The David Pakman Show - Trump's $21 trillion fantasy, Ken Paxton's meltdown, and a Republican revolt

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

On the Show: -- Newly released FOIA documents show ICE's investigative division obtained tens of millions of voter records ahead of the midterm elections -- Political analysts argue a major Republican defeat in the upcoming midterms could cost Donald Trump his leverage over the GOP -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stumbles through campaign speeches while quietly endorsing federal spending cuts to lobbyists -- Fox Business airs Donald Trump's unverified claim of securing $21 trillion in foreign investment without independent verification -- CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz gets fact-checked on Fox News after falsely claiming butter costs one dollar -- A West Virginia Republican caller on C-SPAN's Washington Journal declares that his own party deserves to lose every election -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The military plans to livestream a firing squad execution, Trump gets a medal on behalf of his smart uncle, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🩳 Quince: Get free shipping & 365-day returns at https://quince.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 💪 Get a FREE AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your Welcome Kit at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 👖 Fair Harbor: Get 20% off with code DAVID at https://fairharborclothing.com/david -- 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 (01:04) ICE collects millions of voter records (08:33) Trump faces political bankruptcy (20:12) Ken Paxton stumbles in Senate campaign (26:51) Fox Business repeats unverified White House claim (35:19) Dr. Oz misquotes grocery prices on television (42:42) C-SPAN caller criticizes Republican party (50:47) Friday Feedback segment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. We have just learned that ICE has obtained more than 50 million American voter records just weeks before the midterms. And what the government may be planning to do with that raises some really serious questions. Now, meanwhile, Donald Trump could be facing something even worse than impeachment. If Republicans get crushed in November, he could lose his grip on the Republican Party entirely. We also have Ken Paxton and Texas somehow managing to accidentally pray for the end of capitalism.

It's really weird. And Fox business is promoting Trump's completely ridiculous claim that he brought in $21 trillion. Dr. Oz tried going to the supermarket again. It didn't go well. And a Republican voter called in to C-SPAN and said his Republican Party deserves to lose every election. We have that and your emails, comments, and questions and plenty more on today's show. Glad you're here. We are now just days away, days away from the midterm elections, if you can believe it.

And we have learned something extraordinary about what ICE is doing with American voter information, your voter information, my voter information. According to newly released documents from the government, ICE's investigative division has obtained more than 50 million voter records from the DOJ. This is not about immigration enforcement. These are records being collected as part of an effort to investigate supposed voter fraud, which we are so sick of hearing of because it essentially doesn't exist at any statistically meaningful level.

Now, before anybody jumps to any conclusions, obtaining voter records isn't the same as changing someone's vote. We're not saying registrations have been deleted. We don't have the evidence right now that ballots have been interfered with. We don't have evidence that ICE has done this stuff. But why does ICE have these records? And what the records reveal already raises very serious questions about why an immigration enforcement agency is collecting this much information about elections and about voters.

And what are they going to do with it? And what safeguards are there? Because ICE is not exactly an institution that we can have confidence in. The story comes from common dreams by Jake Johnson. And it's based on documents that a FOIA request turned up, a Freedom of Information Act, put forward by the legal advocacy organization. organization, democracy forward. And what the documents show is that HSI, which is the investigative arm of ICE, got about 50,

50 and a half million voter roll records from the Justice Department. And they also got about 26,000 records from U.S. citizenship and information and immigration services. The states that they identified as priorities are Texas. Look, look at this list. Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, Minnesota, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. There is a lot of interest in that list because a lot of those states have really important elections coming up in just days.

Now, again, it is not inherently illegal for the government to investigate real voter fraud. That's fine. Non-citizens aren't allowed to vote in federal elections. If we have evidence that non-citizens voted in federal elections, that is a crime that should be investigated. I don't know of anyone who's saying don't investigate that. But the distinction that matters here is that the existence of 50 million voter records does not mean there are 50 million suspicious voters in the United States or anywhere close to that.

It doesn't mean that there are 50 million non-citizens on the voter rolls. It doesn't mean there are 50 million fraudulent votes that have taken place. These are voter records being collected for investigation. And the question is whether the government has a legitimate evidence-based reason to collect and analyze them on this scale. Now, the voter records themselves are only the beginning of this story because the documents also reveal that ISIS is thinking about sending undercover agents to investigate nonprofit organizations that help people register to vote.

These are organizations whose job is to help eligible Americans, legal voters, participate in elections. And one particularly revealing detail is that ICE reviewed more than 40 nonprofits in New Jersey and found zero, zero derogatory information. In other words, that review turned up no wrongdoing whatsoever. And yet they are continuing to push this forward. Now, here's where the story starts to get even more concerning if you're not worried already. The documents indicate that certain state voter records were being considered for entry into Palantir's elite system.

That's all capital letters elite. It's an acronym. That is technology used by ICE to identify and locate people for immigration enforcement. So think about the implications of combining voter registration information with a system designed to locate people for deportation. Now, here's an important update. Our friends over at Democracy Docket, Mark Elias's media operation, Democracy Docket reports that as of July, that data was awaiting entry into the system.

