The David Pakman Show - Trump’s convention spirals as aides give up and crowd leaves

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

-- On the Show: -- White House advisers stop managing Donald Trump as he turns the midterms into a referendum on himself -- Donald Trump claims gas prices will drop below $2 per gallon and the Iran war will end after the midterm elections -- Donald Trump gives a speech at the midterm convention promising $5,000 dividends, attacking James Talarico, and promising healthcare -- Donald Trump criticizes Ken Paxton's speech and appearance despite endorsing him over John Cornyn in the Texas Senate race -- Tim Scott delivers an energetic speech with wide gestures at the Dallas convention to rally Republican voters, hoping to energize them to vote -- JD Vance defends the $5,000 dividend proposal by Donald Trump during an interview on Fox News -- Donald Trump claims the arena is packed while camera footage shows audience members leaving his long speech -- Ted Cruz gives Donald Trump an A on the economy by incorrectly referencing gas prices under Joe Biden -- On the Bonus Show: John Fetterman makes a video appearance at the Republican convention, a federal court says drinking water is not a constitutional right, Jimmy Kimmel says his James Talarico interview won't air due to FCC threats, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🔬 Freedom From Religion Foundation: Text DAVID to 511511 or go to https://ffrf.us/david 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get a pair for just $247 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:23) Trump aides are done trying to dissuade him(09:22) Trump says Iran war will end(21:09) Trump promises $5,000 if Republicans win(30:23) Trump criticizes Ken Paxton while endorsing him(38:02) Tim Scott tries to energize Republicans(45:48) JD Vance defends Trump's $5,000 promise(54:05) Trump claims midterm rally completely full(1:00:39) Ted Cruz grades Trump economy an A Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming up today, Republicans created an entire midterm convention around Donald Trump, and somehow things were even weirder than I expected, and I expected them to be pretty damn weird. Trump's own advisors are also reaching the point where they don't even bother trying to change his mind about anything anymore. They're just letting him do whatever he's going to do and damage himself. J.D. Vance went on Fox News and was forced to explain Donald Trump's new promise of $5,000 checks for everybody if Republicans keep the House and the Senate, which, by the way, was part of Donald Trump's nearly two-hour speech where he talked about beating meat, beating meat.

He insisted the arena was packed, even though cameras prove otherwise. And he gave Ken Paxton an endorsement that actually sounded more like an attack ad. And then when Tim Scott took the stage, he had what I can only describe as a Trump seizure. And Ted Cruz rates Trump's economy an A, which made the view audience gasp in horror. We have all of it today, plus the new promise that gas will be back below two bucks a gallon again as soon as the Iran war is over, probably after the election. Trump has AIDS at the White House who are giving up. Axios is reporting that top White House officials and elected Republicans.

are privately saying, they've stopped trying to persuade Donald Trump about anything, to do something, not to do something, to say something, not to say something. And that's a pretty serious change from what we saw during Donald Trump's first administration. You might remember that back then, there was almost an entire genre of reporting about people who were around Trump. They were trying to manage him. They were trying to influence him, trying to change his views. And an advisor might try to talk him into doing something or out of doing something. Somebody would convince him, hey, wait on this or move more quickly on this other thing. Officials would say, oh, you know, this isn't legally possible or that's not politically practical or it'll create some other problem.

And sometimes Trump would listen and sometimes he wouldn't. But the new reporting from Axios is that people around Trump now are behaving completely differently. They've reached a totally different conclusion, which is it's not even worth trying. One long time advisor used the phrase, why bother to kind of summarize the perspective of the people around Donald Trump? And the reasoning is very simple, and I think we all know it. Of course, Trump is the president. Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do. But the people around him don't believe that arguing with him accomplishes anything. And in fact, it puts them at risk of Donald Trump going, it doesn't really sound like here being loyal to me. I think it's time for you to go. Axios also reports that some Republicans

don't don't have any confidence that Trump's political instincts are still what they once were. And in fact, I mean, I think that's an interesting 180. If you think back to Donald Trump's first term, there was surprise and sort of fear even then, trepidation, we might say, when Donald Trump had one of his wacky ideas. But then he would execute it and sometimes at least by Republican standards like Democrats would be aghast, but by Republican standards, it turned out Trump's instincts weren't terrible. Like he kind of did seem to understand his base, even if he didn't give a damn about him. And he would do some of this wacky stuff. And it would sort of work out okay. Now Republicans think Trump's instincts have been flushed for lack of a better term. And the reaction from the people

around Trump is sort of like, let's just not even bother. Let's get out of the way. Let's try to get him not to notice that we don't agree. And I think the timing here is critical because Republicans are going into these midterms where they are very concerned about at least losing control of the House, if not the House and Senate. And Republicans are increasingly pessimistic about what the outcome is going to be. And Trump, meanwhile, which we will cover today, is doing something that a lot of Republican candidates didn't want him to do. Not only is he making the election about himself, he's holding, we're in the middle. We're one, we're halfway through Trump's two-day Republican. midterm convention, which makes the election all about himself. Axiose separately reported that

Republicans want to localize the races, not make them about Trump, make them about the specifics of the Democratic opponent, talk about something happening in their state or in their congressional district or locally. Don't turn every House race into a referendum on Donald Trump, especially because Donald Trump's approval ratings are in the toilet. Trump has a different plan. And one confidant said, Trump has described the election privately the same way that he's describing it publicly, which is I'm not on the ballot, but I am on the ballot. Imagine that I'm on the ballot. And now we've seen that strategy come completely into the open at this Republican midterm

convention in Dallas, which we will cover extensively today, where Trump is telling voters act as though I am on the ballot. And by the way, if we hold the House and Senate, I'm going to give you $5,000, which I don't even believe. But that is a different question that we will deal with. But the point is Trump is connecting the future of his presidency to control of Congress, which I actually think is accurate. Because if Democrats do take control of the House from Republicans, Trump will be mired in investigations and oversight. And he will get nothing done for the final two years of his presidency. He will probably not be in a position to pick his heir, whether it be J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or whoever because he will be so unpopular. So I think Republicans do have a

