The David Pakman Show - Trump walked right into the trap, Gavin Newsom on the show

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

-- On the Show -- Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, joins us in person to discuss Donald Trump's failures, speculation about 2028, and his new book "Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery" -- Antony Blinken says that Barack Obama and Joe Biden avoided war with Iran for years because Iran can fight cheaply with drones, while the United States spends far more on missiles and sustained operations -- Donald Trump advisers quietly urge him to declare victory and exit the Iran war as oil prices rise, U.S. casualties mount, and political pressure grows -- Donald Trump claims the Iran war is essentially complete despite ongoing Iranian attacks and thousands of U.S. strikes that military analysts say have not ended the conflict -- Donald Trump gives contradictory answers in a press conference about the Iran war, says he does not know key facts about attacks, and suggests the war is ending yet expanding -- Pete Hegseth announces the most intense strikes yet inside Iran, even as Donald Trump claims the military objective is essentially complete -- Donald Trump claims future laser weapons will replace Patriot missiles and offers unclear explanations about the timing and purpose of the Iran war -- On the Bonus Show: Pete Hegseth's Pentagon blew billions on luxury items, a Tennessee congressman says Muslims don't belong in American society, Uber launches a women-only driver option, and much more... 💪 AG1 is offering you $126 in FREE gifts at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- 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(01:13) Blinken on Obama/Biden Iran strategy(08:34) Trump advisers urge war exit(16:53) Trump claims Iran war complete(22:31) Trump press conference contradictions(31:02) Gavin Newsom interview(55:24) Pete Hegseth announces Iran strikes(1:02:10) Trump on future laser weapons   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the Iran war over or is it just ramping up? Well, it depends who you ask. Donald Trump says one thing. His secretary of defense, Pete Hegset says something completely different. We will discuss. We also have new reporting and analysis suggesting that Iran's strategy may have been to just provoke Trump into war to drain the United States financially. Former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says they tried to do it to Obama. They tried to do it to Biden, but only Trump was dumb enough to fall for it. We will get to that. Governor Gavin Newsom will join me for a sit down in-person interview and a Trump press

conference that can only be described as bizarre, where Trump suggests that Iran got themselves a Tomahawk missile and used it to bomb a school in Iran. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Plus, what about lasers? Yeah, what about them? All of that and more on today's show. Let's do it. How is it that Trump fell for it, but Obama didn't and Joe Biden didn't?

Well, maybe basic intelligence is the explanation. I don't know. But we are going to dive into something super interesting today, which really, I believe, helps us understand what is happening with Donald Trump and with Iran. We are going to hear a clip here from an interview with Anthony Blinken, the former Secretary of State under Joe Biden. Anthony Blinken explains something extraordinarily important. Obama and Biden spent years trying to avoid the exact war that Donald Trump walked into. And Blinken explains in this clip that the duration of this war ultimately is going to be determined by market.

and by munitions, meaning money and weapons. Let's take a listen and then we will discuss critical importance to understand this, to really understand what is going on right now. Look, you know, this has been a long story when it comes to Iran. And back during the Obama administration, the Israelis were pushing President Obama to take military action against Iran and were warning that they would do it themselves if he didn't. And he wouldn't because he thought the better way to get at the nuclear program, which is what we were focused on, was through very muscular diplomacy backed up by very, very strong sanctions that we rallied the world to put in place. And then we got the Iran nuclear agreement.

In the days after the October 7th attack on Israel, the horrific attack on Israel, by Hamas, the Israelis were insisting that in the north, Hezbollah from Lebanon was about to attack. and they wanted to strike preemptively against Hezbollah. And President Biden said, look, we're with you, will always be with you in defending Israel. And if you're attacked, we're there. But we're not there if you're going to start something. And we came within about 30 minutes of having a war in the north

based on bad information that the Israelis had about an imminent attack from Hezbollah. We were able to avert that. But the president was, Biden was very insistent. We're not going to do something that you initiate, that you start. It's very different than defending Israel when it's been attacked. I can't speak to what the dynamic was this time. I heard that.

Then it was walked back. The president said it was the other way around. There's been a shifting rationale, a shifting explanation for why this, why now. And again, that's why it's so important to have ideally laid this out before the American people. And our partners and allies. have had less friction with them if there was a compelling case to be made. So let's talk about this. There's two important elements to this.

Number one, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he has want to do, has tried to rope the United States into preemptive military action before. But Barack Obama and Joe Biden didn't fall for it, but Donald Trump did. That's number one. And then number two, there is this other issue, which is that Iran can keep fighting cheaply while it is really expensive for the United States to sustain this war. And that's going to be part of our analysis a little bit later about the people around Donald Trump saying, you've got to do a 180 and get out of this thing.

But just for example, Iran is using $20,000 drones against $4 million US Patriot missiles. The cost structure is completely asymmetrical. Now, that doesn't tell you everything you need to know, of course. But there is a trap here, which is you as a weaker, smaller, poorer country can drain the stronger country financially even if you are indeed weaker. Now, Barack Obama and Joe Biden understood that dynamic and they work to avoid being pulled into exactly this type of conflict. and his allies are framing the opposite narrative, which is Obama was weak. That's why he didn't do this.