And a source familiar with this says it was never integrated into the system. So we don't even know that ICE uploaded the records into elite. But why were they even considering that? There's another name here that I think is worth knowing. And that name is Heather Hyder. Honey, I know, I know. Honey was a promoter of the false claims that spread wildly about the 2020 election and now holds a senior position in the Department of Homeland Security.

And according to Democracy Forward, ICE got an additional 48 million records from sources associated with her work. That's separate from the 50 million voter records that the Justice Department got. We don't know how much overlap there is between the datasets. The documents also reference investigations involving voting machines and counties associated with the 2020 election results. So what we're seeing is the federal government's immigration enforcement apparatus investigating voter registration groups, voter databases, and questions connected to 2020, which is now three

elections ago, including midterms, of course. There's one more development I want to tell you about. Democracy docket reports that ICE is also withholding portions of the documents related to its own potential role at polling places in November. That does not prove that ICE agents are going to be all over polling places, but it definitely makes us wonder, are ICE agents going to be all over polling places in November? And the administration stated justification is, oh, election integrity. We need to investigate potential illegal voting by non-citizens. There is a very basic question here that needs to be answered. What evidence do you have that would justify an investigation involving tens of millions of voter

records, hundreds of voter registration orgs, and possible use of immigration surveillance technology? The government should be able to tell us, here is all of the probable cause, all of the evidence that proves we need this information and we need to be doing what we're doing with it. And by the way, who has access to this information? What safeguards are in place? That is the larger story. We are weeks from Americans deciding who controls the House, who controls the Senate. Does Trump have the lamest of lame duck final two years?

Or does he have some semblance of power? And what we're learning is ISIS collecting massive amounts of voter info, examining organizations that register voters, and figuring out how can we connect election data with immigration enforcement systems. This should be scrutinized very seriously. It should not be the case that Americans discover through FOIA requests that their government is doing stuff with their voter info that they had no idea about. And with election day approaching, those answers matter right now and we deserve answers. I don't know if we are going to get them.

I want to ask you a serious question. Do you think you realize what happens to Donald Trump if Republicans get absolutely destroyed in the midterms in 20 something days? I believe that there is a lack of full appreciation of what it would mean to see Republicans destroyed on November 3rd. We're all talking about, will Democrats take the House? Maybe they'll take the Senate. We're talking about impeachment. We're talking about investigations and subpoenas and all of it.

But there's something else that could happen to Trump. And in some ways, I think it would be even worse for him. Trump could become completely politically irrelevant to his own party. a really interesting piece in our friend Aaron Rupar's public notice of the piece is written by Tom Shaler and it's about Trump potentially facing his worst bankruptcy yet and it's not a literal bankruptcy. It's political bankruptcy. And this gets it something I've been talking to you about for months. Trump has spent more than a decade convincing Republicans without me, you cannot survive politically. You're dead politically. You've got to kiss the ring. You have to defend everything

I do. And if Trump says something insane, you either agree with him or you keep your mouth shut. Why do Republicans go along with that? Because they're terrified of him. They're terrified. He'll endorse their primary challenger. They're terrified mag of voters will turn on them or that their political careers are going to end. But the thing is, if and when Republicans start to realize that Trump is the biggest threat to their political careers, that is going to create a different situation where we may be headed. Look, look what's happening right now. Trump's approval rating is 29 in one poll. It's in the low 30s and a bunch of polls.

Independents are abandoning Trump. The Latino voters that move towards Trump in 24 are moving away. And there are even Republicans criticizing him. Now, I am not going to pretend that these are profiles and courage. These are people looking at their own numbers and realizing, damn, I might lose my job if I'm associated too closely with Donald Trump. And I've been saying for weeks, this could be a generational Republican defeat. Could the polls be overstating support for Democrats?

Yeah, that could happen. We've talked about that. But if Republicans lose the House and especially if they lose the Senate, this whole calculation changes. Trump is term limited. He can't be elected president again. Republicans have to start thinking and we're 20 something days from them thinking about it. This primary will start earlier than ever.

Republicans have to start thinking what does their party look like in 28 and what kind of a nominee do they want. So imagine that you are a Republican member of Congress. You've spent years defending Trump. You defended the tariffs. You defended the corruption. You defended the bizarre behavior in sleeping in public and all of this stuff. And importantly, you defended attacks on democratic institutions and the press and all of it.

And come November 4th, you wake up and it is mourning in America and your party got destroyed in an election where Trump said, pretend I'm on the ballot. When do you say why the F am I still doing this? What am I getting out of defending this clown? And that is where this gets really interesting. For the two years following the upcoming election, Trump could still be president. He would still have the nuclear codes. He would still be signing executive orders.

But he could find out Republicans no longer care what I want. And that would totally upend the presidency. Democrats taking the House would also upend the presidency, right? investigations, hearings, subpoenas, potentially a third impeachment. But it is the Republicans. I don't want people to misunderstand this. A weakened Trump could be the sign where he is made politically irrelevant by Republicans. Now, I don't believe that a politically weakened Trump is necessarily less dangerous.

