise your hand, say aye. These are not ceremonial roles. Mitch McConnell is still a U.S. Senator. His term ends in January. His vote counts just as much as every other senators vote, and he may not even understand what he's doing. And Republicans have needed that vote. That's the other thing. It's not like they have such a majority that Mitch McConnell's vote is superfluous and irrelevant. There are nominations, legislation that have been more difficult

to get through because Mitch was gone. And so I keep coming back to whenever we see situations like this in American politics. It's not about mocking people for getting old. If Mitch McConnell were 45 and behaving this way after a major medical event, the same questions would be legitimate. Is he processing language? Does he understand what's going on around him? If a Democratic senator were being wheeled into the Capitol barely communicating, we saw things with Diane Feinstein look not so good. All of the questions would be legitimate. It is not about party. Members of Congress aren't entitled to these positions without scrutiny just because it's of uncomfortable to deal with the issue of health. And at the same time, the wheelchair itself

doesn't tell us anything about cognitive ability. You can be in a wheelchair because you have a problem walking and that's it. Being 84 by itself doesn't tell us anything, but Bernie Sanders is older and he's very sharp. I spoke to Bill Clinton yesterday who's 80 and he was very sharp. So we need to be able to figure out responsibly what is it that is going on here so that we can answer the question, can Mitch McConnell substantively perform the duties of his office of U.S. Senator? And what evidence can his office provide to make us believe that he can? I don't think that he can. And these images are extraordinary, wheeled around, seems to barely know what's going on,

aid holding an umbrella. Do you want to go to work? And he doesn't even answer. And then everybody heads on over to the Senate and someone tells him how to vote. And whatever is happening medically, we are not getting. the transparency that I believe the public should have. We're not getting it about Trump's health, and we're not getting it about Mitch McConnell's health either. What you feed your dog every day should be something you can feel good about, not a mystery hidden behind a long ingredient list.

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and just made with ingredients that he recognizes. Make the switch to Sundays. Go to Sundays for dogs slash Pacman and get 30% off your first order or use code Pacman at checkout. The link is in the description. Well, it's a day that ends in why. So we have another one of these moments where Donald Trump appears. appears to have absolutely no idea where he is and where the people around him are.

And this time the person he's looking for, again, is sitting right next to him. Donald Trump was at a shield of the America's meeting in New York City yesterday. Marco Rubio had been sitting right next to him. And Trump starts looking around. Where is Marco? This has happened to Donald Trump many times and it is happening again. Let's look. I want to thank Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Where is Marco? Or is Marco? There's Marco. He's never very far away, right? But. So Marco Rubio is right there. He's not across the room. He's not standing behind Trump.

Trump's sitting next to him. It's his Secretary of State. And Rubio actually has to say right here. And then Trump realizes where he is. And Trump goes, there's Marco. He's never very far away. And Trump is right. In this case, Rubio was their shoulders were six inches apart.

Now, I just want you to imagine. for a moment. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Okay, that was a little too deep. Take your, close your eyes and take a deep breath. And imagine Joe Biden doing this. Imagine Joe Biden sitting at a table and going, where's Kamala? Where is is Kamala here? And Kamala's right next to Joe Biden. We know how that would have been covered. And I think that there's a legitimate media question here because concerns about Biden's age and Biden's acuity became. these big sustained parts of political coverage during Biden's presidency. And Trump's age and his verbal miscues, his attentional miscues, his physical miscues,

that can also be covered as an individual event without pretending that any one clip says, here is the medical diagnosis. And this wasn't even the end of Marco Rubio's weirdness because a few minutes later, Trump starts talking about one of his favorite subjects. Cuba. And he mentions that Marco Rubio's parents were born there, which is true. They emigrated from Cuba before Marco Rubio was born. And then the following happens. If Biden had done this, I think they would be playing the clip 24-7. And they would say, 25th Amendment and we've got to get someone else in there. Okay, Trump goes, I don't know what's going on with Cuba. Not looking so good,

But we're going to go there someday soon. We might drop off Marco, and it is the ranting of a complete madman. But, I mean, what can I say about Cuba? They had another blackout last night. They don't have enough of lights. I don't know what's going on with Cuba, but they're not looking so good. But, you know, Marco's parents were born in Cuba. It's like a great story, and he wants to figure it all out, Marco, right?