He could have done it. And you've heard, I don't remember if it was Caroline Leavitt or who say, hey, listen, anybody could have done this over the last 40 years. Trump's the one with the strength to do it. Well, maybe Trump is the only one gullible enough to do it. Maybe Trump is rather, rather than showing strength, Trump is showing that he can be manipulated, which of course we know that he can. And Iran's strategy has a been, let's provoke an escalation. Let's allow Trump to overreact. And maybe BB Netanyahu can convince him to do it. And that is exactly what Donald Trump did launching this major military campaign, assuming Iran would fold quickly. And instead, Iran is seemingly prepared for a long-term conflict. They've absorbed strikes so far. We've got oil markets exploding.

gas is up again now to more than an 18 month high, a multi-year high for gasoline today. And so this is why Anthony Blinken sort of astutely says the real pressure point may end up being not the battlefield where, listen, Trump can keep bombing stuff and he's going to destroy stuff and he's going to kill people and it's going to be terrible for Iran. Of course, the U.S. can do that. But how long can Trump sustain or tolerate the. economic disaster that he's precipitating. Now, this explains why Trump's own advisors are saying, we got to get an exit plan here. But there's a bigger theme. And I think this is maybe if there's

one takeaway from this segment, it may be this. Trump constantly is manipulated. He falls for what authoritarian leaders tell him. And he takes the bait for what other regimes do. We have Many examples. Think back to Trump's first term in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin, where Trump came out and he goes, listen, I asked Putin, did you guys hack? Did you hack us? Every American intelligence agency said, yes, the Russians hacked us. And Trump goes, I don't know, Putin denied it very strongly. I believe him. We saw it with Kim Jong-un at the summit. Kim Jong-un made the exact same promises to Trump that North Korean leaders have made to American presidents before. We know those promises never materialize.

This is why we usually do preconditions for negotiations. Trump goes there. He goes, they, he promised me the world. They're going to denuclearize and they're going to stop missile testing and all this stuff. And of course, it never, never materializes. And Trump falls for it. So the pattern is the same. Foreign leaders flatter Trump.

They tell him what he wants to hear. He believes it. And this time, the result seems to be a war that we had no business getting involved in and may be stuck in or Trump needs to do an about face and take a brutal and humiliating loss. We now are seeing the people around Trump realizing what's going on. And they're saying, sir, with tears in my eyes, we've got to get out of this. Let's talk about that next. How long is the United States going to be involved in this war in Iran?

Well, Trump's own advisors are now panicking and realizing we need an exit here. Now, I predicted five days ago that the Iranian regime was not going to fall as easily as Donald Trump believed. That has come true as the son of the Ayatollah has now been named the new supreme leader. And we're, forget about regime. change. We are in regime reinforcement in Iran. This is aside from the legality, the morality, the morality, whether the U.S. should be the world police, just simply on we're going to get them to change the regime seems to have failed. Number two, the economic calamities. In February, the

United States lost 92,000 jobs. That has nothing to do with Iran, but it's just building the picture that we have a collapsing economy. The stock market is in free fall. Gas prices are going up every day and are now up something like 62 cents in a week and a half, which is more than a 20% increase, gas prices higher than they've been in 18, 20 months, something like that. The pressure on Trump is growing and growing. And so what I predicted was that Trump would declare victory, start doing an exit, even though Iran is not likely to be ready to let this go with discussions of sleeper cells and attacks on the U.S. and our allies.

And then Trump would say whatever he needs to say to try to rescue the American economy. Now, the rhetoric has changed significantly because Trump has also gone from we must have unconditional surrender just three days ago. Now to I think we've basically completed it and we are going to start looking at getting out. Trump seems very surprised that Iran hasn't folded despite the brutal bombing campaign. And don't get me wrong, Iran is being economically ravaged. And from a humanitarian standpoint, people are being killed. Like, there's no doubt Iran is taking losses.

But remember, theocratic authoritarian regimes are often okay taking those losses. At the end of the day, who's going to vote them out? Right. And so you have Pete, there are reports now from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that there are people around Donald Trump saying, you've got to get out. There are Trump aligned economists saying we are, let me think here. seven and a half months from a midterm election, what's happening with the economy is going to become a political disaster. Public opinion is a problem. Most Americans are against the war.

Most Americans believe Donald Trump has not done enough on affordability and lowering prices. Forget about lowering prices. Prices are up. And meanwhile, although there's no doubt that the United States trounces Iran militarily and economically, Iran is launching missiles. They're launching drones. They're going after U.S. bases. They're going after regional targets. I don't even, is it seven or eight? Is it nine now? Close to 10 American service members have been killed. Several, many more have been wounded. And listen, the, it's true what Trump says. The U.S. has hit thousands of targets. But Iran is putting in a new extreme theocratic supreme leader. They're not backing down. And Trump's totally chaotic messaging is spooking markets and really confusing everybody.

war will end soon, but we could go further. We hit thousands of targets, but there are still targets we haven't hit. The war is mostly complete. And then Pete Heggseth goes today, like literally today, March 10th, the day you're hearing this, Pete Heggs said today is going to be the day of the most strikes against Iran that the US will have carried out since this entire thing began. So we have a situation that is becoming a no exit scenario for Donald Trump. And the pattern is a classic Trumpian pattern.

Start a war you never should have been in with big promises. Quietly look for the exits as the economy collapses and even your allies say, this is an absolutely disastrous idea. So if you ask me today, when will Trump declare this over? It'll probably be pretty soon. If the question is, when will the hostilities, uh, bated or catalyzed by Trump actually end? Oh, I don't know. Because Iran seems to have the political appetite and the wherewithal to keep this thing going

to show that they are not going to be pushed around. Now, I, I don't think I need to do this, but I want to so that people don't go, oh, David, we sound like a supporter. I am completely against all extremist authoritarian and theocratic regimes. And I have been against the regime of Iran and the Ayatollah for decades. That is a different question then. Is it politically advantageous for the United States to go in and get involved? And as Anthony Blinken told us earlier, they tried to get Obama to do it.

Obama was smart enough to go, I'm not getting suckered into this. They tried to get Biden to do it. And Biden recognized we are not going to get involved in this. But Trump did fall for it. And that's where we find ourselves right now. So the question I want to leave you with, when will Trump declare it over? But how long is this thing really going to last? Send me an email info at david packman.com.