In fact, I probably argue the opposite. If Trump feels cornered, humiliated, abandoned by Republicans, I could see him becoming even more erratic. He has massive executive power. We know how he reacts when things don't go his way. So I'm not suggesting November 3rd fixes everything, but think about the irony. Trump has spent his whole political career telling Republicans, without me, you're losers. But we may be 20 something days away from Republicans saying the only way we stop losing is if we

We get the hell away from Donald Trump. If and when that starts to happen, if and when that starts to happen, the fear will go away and the entire thing will unravel much faster than people expected. So there are all of these considerations when people think about, am I going to vote or not? You know, posters spend so much time and resources deciding what questions can we really ask to determine accurately is someone a likely voter? We all need to be likely voters. And even if you doubt how much your vote in your district will change the course of the country,

forget about that. Like make it really easy. Here is an opportunity to have your voice heard. Opt to have it heard. And even if it's not a close Senate race or there's no important Senate race at all in your state, are there ballot initiatives? What about members of Congress? There is really no reason to go, ah, I just don't think my vote matters enough.

single vote matters. And even if elections rarely come down to one vote, elections regularly come down to all of the people who say, I don't know if my vote matters. As a voting block, that is a very important and powerful group. So I will be voting. I hope that you will be voting. And Donald Trump becoming politically bankrupt would be one of the best. And it might be dangerous too, but we can survive it. It could be one of the best things that happens to sort of reorient the country, change a couple of degrees the trajectory and we end up somewhere very different two years from now. I say we take the opportunity. Call me crazy. But I say that we do it. A lot of people carrying debt don't think to themselves, I'm in trouble. They're not necessarily behind on payments. They're working. They're

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My friends, we are doing a one day membership drive to carry us into this election and directly into the 2028 primaries. Yes, they are probably starting in four weeks. For better or worse, that's probably the reality. We are doing this membership special on October 20th. And I would be honored, humbled, and flattered. How about that if you participated? If you've been thinking of supporting this show, and if you haven't, I hope you will consider

it. Get on my mailing list, get on my texting list. And on the 20th, you'll get a message telling you how to sign up at this ungodly discount. My accountant is beating down the door right now saying, David, no, don't do it. Our lawyer is saying, David, it's too big of a discount, but we're going to do it. So you can get on my newsletter at substack.davidpack.com. You can get on my texting list at 646.531, 4333.

Don't send me any nasty texts. Once again, that's 646, 531, 4333. And on the 20th, you'll get a beautiful message from me telling you the time has come. Today is the day. And here is that discount code. I genuinely do not know if I have ever seen a political candidate who deserves to lose more than Ken Paxton in Texas. And I want to show you two clips that in completely different ways tell you just about everything

you need to know about this guy. The first is a clip where Ken Paxton is speaking. And I want you to listen carefully. Listen carefully and see if you can figure out what he is talking about. I dare you to figure out what on earth this guy is talking about. And reportedly, he did not have a stroke. This is not evidence of a stroke here. What do you say?

All right, have you all ever heard that this is the most important election of your lifetime? Anybody ever heard that? Well, you know what? I have been thinking about that. And I've, you know, why do we always say that? And you know what? I want you to think about this, the continental divide in the United States. Yeah.

If a drop of rain falls one inch or more on the right side, on the east side, it ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. Okay. If it falls one inch on the other side or more, it ends up in the Pacific Ocean, unless we've renamed it. Right. I think that's possible. This election, we're not talking about red versus blue. We're not talking about a moderate Democrat.

We're talking about the Constitutional Republic freedom, the Bill of Rights. We are talking about capitalism. On the other side, we are talking about communism, socialism, the government controlling. That's why these elections are really mattering. Anybody understand that? What point is he making? What the hell is he talking about? Now, you know, sometimes people stumble over the words.

They lose their train of thought. They mix up a sentence. Not necessarily a big deal. But there's a difference between someone who knows what they're trying to say and momentarily lose a word or two and someone who seems to be sort of trying to string together political buzzwords with zero coherent argument underneath. And that makes this remarkable. Ken Paxton is the attorney general of Texas. He's been one of the most powerful Republican officials in the country for years. He has built a political identity around defending America from the radical left and socialism

and come, you know, whatever the scary word is today. And speaking of which, that brings us to the second clip, which is maybe even better. He says, we must pray, deliver us from capitalism. What? No, I'm sorry. I mean communism. So as we leave here today, I'm going to ask you to do a couple of things. One, I'm going to ask you to pray. Pray for our state. Pray for our country. Pray that we will be delivered from socialism and capital. From communism. Whoops. Pray that we will be delivered from socialism and capitalism. He almost asked for prayer for America to be delivered from capitalism. Now he corrected himself.

He meant to say communism. I know that. There is something so revealing about this because for years, Republicans like Ken Paxton have been using socialism and communism basically interchangeably. They're just generic insults. If I don't like you, you're a communist and you're a socialist. Universal healthcare, that's socialist. higher minimum wage, living wage, that's communism.