You want to figure out what's exactly there. I think he has figured it out. So we're going to someday in the near future drop him off in the middle of Cuba. Just on the way back, on the way back from Iran, we're going to have one of those big, beautiful aircraft carriers, fly him in, drop him off. And he'll figure out the rest. He always does. It's very unusual. But it is a great story.

His parents were born there and now look at the position. The Secretary of State doing a fantastic job. You have anything to say about it? So, okay, okay. We're going to take Marco. and we'll put him on an aircraft carrier coming back from Iran and we'll drop them off in the middle of Cuba. And Marco is going to figure everything out. Now, I understand that this is nominally part of what we would call a joke. And Rubio laughs and people in the room laugh and Trump goes

on to praise Rubio and he goes, he's doing a great job and, you know, all of that stuff. I'm not going to pretend. It would be dishonest to pretend that Trump was announcing a military operation in Cuba of any kind. But take the whole sequence together. And first, Trump can't find Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio was sitting right next to him. And then once he successfully locates Marco Rubio, he's talking about dropping him into Cuba from an aircraft carrier. And we've seen these variations on where is Marco before?

Trump has publicly asked, where is Marco? He's talked about the first lady, I wish he could be here. And she was right next to him. And where's Rudy Giuliani? And Rudy Giuliani is sitting right across a two foot wide table from Trump. This stuff happens all the time. The standard, I think here is really simple. And we now, for people who go, this obsession is only with Trump.

It's going on with Mitch McConnell. This is not only about Donald Trump, but in this clip we're talking about Trump. Trump is the president of the U.S. He's the oldest president ever. He's having strange moments in public. He's falling asleep regularly in public. He's disoriented in public. He's confused.

Journalists, and I don't mean like commentators like me, Journalists in the legacy media should be covering what is happening accurately and proportionally. And what do I mean when I say proportionally? Trump's falling asleep in public a couple times a week now. It doesn't need to be exaggerated. They don't need to do any diagnosis. But there's no questions about it. Sir, why did you just fall asleep?

You appeared to be sleeping while the prime minister of wherever was talking and get Trump on the record going. I wasn't asleep. I was resting my eyes. Or maybe Trump goes, yeah, I sleep now during events. That's what I do. Like you, this needs to be covered in a real and serious way. And when Trump falls asleep or loses track of people or loses track of what he's supposed

to be talking about, asking him about it immediately is legitimate. Marco's right next to you, sir. Were you just disoriented? Did you just become confused? Did you just lose touch with reality and the world around you? I would really like to see the questions about the sleeping. I think those would be much more interesting. And I'm going to ask you, do you think if confronted about his sleeping in the moment that

it happens? Do you think Trump would deny it and get angry at the reporter? Would he admit it or would he simply refuse to answer altogether? I don't know. And we should know. He's been falling asleep in public for over a year now. And we don't have any questions in the moment from reporters. These rooms are filled with reporters and nobody can go, Mr. President, I'm sorry, you just seem to be asleep.

Did you hear what the prime minister said? You seem to be completely out of it. You were horizontal and you had droolable coming out of your mouth and you were slack-jod, asymmetrically slack-jod. Please start asking about it. Please start asking about it. We have something happening in the fight between the administration and the media that is really getting under the skin of the top people in the administration, including the president. Late last night, Donald Trump posted an absolutely furious message about Caitlin Collins, the reporter from CNN. And it's mixing up a bunch of different things.

Remember that Donald Trump banned CNN MS now and Politico from the White House. However, they are not banned from most other places, meaning that they can still show up and cover Trump. They just can't go to the White House, I guess. And Trump posts the following, quote, all of the sleaze bags like, third-rate reporter Caitlin Collins of fake news CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren't going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like lunatics in the press area at the United Nations? Why was she there?