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Maybe I'm not. Donald Trump has declared the Iran war essentially complete. But later you will hear Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of State, say that we are ramping up the bombing and that there will be more strikes today than during any day of this war thus far. Trump pulling out the, some people could say we've basically won the war. It is essentially over, except that doesn't really make any sense. This is Donald Trump's press conference at his Doral press golf course in Florida. Take a look at this. But while we're doing all of these things, we're achieving major strides toward completing our military objective.

And some people could say they're pretty well complete. We wiped every single force in Iran out very completely. Most of Iran's naval power has been sunk. It's on the bottom of the sea. It's almost 50 ships. He's just notified as 51 ships. I didn't know they had that many. Didn't last very long.

Now, of course, yes, Donald Trump is slurring badly. Yes, Donald Trump looks a very strange shade of orange. Yes, his right eye is almost completely swollen shut again with no explanation. But that's not what this is about. This is about Trump saying that the war is mostly complete, but his own secretary of defense doesn't agree. We'll come back to that. But nobody really agrees.

Military experts said what Trump is laying out is not really possible. possible. Iran is, of course, a poorer country than the United States and less militarily resourced than the United States. But they do have a massive military and they are launching attacks quite literally as this press conference was going on. So saying that the war is over doesn't really make any sense. Trump may be saying, I've crashed the economy and want to pretend to have an off ramp. And maybe some people will believe it. But it's complete doesn't really make any sense. More than likely, this is a panicked reaction to what's happening in the economy and the people

at the White House, the Trump-aligned economic advisors and Republicans more broadly coming to Trump and saying, we got to get out of this thing. This is a disaster. Again, confusing. Trump says we've struck 5,000 targets already. But we're leaving some targets in case we need to. to come back and have more stuff to strike, which is an unusual military strategy, to say the least, suggesting again that Trump is a little bit confused and a little bit very desperate.

We've struck over 5,000 targets to date, some of them very major targets. And we've left some of the most important targets for later in case we need to do it. Now, if you're trying to win this war and declare it one, why would we? you leave the most important targets for later? I thought it was a total obliteration for the second time in a year that you were trying to achieve. None of this makes an iota of sense. If we hit them, it's going to take many years for them to be rebuilt, having to do with electricity production and many other things. So we're not looking to do that if we don't have to. But they're the kind of things that are very easy to hit, but very devastating.

they are hit. We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them. We could take them all out in one day. If this is confusing to you, you're right to be confused. But it's all resulting in a 90% decline in various things, but in particular. We are seeing a decline in various things. And we've taken out the targets and the war is mostly complete. But we are. leaving the most important targets for later. It's not even, to call it a contradiction is not nearly a strong enough word. The mission is basically complete, but the most important targets we are leaving, but we've seen a 90% reduction in many things, but we might go back.

And also the war is over, but then in comes Pete Hegseth later and goes, we are going to do more strikes today than we have ever done before. Do you think at the end of the day, Trump doesn't know what's going on or that Trump is simply trying to take every side of the issue to show both that he is strong, but that he is trying to recover the crashed economy that he is generating? At this point, I don't really know the answer, but Donald Trump does seem extraordinarily confused and also seems only minimally engaged. Slurring and bored throughout this and when he takes questions a little bit later, mostly

in Florida throughout this entire thing, back to golf. He had not been golfing for a little bit. He's back to playing golf. And you just don't really get the sense that he's particularly engaged with any of this crap. Well, then he started taking questions. And that is when it really went off the rails. Donald Trump defiantly announcing that this is both the end of and only the beginning of the war. visibly disoriented by his own war as a Doral Florida press press conference goes off the rails.

It was 620 in the evening after all. And Donald Trump is reportedly only doing 12 to fives. So that is an important thing to consider. A reporter asks a good question. Why did you suggest that Iran used the Tomahawk missile to bomb its own school? When number one, Iran isn't even known to have Tomahawk missiles. Trump goes, well, I said that. because I don't know enough about it.

Yeah, please go ahead. Mr. President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war, but you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked, standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it.

I think it's something that I was told is under investigation, But tomahawks are are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report. Absent any evidence that Iran obtained a tomahawk and bombed its own school, why did you say that Iran did that? Well, I said it because I just don't know enough about it. This is like if someone said to you, hey, listen.

I have a headache right now. I don't really know the cause, but I think that orange and blue smurfs might have crawled in through my ears. teeny tiny little smirfs and they're yelling in my brain. And that is why my head hurts right now. Oh, that's interesting. Now, why are you suggesting that that's what's going on? Well, because I just don't know enough about it. And so, listen, I'll change my mind, but I don't know enough about it.

So I think it's the tiny smurfs in my head causing me the headache. This is deranged thinking. Now, it's almost better if it's not thinking. It's almost better if Trump just is like, I'm just lying to people. That's it. Because I don't know enough about it. So I'm suggesting Iran got a Tomahawk and used it on its own school doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The natural reaction to not knowing enough is to say, we don't know what happened. And it's really wacky when Pete Hegseth is the voice of reason. But the reporter is right. When Pete Hegseth was asked, do you think Iran got a Tomahawk and bombed its own school? Hegsteth goes under investigation. I don't know. And it's shocking that he has the restraint not to put forward these wacky hypotheses. Trump then asked another great question.

You said the war is basically done. But Pete Hegseth says it's just beginning, which is it? And Trump goes, well, it's both. It's Schrodinger's war. It is a war and not a war at the same time. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared? Well, I think you could say both. The beginning. It's the beginning of building a new country.

It's the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning. Please accept it. They certainly, they have no Navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no telecommunications, and they have no leadership. It's all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could call it a tremendous success right now, as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further. Right. And we're going to go further.