legitimate strategic problem here. They need people to turn out specifically for Trump to vote in an election where Trump isn't actually running. So if they distance from Trump, that's not really a solution. But on the other hand, the fact that Trump is putting himself at the middle of it might only remind people, man, all the crap he promised hasn't happened. One Trump advisor said that their job is to turn Trump voters into midterm voters. But that's a really weird situation because given that Trump's political instincts have deteriorated, given that if a local race becomes a referendum on Trump, it probably hurts more than it helps in all but the most extreme MAGA districts. is what what is the solution? Do you push back on Trump being theoretically on the ballot? Or do you say,

let's all vote to continue the Trump agenda, an agenda that has screwed a lot of people. And either way, they need the voters. So what do they do? And according to the reporting from Axios, what they do is they just let Trump be Trump and not really talk about it. And this doesn't mean that Trump has become politically irrelevant. In fact, he is highly relevant because the more that you think about Donald Trump and what he has done, the more you're probably saying to yourself, I don't know that I want to vote for any Republican, never mind Donald Trump who's not on the ballot. And I think that that's the central contradiction of this entire story. We are rapidly approaching the lame duck portion of Trump's presidency.

And it would be a lame duck portion no matter what happened in November because it's the final two years. There's no more midterms. There's no more election. But if you still have some level of popularity and control of maybe both houses of Congress or at least one, you might be able to get something done. But because Trump may not be experiencing that, because Donald Trump will be immediately investigated, he might even be impeached for all we know. We have a very different scenario where the level of lameness of that lame duck period may be

significantly more powerful. And right now, many Republicans are privately complaining about what Trump is doing. They're furious. They don't want them involved. They don't like the midterm. they don't want any of this stuff. But it is not worth the effort to try to stop Donald Trump. It's sort of like stand as still as you can. So maybe Trump will forget that you're there. And he won't target you and he won't go after you. So Republicans are going into November with the consequences of a guy who made a lot of promises, all of which he has failed to keep. And the failure to keep those promises has damaged the economy. It has damaged trust with the very important base that they desperately need to turn out. And they are.

stuck between Iraq and a hard place. Now, to be clear, this is an objective analysis. I don't feel bad for any of these people. They should have denounced Trump way back when. They should have prevented him from ever becoming the nominee if they could have rather than sort of going along to get along. And you know what? That may not have worked. It may have been the case that Trump was just so overwhelmingly charismatic that voters were going to make him the nominee in 2016, no matter what Republicans said. But they've then they then spent eight years, 10 years, 11 years, mostly going along with the stuff that he has done, privately saying, oh, I don't, this isn't good for us, but publicly mostly going along with it. These are the consequences. It is a just dessert at this

point in time and just wait until you see how insanely terribly the convention went. Donald Trump stroked out going to his failed convention. More evidence that his brain is broken and there is no damn way to fix it. He should have stopped talking and gotten on his stupid plane. And before even arriving at the midterm convention, he was doing interviews and making a collection of very, I guess I would call them ambitious predictions very to be charitable. And it started with gas, not I'm talking about gasoline. Okay. Trump again suggesting, you know, as soon as this war is over, gas prices could be down below two bucks a gallon. I wouldn't bet on that. Shortly, but right after the election, because they'd like to have it that way, but right

after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward. They're going to be tumbling down and we'll get them down. I think for gasoline, we'll get them below $2 a gallon. But not until after the midterm. I think it's going to take a little bit longer than the midterm. Just if you reelect all Republicans, Even though we've raised gas prices, now they're above the like 425 a gallon, much higher than when Biden left office. If you reelect all of them, all of us, and we finally end this two to three week war after like

nine, 10, 11 months, then gas prices will go down between below two bucks a gallon. Now I have been very clear with my audience about this. I don't care who is president. The only way gas is getting under $2 a gallon is if there is an economic calamity in the United States and globally, the likes of which we have not seen in a very long time. I don't even know that a 2008-style recession gets gas below $2 a gallon. I just don't think so. And Trump is casually going, yeah, gas will go down more than 50%.

As soon as I end this war, just reelect all of us. And it is simply not going to happen. We then have, and I should say, by the way, there are scenarios where oil prices do fall, notably, if the Iran war ends and supply goes up and demand weakens a bit, you will see oil prices come down and gas prices will also come down. But getting the national gasoline average below $2 a gallon, it's just not going to happen. And Trump doesn't explain what mechanism will lead to that after election day. I guess he's implying that it will be the end of the war, which, by the way, was supposed to be over in March of this year.

And it's still going on. Trump is then asked a pretty straightforward question. What do Republicans need to be doing that they're not doing in order to win these midterms? And Trump goes, we just have to explain how awesome everything is. Uh-oh. That is the failed Biden strategy that they criticized for years. President, what do you're Republicans need to be doing that they aren't currently doing? Just keep fighting and just keep explaining how well we're doing as a country.

We're doing better now as a country that we've ever done before. Good luck with that. Trump's midterm diagnosis is everything is better than ever. There's no problem with policy. There's no problem with the economy. It is merely an issue of communicating to people that everything is so good. Just explain how well everything is going. Now, there are a lot of reports that Republican candidates want to do something different.

As I said earlier, they want to localize the races, make them about about what's going on in districts or states, talk about their opponents, district specific issues. Don't make it all about the national economy is great thanks to Trump. Trump rejects that approach. He goes, just make it about me. Iran then comes up. Remember this, Trump gave a two-hour speech at his convention last night. This is just Trump on the way to that.

Do you expect negotiations with Iran to restart? I mean, listen, we're in month seven of what was going to be a two to three week war. Trump goes, nah, I don't think so. We're just going to end the war after. the election. Don't worry about it. Two weeks after the election, it'll be over. Months ago. Such as. What about negotiations that they're on? Do you expect that to be started something? Uh, we're not looking for it, to be honest with you, Jeff. Originally, I wanted to make a deal.