Making billionaires pay more in taxes, that's both socialism and communism. And he's so deep in this routine that he accidentally includes capitalism in the list of things America must be saved from. It's almost like these are just words to him, scary words that he knows are supposed to get a reaction from the audience. And I actually think that it tells you a lot about the political operation that Ken Paxton is running. This is not an ordinary Republican candidate. Paxton was impeached by the Republican controlled Texas House in 23 over allegations of corruption and abuse of office. Texas senators

ultimately acquitted him. His wife filed for divorce citing adultery. She's in an ad now saying, you should vote for the Republican ticket, which includes my husband. You couldn't make this stuff up. And there is another interesting element, which is that Paxton is running against Democrat James Tala rica. And this is a very competitive race in a state Democrats haven't won in for about three decades. And recent public polling shows Tala RICO with a very small lead. Some of those results are in the margin of error. And so while Paxton is publicly warning Texans about socialism and communism and apparently

capitalism too accidentally, behind closed doors, he's talking about cutting federal spending programs. We have new reporting from the Texas Tribune that Paxton said to lobbyists, hey, you know, we need some cuts to mandatory federal spending to address the deficit. Now, he didn't say which programs. The obvious targets are always Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We have become so used to politicians who speak in slogans that we forget we should expect substance from these people. And the substance publicly, Paxton is devoid of. substance, but then privately, it's we might need to cut some of these programs. That's the substance that would torpedo his campaign if it became the primary public element of it. So we've had years from

Ken Paxton where he has demonstrated what kind of public official he is. And Texas voters have an opportunity now. My advice is evaluate the record. Instead of just listening to socialism, communism, evaluate the record. If your only argument is we must deliver, America from communism and socialism, you should be able to remember which economic system you're supposed to be attacking. And by the way, this whole Trump five grand thing, we have to fight socialism and I'll give everybody five grand if you defeat my political opponents. What? Is socialism bad or is socialism good? I seem to be forgetting. So that's where we stand with Texas. Now, again, let me just pull up the polling here. Texas Senate.

We have one new poll. Wow. Look at this. We have a relatively new poll from you gov, Tala Rico plus six. But there are still 6% undecided in that one. Don't assume that this is going to be an easy one. I worry people will look at the polling and assume it will be easy. This is going to be a tough one.

It will probably come down to the wire, but it is winnable. Fox business is now treating Donald Trump's completely fabricated. economic boasts as if they are fact. And I'm going to put up an image on the screen for you here and notice the citation says the White House. Fox business put up a big image that says $21 trillion. Trump investments pouring into the U.S. source the White House. Now, that's it. The Trump White House says Trump brought in $21 trillion. So Fox business puts up a sign that says 21 trillion and they act like it's an economic fact. Do we understand how completely insane this is?

And I've made these explanations before and I'm going to make it again. The entire American economy is $32 trillion. Everything produced in an entire year in the U.S. is worth $32 trillion. Fox apparently thinks you will believe that Donald Trump somehow brought in roughly two thirds of the size of the entire American economy in investment from a few other countries. If $21 trillion poured into the United States, you would know about it. And this is not something Fox business just invented out of thin air. Trump's the one who's been repeating this claim over and over and over again.

Remember when he said the following to Laura Ingram a few days ago? Why don't just give the money now? If you have the money, why don't give it now? Because they can't. I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it. Because with them, it's negative growth. With us, it's so positive. So we're taking in $21 trillion.

Nobody, no country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next. And neither of we, because it's completely bogus. Here is another example of Trump saying more or less the same thing. Trees that we've done it well. And I will just say speaking, bringing it right up to the president, our country is right now very strong. We have over $2.1 trillion dollars being invested in our country. Nobody, no country ever, ever, no matter where, no matter what country.

country has ever even come close to that. We have 21 trillion close to $21 trillion, actually. And yeah. Now, let me explain to you what's going on. I know many of you suspect that this is BS and it is BS. What these, what Trump is talking about. First of all, 21 trillion is exaggerated. But it used to be eight trillion and then it was 12 and then 16. Okay. These are numbers that Trump is sort of putting together incorrectly based on pledges proposed invalienable. investments, hypothetical commitments over a 10-year period. It is completely aspirational. Now, a bunch of this is contingent on future economic conditions.

Some of these involve projects that may never materialize. And we are talking about investments over a 10-year period. So what happens is a foreign country might say, you know, we are potentially willing to invest hundreds of billions in American infrastructure or energy or whatever. If you bring us interesting projects and it would be over a 10 year period. Trump then goes, they just gave us hundreds of billions. But they gave us nothing. They gave us the possibility of future money.

It's not a wire transfer. It's not cash sitting in the belly of Air Force One. And it's definitely not $21 trillion. If I go to a car dealership and I say, hey, if you can design an electric car that seats 10 people and go 600 miles on a single charge and can be charged in 15 minutes, I will pay you a million dollars. You can't go as the dealership and say, we just got a million dollars. No, you can say, I was told if I design a car with these specs, after I design it, someone

will come in and buy it. And by the way, this is a really important thing. These are commercial transactions. So it's not I get a million dollars for this car. I have to get a million dollars for the car. And then I give them a car worth a million dollars and some amount of that is profit. The idea that it's all just money that we then can distribute or do whatever with, no, if a foreign company does spend $10 billion building a factory in the U.S., it gets a $10 billion factory.