She's got a Trump addiction. And so to CNN and MSDNC. They're all sick, treasonous and demented. By the way, three adjectives that probably apply more to Trump than Caitlin Collins. He continues, the good news is that they have a great for them and totally disloyal judge. He's referring to the lawsuit that was filed by CNNMS now in Politico. Make America great again. Okay.

So a couple different things going on here. Trump doesn't understand. And you could end the sentence there. I could just go, Trump doesn't understand. But I actually have something I'm trying to explain. Trump doesn't understand or he's pretending not to understand that the television networks, he doesn't know what they really announced. CNN never said we aren't covering Donald Trump anymore.

Trump banned them from the White House. And so ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN said, we're going to suspend coverage. The television pool will suspend coverage of events designated as pool coverage. We're not going to participate. We think what you're doing is wrong by banning CNNMS now and Politico from the White House grounds. The White House TV pool is a logistical arrangement. Instead of every network having a camera crew and cameras at every event, they rotate responsibility. And so if CNN is assigned to the pool, it's CNN's cameras.

They're the ones in the room. They don't stuff the room with five networks of cameras. And then CNN provides the footage to everybody to use. And then the next day, it might be Fox News and the next day. So they rotate that responsibility. And then they share it. Ending pool coverage of White House events is not saying we aren't. going to report about the president of the United States. Now, maybe that's what Trump wants.

Maybe Trump doesn't want any of these outlets talking about him. But that's not true because Trump wants attention. What Trump wants is to force them to just report in glowing terms about them. Now, this is particularly absurd at the United Nations because the United Nations is not the White House. CNN was credentialed by the UN to cover the General Assembly. And CNN and MS Now and Politico, they were all able to continue covering Trump there. using UN issued credentials because it is not a White House event. So Trump sees Caitlin Collins and he goes, you shouldn't be here cover. Uh-uh. You shouldn't be here covering me. And Caitlin Collins goes, well, the UN credentialed us and allowed us in. What are you talking about? And that's right.

But what I think is the most important part of Trump's post is what he says after that, which is they're all sick, treasonous and demented. It's treason to cover the president in a serious manner. It's treason to ask the president questions. And the answer is, yeah, that's what they want you to believe. Pete, we covered Peter Navarro saying that critical coverage of the president is treasonous. And challenging the government's decision to exclude news organizations that the president dislikes is one of the most patriotic things you can do if you care about the First Amendment and the Constitution.

And so remember how we got here. When Trump said CNN MS now and Politico aren't allowed on White House grounds because they're fake news, they sued and they said we're being retaliated against based on our journalism. This violates the First Amendment and this violates the Fifth Amendment. Now, the administration, of course, goes, that's not true. And then other major TV networks, including Fox said, well, we're not going to do any more pool coverage. And that's what really has changed the dynamic because banning CNN from the White House is one thing. When you've got ABC, CBS, NBC Fox refusing to replace CNN, you've got the banned organizations taking you to court.

And now Trump is posting late at night saying that individual journalists are treasonous and the judge is disloyal. By the way, the judge assigned to the case is a Trump appointed judge, Timothy Kelly. Trump chose him. He is the guy who said when Jim Acosta back in 2018 sued for being. thrown out of the press briefing room, Kelly said, no, you're not actually allowed to do that. You got to let him back in. And so now, despite Trump having selected Kelly, he goes, this is a disloyal judge. This is the core of what Trumpism believes. Disloyal to whom. Kelly, as a judge, is not loyal to

Trump as an individual. He's loyal to the law and he's loyal to the Constitution and he's loyal to the First Amendment. That's what a judge is supposed to be loyal to. Only in Trump's deranged worldview, sick, sick worldview is a federal judge's job to be loyal to Donald Trump. Because listen, he pointed me. He gave me a job. I've got to be loyal. That's not how an independent judiciary is supposed to function. Now, Trump is operating in a world where he goes, listen, I hired the doorman out about my building. He better be loyal to me. He better not say anything when I'm sneaking in a porn star or whatever. That's a different relationship. And by the way, it's a pretty nasty business in and of itself. But putting that

aside. When a president selects or nominates a judge, and then the judge, by the way, is confirmed independently by the Senate, the judge is being selected for his or her presumed loyalty to the law and to precedent and to the Constitution. But Trump believes the judge owes him favorable rulings. And that's what I think makes this entire episode so much more than Trump versus CNN. You have the president excluding news organizations simply because he doesn't like their coverage. And then when the organization sue and other organizations go, we're on the side of the of the media, all of a sudden they're committing treason and these disputes indicate the disloyalty of the judge. So whatever happens with the lawsuit, this is worth paying attention to. CNN showing up at the UN doesn't prove Caitlin Collins is addicted to Trump.