We're so far down the line. They have very little country left right now. So we're not looking for it. Yes, a negotiation could possibly happen, but it's not something we're looking at. This war will end immediately after our election. Thank you very much. So there's election day and then the war will end. Gas prices will fall and every American will get five grand if Republicans keep the House and Senate. There are some extraordinary outcomes being tied to this election. And then we haven't even touched on Russia. Trump goes, oh, I had a great conversation with Putin and Putin really wants to make a deal, meaning a deal to end the war with Ukraine. How many times have we heard that promise?

The president, can you tell us about your conversation with President Putin? We had a great conversation. He is wanting to make a deal. And if Zelensky is wanting to make a deal, that'd be very nice. What is the hold up? The hold up is two people that hate each other. What gives you confidence? I think more than anything else, it's two people that hate each other. What exchange that gives you confidence that it's because I speak to people. That's all I do is speak to people my whole life. I know about deals and these are two people that are tired of fighting. We have um, we've heard versions of that story a few times before haven't we?

Trump has said, oh, we're making so much progress. Putin, it's all going so good with Putin. And we somehow can't ever get to that final settlement. And remember the promises that Donald Trump made. First, it was within a now within an hour, within 24 hours, within a day of becoming president elect in 2024, this war will be over because as soon as they know I'm going to be president, they will end this war. Didn't happen. Well, within a day of being sworn in in January of 2025, this thing is going to be over. Didn't happen. Within a hundred days of being sworn in, didn't happen. Within a year of being. You get it. Okay. This is not something Trump has any grasp of. And by the way, Putin's got him under his thumb. Trump, Trump is so

impressed with dictators. He just loves Putin. All right. And then finally, Donald Trump, sort of getting triggered, actually, when he has asked about all of the Republicans choosing to skip his convention. And Trump's explanation is, we don't even have room for all of them. It's not that they don't want to come. They all want to be here. We just, it's so busy and full. We don't have room. This is a lie, by the way. I'll show you video later of a half empty arena. Until after the midterm. I think it's going to take a little bit longer than the midterm. And Mr. President, several Republicans in competitive races are not coming to the convention. Do you understand why they're deciding not to come?

Everybody that's coming to the convention. Everybody wants to come, but we only want, and the people that are coming. By the way, we're going to be sold out tonight just so you understand. Who are you with? ABC News, sir. ABC Fake News. One of the worst. You are the worst of all, in my opinion.

The reason that some people are not coming is because we don't have room. for 500 politicians. It's too full. We have room for the ones that have a close race if they're slightly behind or slightly ahead or tied. But we don't have rooms for people that are 35 points up and don't need to be there. We said stay back in campaign. There is no evidence that that's the truth.

Reuters has said vulnerable Republicans are choosing to skip it because they think it'll hurt them. Other reporting says Republicans don't want to be tied too closely to Trump because his approval rating is in the toilet. Now, that doesn't mean every single Republican who's not going is doing it to avoid Trump, but we don't have room for everybody does not explain what is going on. So this kind of brings the whole thing together. Trump is on his way to this convention, which is a bad idea. He's going into a difficult midterm election saying the solution is to just insist to people that things are great. Gas will be below $2 a gallon after I end the war after

the election. The Iran war is going to be ended after the election. You're going to get five grand from me if we win the election. Putin wants it. deal. Everything's perfect. The economy has never been better. That's your pitch. That that that is a ridiculous pitch that I don't think a single voter is going to fall for. They just need to believe that the world is completely different than it is. And then they'll go out and vote for Republicans. So we're going to find out very soon just in a few weeks how persuasive that description of reality really is. And I think it's not persuasive at all. 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 kind of managing. But if you're carrying credit card balances, personal loans, collections, medical bills, the question is whether your current plan is getting you out fast enough or just kind of keeping you busy. That is what our sponsor, PDS debt can help you figure out. PDS debt gives you a free 30 second assessment. You can compare your current path with their customized debt relief options. They will look at your unsecured debt. They'll use financial data to personalize a solution that will work for you and show you what you might qualify for before you have to decide anything. The programs really are designed to just reduce what you owe, simplify multiple payments into one lower monthly payment and work towards being debt-free. There's no minimum

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A national referendum on beating your meat. from Donald Trump say it ain't so. Donald Trump's speech at the Republican midterm convention lasted nearly two hours and Trump talking about beating meat. He's talking about James Tala Rico. He's talking about eating meat. This is why Republicans think it is a terrible idea to make these midterms about Donald Trump. A swollen and and sweaty, soaking wet Trump talking about beating your meat. He was also somebody that hated eating meat, but he ran a campaign to beat meat.

He called it beat meat. I don't know what the hell he meant by the... These people are going to tell me what the hell is he wants to beat meat. But it was bad for his image, so he started eating meat. And he recently... It's getting worse. I'm getting myself in Trump. Getting worse.

But he was recently seen having a- Imagine how delusional you would have to be. They just cut to like Scott Bessent and Mike Johnson and ever. Imagine how delusional you have or sheltered you have to be to find this funny where you go. Trump is so entertaining. Barbecue and eating a lot of meat. But that's what happened. He ate it.

And then he was seen running backstage to a room and throw in. up all over the place. So Trump is talking about James Tala Rico, the Democratic Texas Senate candidate. Republicans have been going after him because he's supposedly vegan, even though it was never true. And by the way, who cares? And Trump turned it into this extended riff and there is widespread reporting that Tala Rico is not vegan.

They want to characterize him this way. The idea is veganism is beta. And that is not alpha. He is a weak man because he's vegan, even though it, none of it makes any sense. and it's all extraordinarily stupid. But these strange riffs can have a lot of money at play. And Donald Trump made a promise, which is if Republicans keep the House and Senate, Trump will issue a dividend to every adult in the United States of $5,000 per person.

That only I can make this promise to you. And here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the U.S. United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything like what's happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. So it's like everybody gets a pony kind of thing. Yeah.

So that would cost about $1.3 trillion. Trump doesn't really say where the money would come from. He just goes like, we're making so much money, you know, tariffs and all this stuff. Now, this is a promise that Donald Trump can safely make because they're not going to take the house. They're going to lose the house. But remember the entire, oh, Democrats are trying to buy votes. They're trying to buy votes for people.