It's not a $10 billion gift to the United States. And the same principle applies here. Even if every single dollar of Trump's totally imaginary $21 trillion were eventually invested, which is a massive assumption, the investors would be receiving assets, goods, services, financial returns. That's how investment works. It's not I invested 21 trillion. So now you have 21 trillion in cash. No, it's 21 trillion that is then exchanged for goods and services. Now, foreign investment can be a very good thing. Foreign investment can create jobs and expand production and help the economy. That doesn't make Trump's accounting legitimate. And of course, there's

the problem of verification. Where is the accounting that separates, you know, binding contracts, if there are any from vague promises and new investments from old investments. And we get this one number and Fox business is repeating it. Imagine if Joe Biden said, I have secured 21 trillion in investment. And MSNBC put that up and went Biden, 21 trillion in. And the sources, the White House, the right wingers would go, hey, we need a little bit of evidence, which I would agree with. But with Trump, it's listen, Trump's the source. He said it.

We applaud. That is it. That's what makes this so ridiculous. And, you know, Fox business is supposed to be financial news. And their viewers are supposed to be getting economic information, not propaganda. There is a massive difference between an investment commitment and actual money flowing anywhere. Fox News is pretending as though this is a real thing. And no matter how big you make the number on the screen, it doesn't make it real.

It can't make it real. Pathetic what Fox business is doing. And it's pathetic that anybody is falling for this crap. Most scams do not feel random. Scammers may know your name, your city, a relative where you work. And suddenly the message that you get sounds a lot more believable. And a lot of that information is found online. And it's just sitting there waiting for bad actors to use it against you.

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There are certain people who should probably just stay away from grocery stores if there's a camera there. And I think Dr. Oz is one of those people. Four years it's been since his infamous crudite fiasco, he decided to again use groceries as props on Fox News. And it went so terribly that even Trump-friendly right-wing host Laura Ingraham had to fact-check come about the price of butter. Dr. Oz, for reasons, unbeknownst to us, even though it has nothing to do with his job. I guess if you consider his job just like sucking up to Trump and making

Trump happy, then I guess it makes sense. But if you consider his job as Medicare and Medicaid administrator, it doesn't really make any sense. He says, we went shopping, butter costs a dollar. And Laura Ingram's like, what on earth are you talking about, dude? So you have no idea what things you're going to cost. I brought you something as an example. We went grocery shopping. Stick of butter bag of peanuts butter in America. It's about a buck for a stick like this. If I charge you $10 or are you shopping. It's not a buck. Well, I just bought this. So it's close to that. Okay. Maybe I got it. Maybe it's going bad. Okay. It's the Mondani story. Okay. So Laura Ingram immediately goes, butter for a dollar. What are you talking about? Laura Ingram is apparently not so disconnected from what things cost that she goes, I don't understand where you could have possibly gotten that. Now, here. Here's the thing.

Let me be specific first. Let's adjudicate the cost of butter first. I went looking at stop and shop. The cheapest butter is about $2.50. At Trader Joe's I found butter for $3. Now Dr. Oz does this sort of tricky thing where he goes, it's a dollar a stick. of the containers I mentioned have two sticks. So like, I guess loosely speaking, if you say the butter is 250 for a two pack, it's like 125 a stick. But the point here is the reason he brought the butter is he was on TV talking about health care price transparency.

His point wasn't even necessarily about the butter. The point was when you walk into a grocery store, you know what things will come. cost in healthcare prices are sometimes confusing and they're sometimes opaque. That's a legitimate issue. But if your argument is unlike healthcare, grocery prices are clear and easy to understand, you probably should know what the groceries cost. And he holds up a package, but he says it's the price of a stick and it also doesn't really match what we're finding. And then you physically bring the item onto TV. It all very quickly starts to become a mess. Now, I'll remind you, his prior run-ins with groceries were very, very humiliating. Extraordinarily humiliating.

This was from four years ago where he went to a Wegner's, which doesn't exist. And he tried to show how expensive things were under the Biden regime when he said, these are the ingredients you need for crudite, except they were not ingredients from crudite. Okay. So let's take a look at this. I thought there's a grocery shopping. I'm at Weggnors and my wife wants some vegetables for crudite, right? vegetables. So here's a broccoli. That's two bucks, not a ton of broccoli there. First mistake. You

don't want one big head of broccoli for crudite. That doesn't make any sense. You need florets. You need florets. There's some asparagus. That's four dollars. I have never seen asparagus in crudite. By the way, crudite just means this is also a funny thing because it's like he's acting like everybody knows about crudite. We, we figured it out four years ago. Crudite is a reference to the word raw. And it's a plate of raw vegetables, usually with dips. Sometimes you would have, you know, ranch dressing, et cetera. All right. So, so far we've got ahead of broccoli, which has no place in crudette and asparagus, which has no place in crudette. Yeah. Carrots. That's four more dollars. That's $10. All right. Carrots fine. Usually you would see like baby carrots. He's got a bundle of carrots.