But the big risk on that war has been over for three days. We wipe them out the first, in the first two days, when you think about it, When you think about it, now remember that 15 minutes before, Trump said that they've left the most important targets. So wait, are they wiped out or did we leave the most important targets? It's incredible. We wiped out a big Navy, very powerful Navy. You know, these were ships, these were serious ships. These were ships that you buy when you want to win battles. They're all they're all on the bottom floor. The sailors are all running off their ships. They refuse to get on the ships. Right. The Air Force is gone. Everything's gone. The missiles are down to a trickle. The drones

are down to probably 25%. Just rant. Just completely low energy droning on and on and on and on. Next question. You promised regime change. And yet the regime remains the same with a younger version of the extremist authoritarian theocratic Ayatollah. Are you now going to have to take out the son of the Ayatollah, who is the new Supreme Leader? Trump goes, well, I don't know. You have to take him out. Does he have a target on his back? You mean the new Supreme Leader? You mean the son? How can there be in Iran? Well, I don't want to, I don't want to say that. Well, you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country. So I was disappointed to see their choice.

So Trump not saying yes or no that the new leader has to be taken out, but he's not pleased. Hard to argue by your own standards that the goals are complete when quite literally the same regime remains in charge. Just I didn't advocate for this war, but if getting rid of that regime was part of it, which at one point they said was when the son of the Ayatollah is the new leader, you haven't really accomplished that. And then finally, and this is genuinely terrifying stuff because we are worried. is this going to now lead to blowback against Americans?

Trump asked whether Iran has activated sleeper cells in the United States, and Trump says, we're on top of that. Yeah. Activated any sleeper cells inside the U.S. There's reports that they have pressed that trigger button to activate those cells, at least abroad. Well, we've been trying for a long time. We've been very much on top of it. One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrat shutdown because, as you know, the apparatus that looks into that, Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down, which tells you they probably hate our country a lot.

But the Democrats have to open that up. Let me translate. Okay. I have no clue about that. I don't know anything about it. And much like all of the other things that have backfired since I made this disastrous decision. We are very much behind the eight ball and trying to figure out how the hell to get out of this. That's the trans.

That's how I would interpret what Donald Trump said. Now later, we will go to Trump's speech to congressional Republicans, which if you thought this press conference was a disaster, just wait till you see what he said to them. Next, I will be joined by Governor Gavin Newsom. Sometimes there's something uniquely nostalgic about breakfast cereal. I remember Saturday mornings getting up before everybody else, having a little cereal while watching cartoons. Our sponsor Magic Spoon is like the grown up version of that experience.

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You can find Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store, but you will also get $5 off if you go to MagicSpoon. slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Who is the most dangerous person in Trump's cabinet and in Trump's upper leadership right now after the firing of Christy Noe? That's one question I really want an answer to. Another one is, is the rift within the left right now, where there are some already saying, here's a whole list of people I will never vote for in 2028 no matter what. Is that a problem for the left or does it show that the left is strong and willing to do

a robust primary? These are a couple of the things that I am going to talk to Governor Gavin Newsome about in this interview. interested in the book. One of the things I thought was really interesting about it is you talk about your upbringing, your dad's presence and lack thereof and presence. You've talked about it at some of the events. It's really interesting because you and I have talked about young men getting dragged into this right wing space. And reading the book, it sort of feels like it could have happened to you, but it didn't. I'm interested your thoughts on why it didn't, but also like what's going on with young men right now? Well, it's, you know, and I wrote a book is your reverency called Young Man in a hurry in many ways. It's about becoming a man in that process of discovery. And, you know, for me, that was grounded in the hardworking grid of a single mom who made

sure that I didn't stray. That made sure that if you wanted, you know, a basketball hoop, you're going to have to have a paper route to pay for it. You're going to have to work in, you know, construction to pay for it. So this notion of grit, this notion of agent. you're not a victim, you're not a bystandard, create an entrepreneurial mindset that was ultimately a gift. But I also didn't have the gift of an algorithm that was chasing me.

It's chasing so many young men and boys. And I've got two young boys. And I'll never forget when I did my podcast and one of my first guests was Charlie Kirk. And my son heard about it. And he said, Dad, Dad, I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I want to meet Charlie Kirk. I'm like, how do you know who he is? You don't know who he is.

And then he starts telling me, all his friends do. I said, who else do you know? He says, well, Andrew Tate. And I'm like, Andrew Tate. And then this guy, Peterson, and, you know, was way beyond Rogan. And he didn't have a device. It was his school device. It was YouTube.

It was the Chrome Book. And all these algorithms chasing all of these, all his brothers, all this, I mean, everyone in his cohort. And today, it's all about prediction markets. He's trying to bet right now. I'm like, brother, you barely turned 14. And you're talking about betting. And he's like, and now he's making bets on predictions and things. So it's a thing.

But beyond that, you know, I think it's also a thing because the toxicity that you can find, it's not everyone finds it. But so much of it sort of then becomes derivative where there's now a commercial for, you know, hustler's university, you know, $25 and you could be a man. And your parents may not, you know, they don't know how to treat you. You're going to have a Bugatti, a Bugatti, the whole thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're into that. And then all of a sudden, you know, they get into a spectrum on a white ring podcast

and they sort of say, well, at least he's funny, even if you disagree with him, Dad. I'm like, that's, you know, and Trump has been able to find a way to exploit that. He hasn't been able to solve some of the challenges young men are facing, but he's been able to exploit it. And I think we need to understand that our party needs to understand it. A lot of these young men need mentors. A lot of these young men need support, and our party needs to recognize that we're not doing enough for young men. And they voted for Trump in record numbers, although the polling has kind of come back a little bit. What is the plan for the left to get them back?