And speaking of money and tax money and Trump's. money and your money. Trump goes, do I get any credit for building the ballroom with my money? His money. What is he talking about? Changes, because it's numerous exchanges and more than one. And it's been amazing. Do I get credit for it? No. Do I get credit for building a ballroom with my money? I'm the only one. I build the ballroom. No money, no tax. I don't want tax money. I don't want anything. It's me and a gun for patriots. They put up lots of money to be. build this.

It's a gunch of patriots. Which is desperately needed. And it's going to be beautiful. And everyone's going to say, oh, thank God. No, it's going to be beautiful. Zero tax dollars for the ballroom. Zero tax dollars. Now this is all lies.

Trump has presented the ballroom as privately financed. We have good reporting on the project. There's some private funding, which Trump calls donations from his friends, in exchange for nothing, just out of the goodness of their hearts. And then we have a bunch of taxpayer funded elements to it associated with the broader construction, associated with the maintenance and the staffing. So certainly it's not something Trump is paying for and it's not even something that Trump's donor friends are paying for. We will be on the hook as taxpayers for about $300 million of that. Trump then explains, you know, I didn't really need any of this.

Me being in Texas in the summer, I could have been somewhere nice, extremely relatable, isn't it? From the very beginning of this journey, I've not stopped fighting and I never will stop fighting to protect you, your family. I had a great life before I did this. This is a little different. I had a very nice life. I didn't need to be here tonight. I could have been in a nice place somewhere in the world.

What a uniting message of inspiration. I don't have to be in Texas with you clowns in the middle of the summer. I could have been somewhere nice. We are probably, I guess, two weeks from healthcare? I know it's satire at this point. But Trump's got a plan. It's just going to take him a little bit longer. And we'll pass the great health care plan. We call it the great health care plan to stop all government payments to the big insurance companies, which, by the way, the insurance companies own the Democrats. They own them and give the money directly

to the people for you to go out and buy your own health care. You'll get much better health care and have money left over for yourselves. Yeah. Sounds like a scam that's going to leave fewer people with health care. That's what seems very clear about this. And they've talked about redirecting some ACA or Obamacare related subsidies and payments. Any major restructuring, if Trump is involved, obviously raises questions about scam and grift, what happens to premiums, risk pools, coverage requirements, all of that stuff.

But I don't think it's ever going to happen because it's always, it's been two weeks away for six years at this point in time. And then the most revealing line of the night, Trump says, I'm on the ballot. So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on just one more time. Not a good idea. Not a good idea when your approval is in the low 30s. And finally, after a Castro-like two hours of the speech, Trump finally wrapping it up with the familiar routine. Because together we will make America powerful again. We will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America healthy again.

We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. By the way, he's the president. Shouldn't he already have done all this stuff? And we will make America great again. Thank you very much, Texas. We love you all.

God bless you. God bless you all. Thank you. There you go. Absolute disaster, folks. And this is, that was only night one. We've still got night two coming tonight. Anybody who was still thinking of voting for these clowns after last night, hopefully

will be permanently dissuaded by it by tonight's speech and we'll say, hell no. But maybe one of the most consequential parts of this thing, because it is held in Texas after all were Donald Trump's comments about the Texas Senate race. And you've got to see what happened. As I watched Donald Trump endorse Ken Paxton for Senate yesterday, I could come away with only one conclusion. Trump hates this guy. If you heard only the first part of Donald Trump's endorsement, you might reasonably wonder

whether someone handed him the opposition research on Ken Paxton. Listen to this. In the whole United States. So I am very sorry, Ken. I hate it to do. And I'll go backstage, sir, you shouldn't have said that. You've given them a say, let me tell you. It's true.

He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly and he may not be the best looking guy I've ever seen. But you know what he is? He's the greatest attorney general in America and he deserves to be your next senator. all of this stuff that I think is terrible about the guy that I begrudgingly and very late in the game endorsed. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. It's the president of the United States talking about the guy he wants Texans to elect.

And he's like he doesn't dress the best. He doesn't speak the best. He's not particularly good looking. Usually you start with the accomplishments. You go, this is a great leader. This is a great fighter. It's what the state needs. But Trump is leading with the weaknesses.

Now, to be clear. Trump does support Paxton. He endorsed him. He promised the campaign extensively for him. The Texas Tribune has had extensive reporting about how a lot of the framing of this midterm convention, specifically being in Texas, is in order to attack James Tala Rico and support Ken Paxton. But even by Donald Trump's standards, that's a pretty weak introduction. Now, Paxton then got up there and got his own opportunity to attack Tala Rico. And you know what? Trump's criticisms are pretty good. This guy's not a particularly good speaker. But that's exactly what James Talaraca would be.

You've heard this before. He calls himself a Christian who hates Christianity. Said God is non-binary. I must have missed that verse in the Bible. They're really obsessed with whether God has a penis. And of course, he claimed there were six genders, which is absolutely crazy. There you go. Really just an electric speaker, Ken Paxton. So it was a lot of attack Talarico. Trump's spent a while attacking Tala Rico. Other Republican speakers did the same thing. Ken Paxton, of course, did. But there's another interesting element to this race, which is that Paxton is polarizing even to Republicans in Texas. There's a lot of Republicans in Texas that are not pleased

that Paxton is the nominee. Here is one Texas Republican explaining why is she supporting Tala Rico. And she's not blurred out. We're starting the clip in the middle of a transition. It's not that she doesn't want to be identified. Here she is explaining why she supports Talarico, not Ken Paxton. This is a Republican folks. Why not Ken Paxton? Because he's trash. That's a honest word. He is a disgrace. He's a disgrace to my party. He's a disgrace to humanity. And he's a disgrace. Why not camp? So this, this reminds us about something very real about Ken Paxton. Paxton's political career is all controversy. It's impeachment by a Republican-controlled Texas House in 2023.