guess you can cut them up yourself fine a vegetable there and then we need some guacamole that's four dollars more okay guacamole sometimes in crudette sometimes not and she loves salsa yeah salsa there i have never in my life seen salsa in crudette and i mean just think about it you need the dressings to stick to the vegetables salsa especially the one he's grabbing is pieces. It's cut up tomatoes and onion. How on earth are you going to pick up salsa with asparagus? This is a dip. It was like, hey, I'm shopping. I know how to get vegetables. Dude, you're very clearly clueless. All right. So then he gets to the real point, which is in Biden's America. It's all so much money. Six dollars, much be a shorter of salsa. Guys, that's $20 for

crete. This doesn't include the tequila. I mean, it's outrageous. We got Joe Biden to thank for Yeah, it's all Biden's fault. So, a couple problems. There is no Wegners. He seems to be combining Wegmans and Redner's into an imaginary supermarket. The whole thing became this enormous viral embarrassment because we were supposed to go, oh, Dr. Oz understands what the average family is experiencing. Instead, he didn't seem to know the name of the grocery store. And he was assembling maybe the strangest veggie tray that I have ever seen. Imagine going somewhere and you've got a Asparagus, raw asparagus and salsa. I've got a veggie plate for you.

Dear God. And so now four years later, we're back. Except this time, he's not running for Senate. He's the Trump's, Trump administration's administrator of Medicare and Medicaid services. He's on Fox trying to explain health care policy. And somebody said, you know what would make this really relatable? Go back to the grocery store. Get butter.

What could possibly go wrong? And somehow Laura Ingram ends up playing the role of the normal grocery shopper who goes, what do you butter for a dollar? What are you talking about? Now, let me get to the broader political problem. I would love to keep talking about asparagus with salsa, but it's just, it's so it's so repulsive that I got to move on. The Trump administration has argued that Americans are getting relief from high prices,

but food at home prices, for lack of a better term, keep going up. They're not going down. They're going up, up. So when you're trying to convince people things are affordable, you've got to get the prices right. People know this. They buy groceries. Nobody thinks you're going to get butter for a dollar. You can't go on TV and announce it and expect nobody will notice. And he's learned nothing from 2022. Now, there are politicians who have recurring scandals. He has a recurring grocery problem. If you see Dr. Oz approaching a supermarket with cameras, stop him. Take away the mic, take away the

shopping list, do not let them anywhere near the crudite because it is a disaster and even Laura Ingraham calling him out. A Republican voter called into C-SPAN and he unloaded on his own party. And I want you to hear this because the question was not a particularly provocative question. C-SPAN's Washington Journal was doing what they do. They were taking phone calls ahead of these midterm elections to sort of see what is on the the minds of people. And the question was really simple. Do you think your party will win the midterms?

A Republican from West Virginia calls in and listen to what he said. The midterms from West Virginia, Ronald will tell us on our Republican line. Ronald, what do you think? Well, as a Republican, I can say one thing. I think about 85 to 95% of the Republican Party has lost their mind. All right. It's just so clear that my party's been taken over by a bunch of loud mouths who are uneducated and unable to process any information beyond what they see on social media. I think most of them don't even understand what AI is or how it works. I think the Republicans deserve to lose every single election.

I think P. HECF needs to go to jail. And it's obvious Trump needs to go to jail as well. Wow. Now, if that were a Democratic strategist or a liberal or someone on MS now or something like that, all right, well, anti-Republican people don't like Republicans, fine. But this is a Republican voter from West Virginia. And it's a pretty interesting criticism because he's not just saying, you know, I disagree with Trump on taxes.

Or I am in disagreement with Republican healthcare policy today. He believes there is a fundamental informational problem within his party. People are absorbing political information through social media. They are not equipped to discern what is real and what isn't. We have an election environment filled with AI images and video and audio and fake screenshots and fake quotes. People are cloning my voice and doing entire fake channels with it. And if your standard is I saw this online, we are F.

But Ronald's conclusion is where I love the direction it's going. He says Republicans deserve to lose every single election. That's it. And this is just one guy. I'm not going to do the thing where I go, hey, this guy represents all Republicans and Republicans have abandoned Trump. This doesn't prove that. Millions and millions of Republicans are blindly loyal to Trump and they will never abandon him.

But what I think is interesting about this clip is in the context of where we are right now, we We are weeks from the midterm election. And the presidency of Trump is dominated by stuff is so expensive and we're in a war with Iran. And part of the reason that it's so expensive is we are in the war with Iran. And the Republican Party has tied itself so closely to Trump that if you're a Republican voter who is disillusioned with Trump, essentially there's nowhere for you to go in the party. is no longer a faction of the Republican Party. There's no like, I'm really part of the strong McCain faction of it.

There's no such thing anymore. And so dissatisfaction with Trump means definitively dissatisfaction with the Republican party itself. That's why we've seen people like, you know, Tim Miller, he is at Rick Wilson. It's not that they're Democrats or people on the left, but there's just no room for them in the Republican Party. And that seems to be the point that Ronald has gotten. to. And the progression is, you know, will your party win? I hope they don't. My party has lost

its mind. It's been taken over by loud mouths. People don't even know what they're consuming. They deserve to lose. Trump should be jailed. Peg says to be jailed. That's like, wow, it escalated quickly. One other revealing thing about hearing it on C-SPAN. If you hear this stuff in a political advertisement, we went and found a Trump supporter and got him to say this stuff with dramatic music or this This is the Washington Journal. It's C-SPAN. It's a guy from West Virginia calling in and he spends his time on air is 50 seconds or whatever it was explaining why his own political party should lose and why the leaders of the party should be imprisoned. Now, Ronald only represents Ronald. We don't know how many other Republicans agree with