Because it's such a key voting group. We were scared to even engage them. Yeah. Because we felt it was a zero-sum game because then we're not talking about women and girls. And, of course, all the crisis with Dobbs, everything else, and issues. around, you know, the sort of post, and we were talking about Harvey Weinstein in there. I mean, you know, and I get that sensitivity.

But it's not a zero-sum game. It's, in fact, quite the opposite. My wife, who literally entire career has been about advancing the cause of women and girls through a series of documentaries, six or seven documentaries. Her second one was called The Mask You Live in about masculinity, making the point that we have to address the crisis of men

who dropout rates are higher, issues of deaths of despair, the four times of suicide rates. In every category, this was any other cohort or group, the Democratic Party of all parties, would have a 10-point agenda to address it, but we've been timid. So number one, you have to acknowledge it's a real issue. You have to acknowledge not only it's an issue, but to acknowledge that in order to address it, we've got to change. For example, we've got to have more men volunteering, the Boys and Girls Club.

We have to have more mentoring other men. We need to have more men in the teaching profession, particularly K to three, dominantly women. And it matters to young boys to see that. And I think that's part of the journey back. There's a number of governors that are doing some really interesting things. I'm deeply involved in this space. It's not just political, but it has a political benefit. Nothing else just to keep these guys from believing that Trump has anything in terms of their interest.

He doesn't. They'll exploit them. You talked about the firing of Christy Noem. Of the people that are left, who's most dangerous that if it were up to you, you would say, removing this person helps the country the most? The dark heart of the administration, period, full stop, is one man, Stephen Miller, the darkest of the dark hearts. What specifically, because of his policy on the deportation stuff? Yeah, his influence is outsized. I mean, it was manifested through Christy Knoem in many ways as a fault person for all that.

I mean, all these guys. I mean, this is Stephen Miller at scale, the playbook, the mass men, the secret police, the mass deportations, the detention camps, the gross incompetency, the shock and all, this notion that might makes right, this law of the jungle mindset, the rule of Don, in this case, the only person that he'll submit to. So, no, Miller is the architect of all this. That's not going to fundamentally change, even if this new guy comes in. What was most grotesque and incompetent about a gnome was how she vandalized the rest of that agency, not just that relates to ICE, but what she did to FEMA, what she's doing to victims of floods and fires and droughts across the country that are still waiting for aid that's sitting on our desk because they're simple incapacity as an administrator to do her damn job. So there were so many reasons why she should have been fired. but at the core of this, what's malignant, it's not her in contrast or comparison to him. He is the issue that explains more things and more ways on more days of what we despise about Trump and Trumpism.

Your event in Boston was at the JFK Library, and I want to get your thoughts on this contrast between, on the one hand, Bobby Kennedy, who a tragic story could have been president, could have been a phenomenal president. Our Secretary of Health and Human Services today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., very different approach to politics, beef tallow, fast food, raw milk, the vaccine stuff. What do you make of this contrast? It's hard for me. So in the book, it's a love letter of my mom and dad. Single mom, 19, divorced, two kids on her own, working three jobs most of her life, died 20 years ago. My father was distant, came back later in my life.

But my father gave me one thing, and that was, as a year. young child, he imprinted on me because of a photo with he and Bobby Kennedy. It was always on the wall. My mom always kept it on the wall. It was a campaign photo from when my dad ran for state senate and lost right before Bobby was assassinated. And that, I mean, talk about what that stretched my mind. I connected as a child to that. And it was a way of connecting with my father, those two folks, my two heroes growing up. It's the photo I would rush in in a fire. I'm not even making this up. I say this all the time. I literally would to try to save that photo.

It's what it meant to me. And I started learning about not just Bobby Kennedy, but Sarz Shriver and the Shriver and the Shriver family and, you know, Vista, legal aid to the poor, the war on poverty and, you know, Peace Corps. Come on. I mean, it's like in the spirit that defined the 60s, the hard-headed pragmatism, et cetera. So I grew up with that.

And I grew up with a father who was, I mean, advocate for the environment. and one of people that he supported more than anyone else was Bobby Jr. So I used to go out on the road watching Bobby Jr. Give these unbelievable environmental speech. He wrote beautiful books. He talked about the spiritual aspects, going back 10,000 generations to our creator, talked about pollution being an act of theft,

deficit spending, his ability to communicate on the environment. Really inspired me generationally as his son, my dad, two kids, Bobby Jr., and so I've long not only known him, but identified in so many ways with him until COVID. And he became someone I couldn't recognize. We met together right before COVID. He then just started to shape-shift in ways, conspiracies, even against me, and we lost them. I don't recognize who the hell this guy is. I like what he's doing in all to process food. We've been leading the charge on that. I like what he's doing a farm at the school. I like what he's doing, going after, big food, ink generally. But he's selling his soul. And he's wrong

on these vaccines. And he is just a vestige, sadly, of what he once was. And it's hard to see. And I can't imagine the family of the Kennedy family, how they must feel when someone like me feels like this is a big loss. And it's just terrible to see that family name used for these causes that just did not in any way, shape, or form align with the values of Bobby Sr. and what that family represented. I want to get your thoughts on what maybe we would describe as a rift within the left. there are people already declaring very loudly definitively, if Governor Newsom is a candidate, I would never vote for him. If Governor Shapiro, J.B. Pritzker, there's a list, right? It's a very long list. Aside from any personal thing, which I don't think you really care about too much about that, as far as what it means for the movement, do you worry about this division that exists where

we don't even know who the candidates are going to be? We don't know who the Republicans going to be. My view has always been, I'll wait until I know what the options are before I decide. Are you concerned about that? Yeah, I mean, look, I am for us, not for me. You know, this book is about me just letting go. I'm really hate me. I mean, it's okay. I'm honestly, can't control the third thing.