He was ultimately acquitted by the state Senate. A bunch of different, terrifyingly horrible allegations that should be disqualifying for Paxton. But he has been able to remain a major figure in Texas Republican politics. And he does seem to need Donald Trump support. I do think on balance in Texas, Trump support actually does help Paxton more than it hurts, which makes this really weird. here's all the stuff that sucks about Paxton endorsement kind of weird. Imagine being Ken Paxton

watching Trump finally get to the part of his speech where he talks about you. It's your, it's your big moment. It's we're in Texas here. He's going to give me a ringing endorsement. And he goes, this guy really doesn't dress right. This guy doesn't speak well. He's not an attractive guy. But I like him. I like them. It's like the inverse of what you would normally do in an endorsement. Usually you exaggerate the strengths of the people you support. You ignore their weaknesses. And Trump goes, let me give you a whole bunch of the weaknesses, but vote for him anyway. Now, a lot of people in Texas are saying, even though I'm a Republican, I'm, I am a Republican. I'm not going to vote for this guy. But the substantive political story here is that Trump is

throwing his weight behind Paxton, figuratively and literally. And it's a very consequential Senate race. Trump says, I'm going to be back here a bunch of times. I'm going to be campaigning for Ken Paxton. If you're James Talarico's campaign, you now have a bunch of Trump. saying negative things about your opponent that you could just put right up on the screen. He may not dress right. He doesn't speak perfectly. He's not a good looking guy. And then underneath Donald Trump endorses Ken Paxton. Man, what what a ringing endorsement, isn't it? Unbelievable. Buying a mattress is one of those purchases where the options start to all look the same, even though there are really important differences once you're sleeping on it every night. And that's one

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Use my promo code, Pacman. The link is in the description. Is this a speech or a medical emergency? I think if you saw a transcript of what I'm about to show you, you would not realize even 5% of the insanity that it is. You have to watch it. It's Republican Senator Tim Scott speaking at night one of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas.

And there are really no words where is this a seizure or a stroke or is it a cult members last gasps of cult loyalty to a fading, swollen orange cult leader? You tell me, I can't tell. The Democrats, extreme candidates won't rip that heart out of our chest. Culture. It needs to be American. Hear me, Dallas. Watch.

We with me. I said. You know, it's not just the volume. It's not just the gestures. It's not just the ripping open his jacket or the pacing or the sudden glitchy movements. The entire thing is indistinguishable between. a devotional cult speech and a seizure or stroke. And I think Tim Scott's performance tells us something about what Republicans believe the convention

needs to accomplish. It's not a normal midterm campaign event and it's not a normal convention because normally there aren't conventions during midterms. Republicans have created this very unusual midterm thing in the middle of a non-presidential election year. And it's the first time it's ever been done. And the challenge of it, the point of it is very obvious. Trump's not running in November.

A lot of Republican voters are more likely to participate when Trump is on the ballot. So they go, that's not a problem. Let's recreate the enthusiasm of a presidential election year, even though we have no presidential election. And that's the environment in which Tim, Tim Scott takes the stage. The problem is that Trump is really unpopular. And all of this stuff about we're going to make America great again and healthy again and strong again and safe again.

You've been president for two years. Why didn't you already do it? And you were president four years before. Why didn't you do it then? Here's more of this borderline medical emergency. I guess I would call it. But Texas, we know who God is. Yeah, alpha and omega.

Now, I know that there are many people in my audience who will go, David, this is neither a cult speech nor a medical emergency. This is simply mental illness. That's all that this is. I can't tell what it is. What I can tell you is, it's not a quiet press. It's not policy focused. It's not about marginal tax rates.

This is a performance of some sort. And the Republican message was very high intensity. Democrats are socialists. Democrats are communists. It's about Jesus and God, as Tim Scott said. And it's an existential choice. That's what they need to frame it as. It is existential that you reelect Republicans.

in November and the indispensable figure who needs you to do that is Donald Trump. Now, Scott is sort of in an interesting position because Tim Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And his job this cycle quite literally is we have to help Republicans win their Senate races at all costs. So it is not a random Trump surrogate getting excited or stroking out or doing a mentally deranged speech, although maybe it is all those things. It is the person responsible for the national Republican Senate strategy. And he understands that the turnout problem is a big problem for them. Republicans must have the people who voted for Trump in 2024 show up again this year or

they are going to get destroyed. And Trump has made that strategy really explicit by going pretend I'm on the ballot and you got five grand coming if we win the House and Senate. And the Iran war will end and gas will be under two bucks a gallon. And of course, I don't think any of us believe any of that crap. And Republicans like Tim Scott are trying to say or are saying to themselves, how can I create an atmosphere that feels like that really is what's at stake? It's a presidential campaign.

It's exciting. Everybody needs to go out and vote. Whatever you want to say about it, you can't say that Tim Scott is underplaying his assignment here. He is very much overplaying it. And he seems desperate and Trump is desperate and they are all desperate. That should signal to us, damn, if they are willing to lie to this degree and behave like lunatics or or people who should be in the ER in order to try to prevent Democrats from winning,

there must be something they are really afraid of. And of course, they are very afraid. They are afraid that they are going to get kicked out because of Donald Trump's unpopularity. They're afraid some of them and Trump is afraid and his family is afraid that they will be mired and smothered by investigations and oversight and maybe even impeachment for Trump if Democrats take the House. And they will be seen as the failures and the losers that they are. And so that's how you end up with. I'll play a little bit of it again. This insanity. I mean, listen, I guess that it is presidential year energy, right, to some degree. It's just that the underlying strategy, the scaffolding the entire thing is something that failed for Biden and Harris. When it was Joe Biden saying,

this is a phenomenal economy. Look at these numbers. Voters weren't believing it. And it was a problem for Biden and the polling wasn't looking good when Biden dropped out. And then when Kamala Harris came in, it was like, I wouldn't do anything different than Biden. She said it on the view and it's all great. It's going so well. Voters didn't believe it. And what we learned was that showing people good economic data if they don't feel the economy as good doesn't work. Now, they don't even have good economic data to show anybody right now. Like that's the really big problem. And as a result, the presidential year energy of you should be energized to vote and it's really important that you do so. It's like, yeah, okay, well, maybe I will vote, but not for you guys because things are so

terrible. So Tim Scott, terrifying. I guess not a medical emergency, but almost indistinguishable from one. Donald Trump has made one of the most extraordinary promises of any campaign, especially a midterm campaign, which is if Republicans win the House and Senate, I will send every adult five grand. How are we going to pay for it? I don't know. The tariffs are something, I guess. I'm not really sure. It'll be about 1.3 trillion.