It just proves she's a reporter. It's the job at the end of the day. If we keep going in this direction, you know, I'm on an official media offender list at whitehouse.gov, CNNMS now, Politico banned, Trump suing 60 minutes, Trump suing George Stephanopoulos, all of this stuff together. This is a dangerous authoritarian slide. And so it must be turned around. And whether it's turned around by voting out all the Republicans that have stood aside and allowed Trump to do this stuff when November comes, that's part of it. If it's sending Trump to the dustbin of history, okay, as Ron DeSanctus would say, and hopefully putting in a Democrat, if not a more sane Republican who is not going to have a total disrespect for the free press.

I don't know what it's going to take, but this has to stop or quite literally the Constitution is imperiled because the Constitution mentions one profession and it's a free press. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at joinpackman.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. Donald Trump has now responded to a major First Amendment lawsuit within the a meltdown so extraordinary that it proves the case against him.

He's admitting to the entire thing. So here's what happened. CNN MS now in Politico, which were banned by Trump over the weekend from the White House, say Trump banned us because he dislikes our coverage. And Trump's reaction was basically, yeah, I dislike their coverage, so I banned them, which is the entire point of this entire thing. Trump says, quote, as expected, fake news CNN, Politico. pay back the $8 million contribution made by the U.S. government to keep him afloat,

and MS now, formerly known as MSDNC, have brought suit to gain access to the White House and your president, me. They have drawn a great judge for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the planet. By the way, not true. Jim Acosta's built a very good independent media business. The judge's name, Trump continues, is Tim Kelly. And he was sadly appointed by Trump. In other words, almost without question and as usual, we'll go for appeal because fake news, people and publications that only write negatively and who violate our national security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown sources shouldn't be allowed to access,

shouldn't be allowed access to the most important office anywhere in the world. It is called the Oval Office and it should be treated with decorum. And Trump's done that. Respect and dignity, not defiled by third-rate. clowns who purposefully distort, twist, and degrade with everything they write or publish. Virtually every story about me or anything having to do with me is negative, wrong, and in many cases dangerous for our country. No matter how great my achievements, they trivialize and demean. The fact is, I won all seven swing states, the popular vote, the electoral college, and the counties

throughout America by 86%. And it is reported that I get 94% bad publicity. With such a crooked and corrupt press. How did I win in such a landslide? It is because the media has no credibility and that is a very bad thing for our nation. Why should I have to give access to such people? Perhaps Judge Kelly could explain it. Anyway, he goes on and on and on. This post is extraordinarily revealing because Trump makes zero effort to hide what this is really

about. He just goes, they write negatively about me. They trivialize my achievements and why should they have access? Why would I give someone like that access? And that is essentially admitting to the central accusation in the lawsuit, which is we're not being punished because we're doing anything immoral. We're not being punished because we're doing anything illegal. We've not broached the public trust of journalism or we're just not liked by Trump personally

because we sometimes write things that are critical of those in power, including Donald Trump. Now, there are legitimate limits on White House access. Like, the building has to be secure. There's a limited amount of space. Reporters can't wander wherever they want. If those rules have been broken, if it had been the case that CNN was regularly trying to bring in more people than were authorized and they were wandering into restricted areas of the White House, all right, I mean, I guess you would have a case for saying you're not allowed

here. But Trump is admitting they write stuff about me that's mean. I don't like it. And what Trump is doing is he's basically saying access is a loyalty test. You get in the door if you praise me and you get thrown out if you criticize me. Now Trump also says it's sad that the appointed judge Tim Kelly on this lawsuit is the same one who previously ruled against Trump in the Jim Acosta press pass case. This tells us a lot about Trump's view of power.