Ronald, but it's days. We're three and a half weeks from these midterms. There are a lot of things Republican leaders would want to hear from their voters right now. I think our leaders should go to jail and we should lose every election is not one of those things. So, listen, I don't know what's going to happen in November. If I were betting, yeah, I mean, it really does seem as though the House is going to go to Democrats, certainly, and the Senate is going to be a question. But we are in a situation where this is the inflection point. The next two years and maybe the most important Republican primaries and Democratic primaries will coincide. at the same time that will determine the future of this country, the stage will be set for that

by what happens in, what is it, 25 days or something like that. Let's make sure we participate. Let's not allow whoever else to make the decisions. I want to be part of those decisions. I hope that you will too. A lot of clothing brands today talk about sustainability, but our Fair Harbor sponsor actually builds it into how their products are made. Fair Harbor was founded with a specific goal, reduce plastic waste by turning recycled plastic bottles into durable, comfortable fabrics. Instead of treating sustainability as an add-on, make it the core of the company and make it the core of how Fair Harbor clothing is designed to be worn and reused over time. I've been wearing some Fair Harbor pieces and what stands out is the environmental.

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Visit drinkag1.com slash Pacman to get a free AG1 pro yeti shaker in your AG1 pro welcome kit. The link is in the description. It's that time of the week and here's a beautiful message from someone on TikTok who goes by the name truth, who says, 5 IQ David Packman spams out videos showcasing his fascist perspectives while disregarding all facts and at complete war with reality. Real mental case, this guy. You know, there are a lot of things you could say about me and about this show, but that

I espouse fascist perspectives. really couldn't be more wrong. You know, one of the really funny thing that this is really just a reminder that people latch on to any insult they can, even if it makes no sense. And this is where you're a communist, you're a socialist, you're a Marxist, where all this stuff comes from and it's completely divorced from the reality of what these terms mean. Fascism is extremely authoritarian. And one of the things that has been true about my political beliefs for decades and can

continues to be true. In fact, I just did another one of these answer 50 questions and get your political orientation or whatever. One of the things about my political beliefs is that they tend very much towards small L libertarianism. Now, it's important to remember that's not the libertarian party like with a capital L. I am a libertarian like you could be a Republican or a Democrat. What that means is that on the scale, on the spectrum of authoritarianism on one side to libertarianism on the other, meaning how involved, how much force do you want the government exerting over people's lives? I tend to be small L libertarian. I want the government involved in some areas, but because I've thought through that it makes

sense to have the government involved there. And if not, I don't want the government involved. If you understand that authoritarianism is a key component to fascism, you could only and you think I'm fascist. You must think that Donald Trump is Hitler and Mussolini, right? But somehow I think that this person who goes by the name truth probably doesn't think that. So anyway, criticize me for things I really believe. Fascism is not in my set of first principles. Okay, hangman on Spotify writes about the Texas Senate race. Tala Rico is not winning. I live here and these idiots vote against themselves constantly.

They don't care. Texans are the least informed voters in the country. It is pathetic. So listen, the Texas Senate race is very much worth fighting for, very much worth fighting for. And I don't think it's going to be an easy one. And I've explained before. I have the polling in front of me. Talariko is winning every single poll. He's plus six, plus two, plus one, plus five. Okay. How could it be that Ken Paxton will win? One of the things we have to be ready for and hopefully we can out-organize so that it doesn't happen is that in Texas, we have a lot of these situations where it looks like the Democrat has a real shot and then they end up losing by a few points because the undecided's break for the Republican

by default. Now, if Tala Rico is really winning by six, then who cares? Because if a few points go back towards Paxton, Tala Rico still wins. But the average lead is only 2.8. There are these polls like, for example, the Rasmussen poll, which have it Tala Rico 46 to 45. That's 91% of the electorate. That leaves nine elsewhere. And if you assume that a lot of that nine will break for Paxton, that's not so good for Tala Rico. So I don't know about this Tala Rico is not winning thing. I'm a little more optimistic than that, but we have to understand the dynamics of Texas and we We have to make sure that we really get out the vote so that that disappointment doesn't come to pass. All right.

Ms. Yenta wrote on Spotify. Congrats on making it on the New York Times bestseller list. Way to go. Loving your book. I am humbled and grateful. You know, this is not a show where we like post our wins very often, but it really is a major accomplishment that we all together were able to do with this book without me having a large legacy corporate media platform.

We got a second book of mine onto the New York Times bestseller list. Roughly half of 1% of authors get on the New York Times bestseller list at all. I'm talking about once, half of 1%. The share of authors who get multiple books on New York Times bestseller is somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2% of authors. It is insane that I am in that group. And of course, we have so many people to think, there's my team. There's my publisher's team. My publicist management. All these different teams. But really, it's just people in the audience who went and bought the book. And we did it. We did it. Citrine writes, David, when this is all over and Trump is no longer

politically relevant, could you promise to stop your Trump voice in person? It's not that you're not good at it. I would just love everything about that man to evaporate from my life. You know, I, I believe, I personally believe that when Donald Trump is gone, all references to Trump are going to diminish significantly. And so will you, will you never hear it again? Such a nasty person. I don't know that you'll never hear it again, but it's going to diminish. It's going to diminish. So if you want less Trump impression, it is it we're at most a couple years away. All right. Here's a way.