So after Donald Trump made that promise, this happened after the stroke of 11 p.m. last Eastern, 11 p.m. Eastern 10 Central. They sent JD Vance out there to explain how is this thing supposed to work anyway. And Brett Bayer on Fox News immediately identifies the problem. It's like $1.3 trillion. How does JD defend it? Well, let's see him try. People, if we do that, we're going to do just fine.

Brett. So Mr. Vice President, I heard the Trump dividend raise some eyebrows, $5,000 for every adult citizen if the House wins. Wait, it raised my eyebrows and both hands went up at the same time. But if Republicans win the House, this is for the American middle class. All right. But if Republicans win the House, 5,000. for every adult citizen. So you do the quick math. That's about 1.3 trillion dollars. I can hear the critics' heads exploded.

They're saying out loud, I guarantee you, president is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the house. True. And then he's bankrupting the country because the deficit debt is huge. And inflation would come back if this comes into play. So how do you answer those criticisms? Well, I say first of all, what the president's talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American work. We're taking in an extraordinary round of revenue because the President of United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies. Remember that we're not taking in revenue from tariffs. It's being paid by American businesses. We're not taking it in.

We're collecting it from Americans. But also foreign countries who've been taking advantage of America's workers for pretty much my entire life. All of these tariffs, what is a tariff, Brett? A tariff is when the President of United States says if you want to undercut the wages of American workers, If you want to ship American jobs overseas, you're going to pay a big fat penalty when you try to bring that stuff back into the United States of America. Those penalties have generated a lot of revenues. They've helped us pay down debt. What the president is just saying is, if you keep it going to the American people, if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you're going to share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that we're creating in the United States of America.

I don't think it's a controversial idea. It's actually the President of the United States saying we're all working together. Yeah, imagine if a Democrat proposed that. No, no, no, it's not a controversial idea. Now, there are like two or three separate issues that are packed together here. First of all, Trump doesn't have $1.3 trillion sitting in some account that he can simply distribute. The U.S. is running a significant federal deficit, which Trump promised to eliminate, get us

a surplus and pay off the entire national debt. Didn't happen. So the annual deficit is around $1.8 trillion. Second, even if you said, forget about the fact. that the tariff revenue isn't coming from somewhere else. It's it's American money. Forget put that aside. The tariff revenue is not remotely the same thing as having a trillion dollar surplus available for checks. The total tariff revenue is about 300 billion. This would cost 1.3 trillion. And again, the tariff revenue is paid by American companies. The associated

press spoke to Mark Goldwain of the committee for a responsible federal budget and noted that even if the government were collecting additional tariff revenue, the government is still spending a lot more than it takes in. So the idea that we, because of that money, we now have 1.3 trillion we can give out. And then third is, of course, this whole if you keep us in power thing. That is JD's explanation for the proposal. Republicans win Congress and you get five grand. And Trump was just as explicit during the convention.

But there's a piece of context that's missing, which is they've made these promises so many times before. Trump floated a $2,000 tariff dividend. We didn't get it. There was the proposed doge dividend. We didn't get it. Here on the screen is an email from Trump Vance from April 2025 promoting that idea. I'm proposing something completely unprecedented, wrote Trump. $5,000 doge dividend checks and it was going to be a boon for households, thousands of dollars based on government savings. We all know it never happened. And then came the proposed tariff dividend and Americans didn't get that two grand and now it's

five grand. So Martha McCallum on Fox News followed up with J.D. Vance and said, are you acknowledging that the war is going to go on for a while and gas prices will be high for a while? And that's why you're doing this. You know, is the rebate that's being discussed in some ways an acknowledgement that the war is not going to be over for a while. prices are likely to be elevated for some time, and this is a sort of a way to alleviate some of that pain for Americans?

I think it's what the president said exactly, that we've created a lot of prosperity. If the American people give Republicans another chance to govern, we're going to create more prosperity, and we want the American people to share in that prosperity. Again, we have, for 40 years, my entire life, the basic bipartisan economic policy consensus is that it didn't matter if we shipped American jobs overseas. What the president has done is say that if you want to undercut the wages of American workers, if you want to ship American factories overseas, you have to pay a big fat tariff to bring that stuff back into our country.

That's done two things. One, it's generated some revenue for the federal government, but more importantly, it's cost $20 trillion of new investment to come into our country. Now, that's an insane lie. So remember that they always have to raise the number. Trump was at $17 trillion. Now J.D. Vance goes, 20 trillion has come in. That is a complete and total lie.

What Trump has, Trump has publicized this crap now for a long time. What happens is a country will go, and this is if Trump's even being honest, which is usually not, a country will go, hey, we would consider like Saudi Arabia, for example, or the Emirates or whoever, they'll go, we would consider investing 500 billion over the next 10 years if you give us projects that are in line with our priorities or if you give us goods that are worth that amount. And so there's a big difference between have 500 billion versus come to me with a proposal for 500 billion worth of stuff that you would give us over the next 10 years in exchange for 500 billion in cash. And JD just turns it into we've brought in 20 trillion

in investments. It is completely and totally fabricated. Final thing, Fox points out, Trump has made these promises before and the checks never go out. Republicans hold on to both chambers, $5,000. He characterized it as a dividend saying the only caveat is that it has to be spent in America. We should note, though, it is not the first time he has promised a cash payment like this. He promised Americans $2,000 rebates during his tariff policy when that was enacted, but after court challenges to the tariffs themselves, those $2,000 checks so far have not materialized trade. All right.