I can only control what I can control. And, you know, so if you don't like, I'm not, don't pass your litmus test, the purity test. But I worry for our party that, you know, we have to be in the business of addition. not subtraction. You know, we talk about the Kennedy family. They understood that. I mean, that's how we built the world's biggest middle class. It was, you know, it was the values of the Democratic Party

and social justice, race, justice, economic justice, and how we were able to knit together folks, small, all parts of the spectrum of the Democratic Party. And they felt included, they felt seen and heard. They weren't feeling judged. Now we're all feeling judged, and there's sort of notion that, seriously, that could be with you on eight issues,

but if you're wrong on that ninth, and if we slightly disagree on the 10th, you're done. You're fraud, you're fake, you're this, and it's all these brands, these binary, there's no nuance anymore. And there's no grace in all that too. And I worry, of course, to be rigid in our ideologies,

to not be open to arguments, not to be interested in evidence. And we decry the other side for that, saying open your eyes, be open to argument. And yet here we are sometimes, and we are sort of captured in that light. So no, I don't think that's helpful. but I'm not immune to I understand judgment and I understand that all of us, including myself,

can be judgmental of others, but I hope for our party's future in order to get back power, we have to be more ruthless in pursuit of it in an enlightened and loving way. But the other side, they don't care about light and love in that respect. They understand that at a level that we need to recognize, meaning these, These guys are not around. And so we have to find a way to knit together this broader coalition and fabric if we're going to actually persevere and get through not just 2026, but get back on top in 2028. If we think sooner than 28, which is 26, is there anything you see in the national democratic

strategy that you would say, I think this is a mistake, this should be thought of done differently? Not right now. In so many ways, you know, it's sort of a Marcus Aurelius frame. I mean, it's what, you know, the obstacle is the way, what stands in the way becomes the way. Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump's our biggest turnout machine. I mean, he's our get-out the vote. You saw that in Texas where you had more Democrats turnout than Republicans. You think that's still emotionally salient this year?

I think it is. I mean, just for what more, let's talk about the war, gas prices, what just having 92,000 jobs were lost. One point four percent GDP growth last quarter. I mean, took this, the nations, I mean, the world's envy as an economy. And he's wrecking it quite literally in real time. So the worst jobs growth in the last year that we've seen since the last recession. I mean, it's unbelievable what he's done. So in that respect, everyone, I think, is starting to understand the only way that we can even hold the line on Trump and Trump is take back the House of Representatives.

So I think he will still be a dominant figure, but all of us want to get past resistance to renewal. No one's naive about that. And in some ways, that's the easiest job because that doesn't get that much. There's 10 or 15 obvious things we need to do. And there's a narrative that has to be developed around those things and how we have it, you know, how we democratize the economy so we can save democracy, how we address the wealth and income gaps, how we address these emerging challenges that are not even emerging that are here today around AI and fear and truth and trust

in relationship to that. All that is, to me, the easy part, the second phase of the agenda that is today to hold the lines save our republic, our democracy, to have fair free in elections, we have to win back the House of Representatives this November. Thinking about the Republican side a little bit, one of the things that seems different right now about Trump is that there's a confidence he used to have in every decision that he seems to be lacking. And there's a couple of examples.

He spent six to eight weeks asking people, should I fire Christine Home or not, even though he told us he was the best at hiring and firing. On the 28 kind of kingmaker thing, one question. is, will he be in a position to choose his successor? That's part A of the question, but part B is, he's even publicly said, I don't know, Marco's doing pretty well, but JD, I don't know, they're both really good. There's sort of like a lack of confidence that seems different right now than in the past. Do you see that what you attribute to?

He's become a carbon copy of himself. He's, dare I say, become dull. Like boring in the sense? It's a state of the union. I mean, does anyone remember that? I mean, he just doubled down on. It was very long. It was long.

Yeah, he doubled down on stupid. I mean, it didn't even sort of shift course. It didn't even try to fake and dial in that something needs to be dialed up or dialed down in terms of the way things are going. I mean, across the board, everything's, you know, literally, I mean, he's taken an economy that was honestly one of the most robust, fastest growing economies in the world. And here we are. I mean, we're now it's in reverse with the new jobs numbers. I mean, you saw the gasoline. prices going through the roof in red states. I saw today, 47 cents in West Virginia, 47 cents

the same number in Indiana. And that's just a few days into this war. We're now having the echoes. I mean, cue up the song around stagflation. We're going to have, we're going to all start having that conversation. And obviously, this big, beautiful betrayal in what's happened in terms of the deficit and debt that is going to be exacerbated by these tax cuts and by all of the food stamp cuts and the impacts that's going to have on real families and working folks and what's happening in health care costs, affordability across the spectrum that hits everybody, utility costs, the rent, everything that is impacting us. He has no solution for. And so I agree with you that he's weakness across the spectrum. I said it, you know, tonight at the library,

masquerading the strike, marauding around as he's some guy. That's why he cosplays and puts himself dressed up as the Pope or puts his picture up there on Mount Rushmore. I mean, who does that, except someone is broken and insecure. He's trying to be something he's not, or puts his picture on the side of the DOJ, or puts, you know, his name up and gold leaf everywhere, builds a Kremlin-style ballroom. You do that to overcompensate for your own inadequacies, your own weakness. So as it relates to 2008, he's just the gladiator. He's this, you know, he's the emperor. You know, he's Eurelius's son in the first grader, the guy who just completely destroyed the, you know, from the great, and he's like this with the crowd,

ah, no, down, and that's Rubio. That's Vance. Because again, he's the flammer. He's the, you know, he's the music man. He's a Carney. And so we're going to have Apprentice 3.0. You know, and he's going to play all this, play the crowds, try to be the man,

because he can't walk off the stage. He doesn't care if he's a heel or the hero. He has to be the star. Could he be so diminished in his power, or capacities, two different questions, but related by the time that it's time for the Republicans to have a primary, that he doesn't even have the influence over who they pick that he would like to have. I haven't seen the substantive evidence of that yet.