He sees judges that he appointed as his judges. Listen, these are people who should be protecting me. Judicial independence becomes betrayal if you execute it. And then Trump drags in, you know, I won the election. It's all a desperate plea for approval. I electoral votes. Listen, voters gave him the presidency. There's no question about that.

Even before the election, I went to you in the audience and I said, Kamel is losing all seven swing states. This doesn't look good. Trump won the election. But winning the election doesn't give you only. of the White House press corps. It doesn't give you a constitutional right to flattering coverage from CNN and MS now and Politico. And there's this emotional core to the post where Trump claims negative coverage is dangerous for the country in his mind because Trump and the country are the same thing.

If you critique what Trump did, it's almost like you're saying the United States sucks, even though obviously those are two completely different things. That is a fundamentally authoritarian idea. Trump is sort of hiding it as a personal grievance, but it is an extraordinarily authoritarian idea. You criticize me. You're really just criticizing the country. Now, Trump may believe that this deranged and apoplectic statement shows that he is really strong.

I think it could be an incredibly useful piece of evidence for the people suing Trump because they are alleging we are being discriminated against based on the viewpoint of what we published. And Trump responds by going, yeah, I don't like their viewpoint. That's why I kicked them out. He wants to be admired by. by the press. He wants adulation. The Constitution mentions one profession and it is the media, journalism, the press. And there is nothing in there that says the press must work in a way that is flattering to the people in power. It's just not in the constitution. And so as usual, these are the

people who say one of our principles is devotion to the constitution and yada, yada, yada. Well, if that were the case, why so hostile to those exercising their First Amendment rights? It really doesn't seem like constitutional respect is a principle that they actually care about. Now, I think that ultimately, the access of CNNMS now in Politico is going to be restored. But I don't think it's going to be a clean loss for Trump. I think almost certainly he is going to find some way when ultimately their access is restored to either say in his benevolence, he has agreed to let them back, but they'd better be careful. Some kind of thing where it's like he kind of has no choice, but he'll go, I decided to be the nice guy because I'm so good and so benevolent. So that'll be one framing.

Or he will claim that a legal loss is actually more of a stalemate or either a victory. He always has to try to save face. So that's my prediction. I'm not big on the prediction game, but this is so constitutionally clear. I do think CNN Politico and MS now will be back, but Trump will never simply acknowledge I was wrong. I did something I wasn't supposed to do. Let me know what you expect, let me know what you think, leave a comment, or send me an email, info at David Pakman.com.

We have another absolutely remarkable warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterm elections, and this one's particularly interesting because of who did the poll. There's a new AARP poll in Alaska, and it has the Democratic candidate who we love, Mary Peltola, at 46% in the initial Senate ballot with Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan at 41%. Now, of course, one poll is one poll. Alaska's unusual because it's ranked choice voting. We shouldn't look at one survey and go, this survey tells us exactly what is going to happen

in November. But this is what makes the poll so interesting. This is not a Democratic pollster putting out numbers that Republicans can dismiss. I mentioned it's an AARP poll, but AARP doesn't do the poll themselves. AARP commissioned a bipartisan polling team. And the Republican firm Fabrizio Ward and the Democratic firm Impact Research did the poll. Now, if the name Tony Fabrizio rings a bell, it should because Tony Fabrizio is Donald Trump's longtime pollster.

So these are numbers that Republicans need to look at very seriously. This is a potential Democratic flip among many that we are looking at. And the numbers go way beyond just the Senate race. Trump's approval in Alaska is 45%. 53% disapproved. Now, you might say, well, but David, that sounds pretty high just yesterday. You were talking to us about Trump has 29 approval overall. But Trump won Alaska by 13 in 2024.

Trump didn't win the general election by 13. In Alaska, Trump was plus 13 in 2024, and now he is minus eight in terms of approval. In some sense, you could go, that's a minus 21 flip. That is an insane change in a red state. Now, AARP's Republican pollster Bob Ward said affordability is the big reason for the political environment that we are seeing right now. Only 37% of likely voters say the country's going in the right direction. Among independent voters over 50, only 25% believe the country's going in the right direction. And it's financial anxiety and pessimism about the economy that have turned a Trump plus 13 state into Trump minus 8 and what is now being described as a battleground, Alaska, a battleground.