Listen, you're not getting the five grand. You're not getting the five grand, most likely, because Democrats are going to win the House, not Republicans. And Trump said it's only if Republicans keep the House and Senate. So you're not going to get a five grand, most likely because of that. But I'll go further. Even if Democrats failed to take the House nor the Senate and Republicans keep them. They're not going to do this.

You're not getting the five grand. And J.D. Vance struggling to come up with something he can say, but the money's not going out. The David Packman Show is an audience supported program. And the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at joinpackman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. The first night of the midterm convention, ill-advised and counterproductive, self-destructive, a very bad idea that Donald Trump held, had a relatively light crowd.

Now, we already looked at Donald Trump's nearly two-hour speech. It was a disastrous speech, including Donald Trump promising people five grand if Republicans keep the House and Senate. But somewhere around the 90-minute mark, a very interesting disagreement. developed between Trump and the visible evidence inside the arena. Trump's opinion was nobody's leaving, but the cameras suggested people were leaving. And as Trump passes 90 minutes into this endless speech, he insists nobody is left, but it is clear that many people have indeed left.

You can hear Trump speaking in the background and you see that, you know, the second, third, fourth, fifth levels of this thing are increasingly emptying out. It was really good enthusiasm. President Trump didn't really want to be here. You could see it. And the room was half empty. The back of the room had nobody. Let me tell you.

The back of the room made this one look empty. The place was packed thousands of people. Anyway, as you can see, pretty light crowd there. Not exactly a full house. Now, the streaming numbers were abysmal. were abysmal in the middle of Donald Trump's speech, right side broadcasting network, which regularly had like six figure audiences during prior eras of the Trump curse, had only 2,200 people watching. ABC News had not even 700 people watching this crap.

Live now from Fox News, which has a major presence on YouTube live, 800 people, and the Hill, Not necessarily known for big numbers, but even for the Hill. A hundred and thirty three people were watching this crap. Trump claiming when we announced this, we knew it would be packed. And there are as many people trying to get in outside as there are in here. That's a lot of fake news. You have to remember when we originally announced this eight weeks ago, they said, who's going to go to a mid-term? convention that's never going to displace is packed and not only is this pack is a big arena

not only is this pack but you have an equal number of people standing outside if anybody would like to give up their seat or whatever they're whatever it turns out that this is not true and here is a post from lea who says i'm leaving american airline center right now as trump is speaking He had referenced crowds outside wanting to get in. This is what the plaza looks like an hour into a speech. As you can see, there is essentially no one there. It is a ghost town. It is a ghost town.

Now, American political parties don't usually have conventions in non-presidential years. This is something called midterm convention, which isn't really a thing. And as we've talked about extensively, Republicans are doing it because they're trying to figure out, what do we do to win? Trump has decided making myself the center of this midterm, even though. I'm very unpopular is a good idea. Republicans need Trump voters, but Trump's unpopular, so on and so forth. And so Trump tries to tease them with. Here's another great reason to vote for Republicans. If we win, the war is going to end right after the election. Forget about the fact that we are in

month seven and that after the election would be month nine of this thing. It's going to end very soon, even though I promised it would last two to three weeks. Incredible states, we're more powerful now than OPEC and prices right after this very important election on November 3rd will be plummeting. The war will be over very shortly after the election. They're hanging out for dear life, hoping that we lose so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats. Now remember, even if Republicans do lose the House and or Senate, it's Trump that is running this war. Trump could still end the war regardless of who wins.

Trump promised it would be two to three weeks. We're in month seven. And they can have their nuclear bomb, but we're not going to let that happen. What Trump is suggesting is that he is so weak as president that if Republicans lose the House and or Senate, Trump's view on this war, which is his war, no longer matters. They will, they, Democrats, I guess, I don't know, will allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon and whatever. That doesn't make any sense. you would still be the president. It would still be your war. It would be your situation that you can either deal with or not. So the timeline he's promising basically will make it a nine month war. And I'm starting

to struggle to believe it'll be that short. It's a remarkable timetable. Now, of course, the election is November 3rd. Trump is saying right after that the war will end, but he's not explaining how or why. What will resolve the conflict? If Republicans win on November 3rd, Republicans will have the House and Senate and Trump will be president. And that will be the circumstance. required, those will be the circumstances required for the war to end. But we have those circumstances now. Republicans control the House and Senate now and Trump is president now. Why would it take continuing to immediately end the war?

Now, of course, energy prices are a major problem here. Trump's broken promises about no new wars are a major problem here. But they are trying to tie the war to the election. Vote Republican. The war ends. Vote Republican. You get five grand. Trump has also said gasoline will fall below two bucks.

a gallon, it's not going to happen. There is a lot being attached to one election, but the circumstances after the election if Trump gets his way will be the same circumstances in which we find ourselves today. So why not do it now? And speaking of which, Trump ended his speech earlier with we will let vote Republican so we can make America strong again and safe again and healthy again and all this stuff. Why didn't you do it? You've been president for almost two years for the second time and you didn't do what your first term. There is a lot being attached to this election, but you know what really is attached to this election? If they do lose, Republicans, that is, Trump's getting investigated. Trump maybe is getting impeached and it will be hell for him and for

his family. That's the only thing he actually cares about. Ted Cruz was asked a very simple question on the view. How do you grade the economy? How do you grade Trump on the economy and prices? And there was an audible gas when Ted Cruz was pressed and he was pressed again and he gives Trump an A. This is an A rated economy. How do you justify that? Well, listen to him try. What grade from A to F would you give the president on the economy and prices? Prices especially. Look, if you look at prices, let's take gas prices. When Biden was president, gas prices were over $5 a gallon. When Trump came in,

they dropped to about $3 a gallon. They're now about $4 a gallon. So there's still about... Five near me. Well, but that's because New York and New Jersey and California, they're about $3.50 in Texas. No, and diesel is even... Ohio is about $6.

Diesel is higher, but they're still about $1 a gallon less than they were under Biden, but they are more than they were the first year of Trump. That is an improvement. I can tell you, the data show during the four years Biden was president, median family income did not move at all. So is that like a D?