I like this one. 05 hijah wrote to me on Instagrams and said, Davy will go out of business when orange man leave office. You know what I love about this one? For 20 years, almost, I have been getting messages like this. When Barack Obama defeated George W. Bush, first presidential race I covered as a person in in the media, I got emails from people going, you know, you used to have George W. Bush as a foil, but now that Obama won, your show will end. And the show grew more than ever during the eight years of Barack Obama. And then when Trump won, people wrote in and said, David, what you do is over.

Republicans won. That is the end for the left. And of course, during Donald Trump's first term, the show grew, grew, grew. And then when Joe Biden won, people wrote in and they said, David, now with Trump gone, your show is going to circle the drain and it'll be done. It'll be dead. And of course, at the end of Joe Biden's presidency, the show was way bigger than at the beginning of it. And then it was now that Trump is back, but this is the end of Trump. Your show is going to end because people are bored of Trump. And the show is bigger than ever today. And so if there's one thing that seems to keep happening or a couple things, number one, people

say after the next election, it's over for you, Pacman, it's over. And then the show keeps growing. So we will figure out what happens after Trump. I think there will still be in a country of 350 million people. There are still going to be horrible people with terrible ideas that we need to get the word out about and make sure we do everything we can to diminish or take away their political power. I think we're going to have plenty to do. Okay. Denny Steffeson wrote in on YouTube and said, we said all of this in 2024,

Harris was running away with it and then wasn't. Don't become complacent. Okay. So two reactions. when you see the strong Democratic polling coming up onto this election in just a few days, don't assume that you can stay home. That's good. Don't become complacent. But we did have the polling that said Kamala was going to lose in 2024. And I talked about it. And a lot of people in my audience didn't want to hear it. I came to my audience in September, even early October. And I said, guys, Kamala is doing worse in all seven swing states than Hillary did when she lost. She's not doing well. It doesn't look good. And there were a bunch of people who wrote to me and said, David, we need positivity. Don't be a downer.

Don't be saying that stuff. And I said, no. I mean, listen, it should be motivating us. Hearing that Kamala is losing seven swing states should get us to say, we've really got to get out the vote in those seven swing states. But some people didn't want to hear it. But the point is, it's not that the polling suggested Kamala was going to run away with it in 2024. The polling suggested she was going to lose and she did lose. And now the polling suggests Democrats are going to do well. And it's up to us to see and decide whether that is the reality we want to make happen. Okay, Rick Green says any Democrat that says they can't or won't go after Trump and his whole administration needs to be voting against. Not having the courage to hold these criminals accountable is exactly.

why we are in this hell. My view on this is very simple. If you are a member of the House or you are arguing that you should be made a member of the house, it is your responsibility, your responsibility to do the oversight that has been constitutionally delegated to you. And so go after Trump is presuming something. I think the better law and order way to say it is we. When we get subpoena power back in control of committees, we will examine every apparent grift,

con and scam of Donald Trump. And we're appropriate. We will send out subpoenas. We will investigate. We will make criminal referrals if that is what is appropriate. And at the same time, we're going to try to get some policy pass to help Americans. Absolutely reasonable to demand that of the people that we are voting for. Okay.

A new kotha, on a new kotha, rode in and said, David, could you please elaborate why John Asoff is not a good candidate? Also, what about James Tala Rico talking about president? Okay, Tala Rico has said he's not running for president, period. I don't even want to talk about Tala Rico because I just don't think there's any serious consideration of him being the Democratic presidential candidate in 28. I never said John Ossoff isn't a good candidate. I said two things about I think Osloff is phenomenal. I would be thrilled if John We're the next president of the United States. The two points I mentioned are, number one, with the amount of anti-Semitism currently in the country,

I struggle to believe the next nominee or the next president is going to be Jewish. I just struggle to believe that. I say this as a Jewish person myself. There is a degree of anti-Semitism right now that it's really tough for me to think that a sort of just like mainstream Jewish guy is going to be the next Democratic nominee. or the president. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be or that he's a bad candidate. I am trying to be just real with the audience. Second, I have been told by some donors that have been at events with Asoff. This is their opinion, not mine. That he when he's not on TV with, you know, makeup and the

right angles and stuff, that he seems really young in a way that portrays inexperience. And so two different donors said to me, this is their opinion, not me. Two different donors said they believe if you put Assoff up on a stage with some of the candidates that are in their 50s or potential candidates in their 50s or early 60s that he will come off like a kid. I have not experienced that with Asaf personally. I'm curious whether that would be my take if he were on a stage with some of these other people that are considering running.

But that is what two donors said to me. We can easily just go, what the hell do donors now? Maybe they know nothing. But I think Ossoff is a great candidate. I would love it if John Ossoff was the next president of the United States. Send in your emails, info at David Pakman.com. You can also text me. And I hope you will. Please text me. I really do look at these myself. 646-531-4333. We've got a bonus show coming up after. And more programming will continue next week, of course.