Now, this is not happening in isolation. We've been covering the warning signs for Republicans all over the country. You've got Axios reporting that Republicans are increasingly worried about Latino voters. Trump did better than a Republican has done, I think ever, or certainly for decades among Latino voters in 2024. But now you look at Miami-Dade County in Florida. Republicans made huge gains during the Trump era, and it's going the opposite direction. Republicans are worried about that.

You've got another bipartisan survey of seven battlegrounds. States and among Latino registered voters, it is Democrats 56 to Republicans 29 on a generic ballot. That is just like a blown out of the water number. Now, we are doing this so we can think about what's going on, not because we say this tells us what's going to happen in November. We all have to vote. Every single vote counts. We do the voting for a reason.

But the important takeaway is Republican gains with Latino voters from 2024 are not necessarily locked in permanently. I'm on a panel, in fact, today at a conference about the Latino vote. Remember, I'm Latino. Even if I look white, being from Argentina, we are going to be talking about exactly what is going on with the Latino vote. And I think actually there is this miscalculation that some elected officials make that Latino voters have different concerns than natural-born American voters or non-Latino voters. And the truth is that when you look at what Latino voters care about, it's the same stuff as everybody else. It's economy, it's jobs, it's safety. And yeah, immigration is there further down. But what may be different with Latino

voters is their preference for what sort of policy solutions they like. And this is why historically Latino voters have tended to vote for Democrats over Republicans. Now, Republicans themselves are saying, this is difficult. House majority leader Steve Scalise has said, Republicans, if we win, will have a teeny tiny majority. Now, of course, he can't just straight up say we're going to lose, but he also can't reject that Democrats are going to gain seats. So the way Steve Scalise has sort of landed is by saying, I believe we have an opportunity to keep a majority, but it is going to be a very slim majority.

The truth is, it's already a very slim majority. You've got Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has been much clearer about what she expects to happen. And she says it will be a fucking bloodbath. So if you put all of it together, you've got Trump underwater in Alaska, a state he won easily two years ago. A Democratic Senate candidate is ahead in a poll conducted by Trump's longtime pollster, along with the Democratic pollster as well. And you've got Republicans worried that they are completely losing all of their gains with Latifical. voters from 2024 and Republican politicians themselves are openly talking about a really difficult midterm environment. Now, we don't know the outcome. Polling are not, polling results are not

election results. We've got weeks before election day, polls can move. Every race has its own dynamics and ultimately turnout is actually going to be the biggest factor. 29% approval for Trump is bad, But that is going to be bad if voters are reflected, rather, if those who disapprove of Trump are reflected among voters. You have to go out and actually do the voting. But the point here is the number of races that Republicans now have to defend and fight for is expanding. And if you're spending money when the amount of money you have is finite, if you have

to spend money to defend Alaska. and now all of a sudden, Tala Rico's leading in Texas, and Georgia's not looking so good, and you've got a razor-thin House majority, every single race matters. You've got to spend money everywhere meeting you're spreading yourself thin. So I think that that's really the underlying story about the Alaska poll. Mary Peltola may win. She may not. Alaska's unlikely to decide everything, although it could end up deciding who controls the Senate.

Alaska is yet another place that was a safe Trump spot two years ago that now they have to spend money to defend. And Trump won by double digits. And now it's like, can we even win at all? We are now close enough to the midterms that this is it. Like ballots are about to go out. A lot of these cakes are going to be baked soon. And Republicans are in the unenviable position of having to figure out where do we put our limited eggs, which baskets deserve.

Whoa, I almost just threw my. This remote studio, by the way, I have them. I can actually hold the microphone in my hand. it is a hazard. I have, I almost just threw my microphone across the room. Let me put it down gently again. Dear God, needs to be strapped down. We are now in a situation where the election is essentially today. And what I mean by that is some early ballots are going out. Early voting is going to start. And so this is not off in the distance. The polling is a disaster for Republicans now and it's up to us to make sure that the polling becomes reality.