No, no, it's not a D. I actually think if you look at the biggest tax cut in American history that was passed, if you look at trillions of dollars of new investment, and I'll tell you, look, facts matter. See? I would give him an A. No, no, come on.

Come on, it's us. It's just us. It's just us. I recognize that the day he came in, you guys didn't like him and you still don't like him. That's okay. That's the beauty. There are a few factual problems with the case that Ted Cruz is making. First of all, it is true.

If you go back and look at, you know, prior gas prices, which we have on the screen, there was a point of a few days while Biden was president where gas exceeded five bucks a gallon. That was June of 2022. There was this global energy shock because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The pandemic was still going on. That was not the price of gasoline when Joe Biden left. If you look at January of 2025, you will see that gas was about 305. It was about $3 a gallon. So the claim that gas was higher when Biden left than it is now is not true. If what you want to say is at one point while Biden was president, gas was five bucks a gallon, all right, well, that's true. But the idea that Trump inherited $5 gasoline from Biden and has seen a decline is false. And if you look at

what has happened now, you see this massive spike in gas prices that has taken place because of the Iran conflict and disruption in global energy markets and the like. Now, current averages are about 420 a gallon higher than when Trump took office. Now, then he talks about diesel. We covered this yesterday. So if you listen to yesterday's show, you already know this. If you go to the AAA fuel price website, you will see that diesel prices are currently 597, almost 598. And lo and behold, the highest recorded price ever for diesel, ever, ever in American history is today. Today is the day during which in nominal terms, diesel prices are the highest of all the time

that we have tracked diesel prices. So this is why, I mean, listen, there's a couple different stories here. The idea of the Trump economy being an A, you're going to be hard pressed to find too many Americans who agree with that. But there is a limit to presidential influence on energy policy. But Trump has done a lot of the stuff that actually does move energy prices. Presidents can impact drilling, rules, sanctions, releasing petroleum from the strategic like petroleum reserve, taxes, regulations.

But the price on the sign at your local gas station is also driven by global oil prices, wars, refinery, capacity, seasonality, transportation costs a whole bunch of different stuff. Nobody as president walks into the Oval Office every morning and like chooses the gas price. That was true under Biden and it's true under Trump and it's going to be true under whoever comes next. But politicians have been spending years telling voters treat gas prices like presidents do control them. So now Ted Cruz is being asked, evaluate Trump's economy when Americans are dealing with the highest diesel price ever and significantly higher gas prices than when Trump took office. And his

responses, well, Biden, $5 and also a. He gets an A. This is a chronological problem, which does not even remotely comport with what Ted Cruz is talking about. And that audible gasp is really something. Now, Ted Cruz is in a situation where he is ignoring all of the facts, but he is using his made up conjecture to justify an A grade on the economy. I'm not going to get in the way of people screwing themselves. If what Republicans want to run on for these midterms is that this economy is an A, go ahead. Go ahead and do that. That is extraordinarily risky for them to do.

But Biden $5, I don't think is going to cut it when we are almost in 2027 and Trump's been back in office for almost two years. So I, you know, you might say, well, David, why do you think Ted Cruz is doing it? Is Ted Cruz know that he's lying? Yeah, I think Ted Cruz knows that he's lying. But is he doing it because he's scared of Trump? Is it because of his own presidential ambitions? Is it because he's just programmed in this way to never say things could be better and

they're not even though the guy I supported his president? I think it's in all of the above situation. We have reporting from the Wall Street Journal that he is privately building a campaign staff already for running for president in 2028. Ted Cruz at least for now has made the calculation that denouncing Trump is not to his advantage. Although, although he may be saying that now in order to have the best possible midterm outcome and right after the midterms in order to start positioning himself for the presidential race that he's inevitably going to run based on the reporting, he will start to distance from Trump a little bit. I'd be curious to see whether that happens. But

What I can assure you is that Ted Cruz is a horrible person, number one. And number two, maybe more importantly and relevant to this program, is that this is not going to work. And Republicans should really remember when it failed for Biden, they pointed it out. They go, listen, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they can just say how great things are as many times as they want. But that is not going to convince the American people to believe something that they simply don't feel, that they don't experience, that they don't see when they look at their credit

card statements and their bank withdrawals. Well, they should be taking that advice right now. And they should be, I, I'm not a strategist, but one of the things Barack Obama did really well in 2012, although this is not a presidential election, and I have to understand that. In 2012, Barack Obama, when he was arguing, give me four more years instead of voting for Mitt Romney. Barack Obama made the case that we've made a lot of progress, but we have a lot more work to do. And there was an empathy there and an understanding of what is going on.

rather than what you would like things to be, which I believe resonated with the average voter who said, all right, listen, he's not telling me everything's fixed, but he is giving me a factual basis to believe that things have improved. And for most people, they have improved, especially relative to the Great Recession. But he is also saying this is not the end of it. Whereas what you're hearing from Trump is everything is absolutely awesome. This is the best economy ever. and also vote for us to make America strong, healthy, blah, blah, blah, even though you've been in power for two years. So it's all fixed, but also you've got to give us more time to fix anything, but believe it's great and it would be really bad under Democrats. It's incoherent. And I don't

think voters are falling for it. And that includes Republicans. On the bonus show today, we will talk about Senator John Federman's surprise appearance at the Republican midterm conventions. We will talk about a federal appeals court saying that clean drinking water is not a constitutional right. We will talk more about water. And Jimmy Kimmel says that his interview with James Talariko will not air on ABC because of threats that they received from the FCC. Dear God, they really are going after free speech. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. If you want to see a beautiful video of me signing a thousand copies of my book yesterday,

I posted a time lapse to my Instagram and other platforms. If you want to make me go back and sign more books, pre-order my forthcoming book. Pay attention. It's out in 12 days. Find it at Davidpackman.com slash attention jumping dramatically in the Amazon rankings overnight. I would love to go in and sign another thousand. Make me do it by pre-ordering a signed copy at David packman.com slash attention. I'll see you on the bonus show