These guys are supine, all of them. Yeah. I mean, Johnson and the rest. I mean, there's a modest heartbeat, but let's not applaud the great Supreme Court just because they got it right on two opinions. I mean, that were just no-brainers. And there still was three votes on the tariff that went south, which is just being. beyond imagination. The law was so crystal cure in that respect. But I haven't seen the evidence

yet. That said, this war continues out of control. You get to, you know, you saw the Katari energy minister today in the FT said, you know, after the LNG facility was taken out by a drone that won't be, he said, we'll take many, many weeks, if not a month, the impacts that could have in the Gulf region, he talked about guitar energy, talked about $150 oil. You get to those points in this Trump presidency, just 13, 14 months in? This thing could break and break down pretty damn quickly. Then with the House back, subpoena, oversight, co-equal branch of government, courts functioning, even if it's a hybrid, you're right.

That point, it may radically change. So again, the whole game now, Speaker Jeffries. November's it. It's it. I mean, it's like, don't think about the guy or gal on the white horse. Come save you. The perfect person that doesn't, you know, that agrees with you on everything. And it's precious and perfect and we'll save everything.

And we'll somehow magically get everything done. You'll get to that later. 2026. Last thing I'm going to ask you as we're getting a lot of signals that it's time to wrap. I know you don't have anything to announce today. There's a lot that has to happen before 2028 is really in focus. Could something happen that would make you say, this is not even something I want to consider? This is not something that would make me even think about 28?

Yeah, look, I'm not trying to thrust myself on anybody. I'm trying to meet this moment, and I felt like it met me. We decided to draw the line and say enough, literally, not just figuratively, with Prop 50. Same thing happened in June when he federalized the National Guard since 700 active duty Marines. I'm like, no. Those weren't our fights. It wasn't on my list. It wasn't my agenda this year.

It's why I shifted tonality. I'm just like I'm putting it all out there, man. And you don't have to like me. I get it. The book reflects that as well. And it's okay. Back to your question. It's okay.

Like it's, you know, I want to win. We have to win. We need to sign someone who can win. I'm not trying to win an argument. We have to win. We have to take this country back. We have to be in the spirit of the Jesse Jackson Memorial Day and the spirit of Isaiah, the repairs of the breach.

We have to find the right people. And the people of this country will find that person. And that moment will present itself. And if you meet that moment, if you can justify it going there with a big enough Bernie Y, like a Y. You're congruent, and you can offer something where you feel, I literally add just a little spark, a little bit different, a little bit, I respect all of you.

But at this moment, I think I offer something a little bit unique and different, and you have the confidence to do that, and it's reflected in enough support, then you go. But if you don't have that, you don't even belong on the damn stage. And the final thing, you don't belong there to begin with if you don't also have support of your family. And I wrote this book that dedicated this book, book to my four kids and every single one on my veto on any consideration of my public life,

private life. That's only that matters. Because at the end of day, back to Jesse Jackson Memorial Day, man. It was all about his family. It wasn't his resume values. I was about just so he did this or no, it's about his eulogy, man. It's about how they made him feel, how he feels, about his love. There was a story. I'll end on this, man. It was beautiful. His son comes up and he said, and all his grandkids were there and it was right in the depth he brought each grandkid by themselves into the room without the parents

just to say goodbye and talk about. And you didn't see a dryad and the family. I started tearing up. And it was just to say he loved them. It wasn't about, you know, you have to be this or do that. It's like, just love, man. And that's it. And his son sitting in there and he's crying.

That's the it in life. Yeah. That's when you know you made it. That's the presidential library, man. That's a palace when you could find that love. And that's, to me, the most important office. And so that's the foundation to which any decision would be made. Thank you, Governor.

Good to see. Thank you. The parkman 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. Donald Trump said just hours ago that the war is basically over.

It's mostly complete. We've achieved all of our goals, even though we really haven't achieved any of them by Trump's own standards. And all of a sudden, in comes the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. And he says today, like today, Tuesday, what day, what year is it? Tuesday. Somebody tell me what year we're in. Tuesday, March 10th, 2026 will be the most intense day of strikes inside of Iran.

The war is mostly over per the president. It is the biggest day of war per the Secretary of Defense. For example, today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles. They've been capable of firing. Now, is it possible that Pete Hegseth's suit is so tight that it's squeezed a confusing statement

out of him? Well, it's possible. But just as a reminder, as Pete Hegseth says that today, March 10th will be the most intense day of strikes inside of Iran since this war started. Donald Trump, just hours prior to that, said that we're basically done. complete. But while we're doing all of these things, we're achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they're pretty well complete. We wiped every single force in Iran out very completely. Most of Iran's naval power has been

sunk. It's on the bottom of the sea. And it's almost 50 ships. He's just notified. It's 51 ships. I didn't- 51 ships. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly in the bottom of the ocean. Ha! Ha!

Ah. Ah. Ladies and gentlemen. Exactly. Exactly. So how could this be a war and not be a war? How could the war be over and just be getting started? Well, the answer is very, very simple.

They're panicking and they have no idea what's going on. I mean, it's a- it's a, it's a, it's a, combination of a desperation to manage from a crisis PR standpoint, an economic and political disaster that they've created out of thin air. And also, they're not really that smart. They're not particularly competent. They're not really listening to experts. It's a combination of those things. And so Trump wants to say it's over to calm the markets. But Pete Hegseth wants to say they're just ramping up the bombing so that Iran. doesn't get any ideas and he looks strong and big in all of this stuff.

They want to argue that they are the affordability administration. Yet their choice to do this has spiked oil and gas prices to high heaven. So it's everything. It's all pick. Take a pick. If you want the war to be over, well, Trump said it is. If you want the United States never to back down and to go in. Well, then you go with Pete Hagseth who says today is the biggest day of bombing up.

It's the same thing as Trump when he ran in 2015, 2016, where he would take every side of every issue so everybody can find something that they like at the end of the day. Pete Hegseth then addresses the claims of an expanding war. And he goes, actually, it's not expanding. But Pete, you just said today will be the biggest day of bombing. But no, it's constricting. It's worth underscoring. I see in the media banners that say, you know, war expanding or war spread.

It's actually the opposite. It's actually quite contained and more allies or more of those countries are coming on side, recognizing that you can't live under a conventional umbrella with nuclear ambitions with a radical regime like that. It is both spreading and contracting. It is both over and the biggest day of bombing, but also it's not getting any bigger. It's getting smaller. And this is the theme with Pete Hagseth.

Here's another clip where he just spits out a random combination of Bud, buzzwords. It's sort of like the Department of Defense equivalent of, hey, I want to get us all synced so that we can synergistically make sure that we're going to hit OTE by the end of Q2. You know, it's the same type of thing, but from the Department of Defense. It's a laser focused maximum authority mission delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision. No hesitation. No half measures. As President Trump declared yesterday, we're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.

We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. And like any good country with separation of church and state, Pete Hegseth also provided us with some scripture. Now, the chairman and I having just returned from Dover last night, our troops and their families and the enormous sacrifice that they make is certainly heavy on my mind so i'll close with scripture drawing strength from psalm 144 the natural thing to do blessed be the lord my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle sure he is my loving god and my fortress my stronghold and my deliverer my shield

in whom I take refuge. May the Lord grant unyielding strength and refuge to our warriors, unbreakable protection to them in our homeland and total victory over those who seek to harm them. And amen. God bless our troops and this mission. Mr. Chairman, over to you. Thank you, Mr. Now, there you go. And of course, a completely abnormal way to conduct operations. This is not normal in any way. It shouldn't be happening. And this is what happens when you put a, what was he, a weekend, Fox News host or whatever, in charge of the Department of Defense. It is not good. Dear God, he's lost his mind. Donald Trump told us that lasers will soon be doing the work of patriots. What does this mean? Nobody knows. This is really, really bad. And as the economy

and alliances are crumbling around the desperation of Trump to golf and to get the hell out of this problem is growing. And he is warning us really soon, patriots will be replaced by lasers. And the laser technology that we have now is incredible. It's coming out pretty soon. We're literally lasers will do the work of, at a lot less cost, do the work of what the patriots are doing

or what other things are doing. The situation was very quickly approaching. The point of no return and the United States found it intolerable, in my opinion, based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others were telling me, Marco, and so involved. Really just a master communicator, lasers will soon replace our patriots. This was meant to be an event to inform the American people as to the state and status of the Iran war. This was supposed to be reassuring to the country that the military is in good hands with Donald Trump at the helm as commander in chief. It failed to do that. Trump weirdly saying

that Iranians are walking around with no legs, walking with no legs. People that died through the roadside bombs died and are right now walking around with no legs, no arms, a face that's been so badly damaged? They're walking around with no legs. Now, of course, of course, you might use crutches. You might have a prosthetic leg. I'm not ignoring that. But this is not an example of Trump referring to that.

This is just Trump spitting out whatever comes to mind. They're walking all over. They're running around with no legs out there. Trump claims that the initial timeline for the war in Iran has been very much surpassed. then we are way ahead of schedule, which is weird because the Iranian regime, which was supposed to be dismantled, just appointed the son of the Ayatollah to be in charge. The nuclear facilities, which supposedly were destroyed in June, reportedly have not been redestroyed if they were ever rebuilt.

We don't know. If the missile depots were supposed to be taken out, they haven't been. I mean, just, I don't know that any of Trump's objectives have been accomplished. We're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. Yeah. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we'd be here. In addition to the fact that we've taken out the leadership twice and maybe three times. And we, as you know, we want to be involved.

We don't want another president that maybe wouldn't be willing to do what I'm willing to do for the good of the... Other presidents were smart enough not to fall for it. ...world for the good of our nation to be stuck with the situation. in five years or 10 years from now. So we think they should put a president in or the head of the country and that's going to be able to do something peacefully for a change. They've been doing this for 47 years killing people. Well, they put in the son of the Ayatollah. So I don't really know about that. And then finally, Donald Trump presenting us with the impeccable and pristine logic behind his decision to start a war with Iran, which is, I think,

they had in mind to attack us. And the phrase, I think, is doing a lot of work here. Let me, Marco, so involved that I thought that they were going to attack us. I thought they would, if we didn't do this at the time we did it, I think they had in mind to attack us. And if you notice, they did something which was very foolish, very stupid, I would say. If we didn't do it, I think they had in mind to attack us. I thought that they were going to attack us. A conclusion that intelligence agencies did not come to, a perspective that Donald Trump was baited into falling for by a number of bad actors, including maybe Iran itself, Benjamin Netanyahu and the hairbrained sycophants that surround him every day.

Now we are going to learn on the bonus show today about how Pete Hegseth is blowing billions of your dollars as this war is raging. On fruit basket stands, chairs and crab. Was it Alaskan king crab? Was it stone crab? Well, we will see if we can find out. A Tennessee Republican says Muslims don't belong in American society. How about that?

And Uber is launching a women only option for rides across the United States. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at joinpackman.com.