The David Pakman Show - Trump’s war IMPLODES as troops start ESCAPING
Episode Date: August 31, 2026-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump publicly claims that Iran is a completely destroyed failed nation while continuing a six-month military conflict against them -- Active-duty military personnel are ap...plying for conscientious-objector status in record numbers under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth -- Donald Trump threatens to report NBC journalist Kristen Welker to the FCC for describing his political endorsement record as mixed -- Donald Trump gives a television interview with host Fox News Trey Gowdy covering the Georgia Senate race, Iran, inflation, and more -- Donald Trump appears to struggle to stay awake while standing at an official public event, raising questions about his physical stamina -- The criminal trial of Lindsay Clancy highlights the distinct legal boundaries surrounding severe mental illness and criminal responsibility -- Donald Trump receives no applause from NASA personnel during a partisan speech and later speaks with astronauts on a landline phone -- Congressional oversight through subpoena power could expose top Trump administration officials to potential criminality -- On the Bonus Show: Sean Duffy and Markwayne Mullin promise a "fraud crackdown," Milo Yiannopoulos deported to the UK, 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 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/Pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- 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 (01:24) Trump claims Iran is defeated while war continues (08:49) Military resignations surge over moral concerns (20:33) Trump demands FCC action against Kristen Welker (28:14) Trump addresses midterms in Trey Gowdy interview (39:02) Trump appears to fall asleep while standing (46:40) Lindsay Clancy tests legal definition of insanity (56:47) Trump delivers political speech to NASA scientists (1:03:48) Trump officials face legal risks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Coming up today, Donald Trump has accidentally created a huge problem for himself with his own
description of the war in Iran.
If everything he's saying is true, why are we still fighting this war six months in?
Now, meanwhile, something extraordinary is happening inside Trump's military.
We are seeing service members just trying to get out saying they can't morally justify what
it is they are being asked to do.
Makes a lot of sense.
And Donald Trump is now demanding that government punish a journalist because he didn't like something
she said about him.
We need to talk about what will happen if Democrats regain subpoena power in the House.
We also have some genuinely concerning new videos of Donald Trump appearing to struggle to stay awake
while standing, which raises fascinating questions about whether Donald Trump may be a horse
who can sleep standing up.
No, but there is a very interesting question as to what's going on.
And also a very interesting question as to what does it mean to be insane under the law?
We'll talk about the Lindsay Clancy trial and everything related to that.
And Donald Trump visits NASA where things get really weird.
All of that and more today.
Donald Trump has managed to soil his own presidency.
And I'm using the word soil in a sort of polite euphemistic sense to be clear.
Donald Trump just posted something a few hours ago about Iran that I genuinely do not think he realizes
is an admission of how terribly this war is going. Take a look at what Donald Trump wrote.
Quote, Iran is officially a failed nation. It is dead. They have no Navy. They have no air force.
They have no currency. They are not paying their soldiers or police. Inflation is at 300 percent.
And their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country.
The only thing they have is fake news from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters,
now over 100,000 people dead.
They must be tried for war crimes against humanity and a good line of bullshit.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, blah, blah, blah.
Now, of course, if we want to analyze this factually, a lot of it is either false or just wildly
exaggerated.
Of course, Iran does still have naval forces.
it obviously has a currency.
Inflation is bad in Iran.
It's not 300% though.
But I want us to forget about all of that for a second.
Like just pretend for a moment that every single thing Trump said there is true.
Give them all of it.
Iran is dead.
It's a failed nation.
No Navy.
No Air Force.
No money.
It can't pay its soldiers.
It can't pay its police.
All of that stuff, right?
Then why are we still fighting them?
We are six months into this thing.
We were supposed to have a two to three week war.
And we are six months into a war with a dead country.
What does it say about the United States that it's taken six months to still not defeat
a country with no leadership, no currency, and no Navy and no bombs and anything?
Now, remember how it was sold to us at the beginning.
We're going to hit him extremely hard.
American military objectives are going to be accomplished so quickly.
It won't be another one of these open-ended wars that my predecessors got us into.
and all of this sort of stuff. And it is now the end of August and the war is still going and
somehow Trump wants us to simultaneously believe two completely contradictory things. Number one,
Iran has been totally annihilated. They're finished. They're dead. They have nothing. They have
no money. Their government has collapsed. They can't pay their own soldiers on the one hand.
But on the other hand, this completely dead helpless country somehow requires six months,
of American warfare with no end in sight. So which is it? The more pathetic Trump makes Iran sound,
Trump's own military performance actually is what sounds worse. If you tell me you've been fighting
Superman for six months, oh, you haven't won. Okay, well, it is Superman. That's pretty tough.
If you tell me you've been fighting a guy with no money, no weapons, no military,
whose entire organization has collapsed and six months later, you're still fighting that guy,
I start to have some questions for you. This is what Trump,
never seems to understand about his own propaganda. He exaggerates everything so much that the
exaggeration undermines what he's trying to brag about. Now, if we are just honest, of course
Iran has been damaged and damaged badly. And of course Iran's economy is in terrible shape.
And it was before this war started. And of course, after six months, its military capabilities have been
degraded. But ours have been degraded as well. And what Iran still has is some ability to impose
costs and to keep retaliating and keep disrupting in the region and keep the conflict going.
And six months into this thing, it was going to be two to three weeks. Six months in, we still don't
have a clear off ramp. So either Trump is lying when he describes Iran as this dead country with
nothing left, or he's telling the truth, in which case his administration has spent six months
fighting a dead country after telling us we were going to have this wrapped up so easily in two to
three weeks. Neither of these options makes Trump look very good. Now, the truth,
Post this morning is, again, Trump knows it's been six months. The truth social post is supposed
to be Trump pounding his chest and declaring victory again. But instead, he's sort of accidentally
posing the question that now he has to answer. Pete Hugg says that has to answer. They all have to answer.
If Iran is as completely defeated, broke and militarily destroyed and dysfunctional as Donald
Trump says it is, why couldn't the most powerful military in the world finish?
this war in the two to three weeks that we were told that it was going to take and why are we still
fighting it six months later?
Now, we had this hypothetical two and a half months ago, which has become a reality.
I'm going to remind you about that hypothetical.
The hypothetical was we're starting the 60 day negotiation period with Iran.
And if that doesn't go well, Iran knows it is really Trump's problem.
What do I mean by that?
is the one whose party is facing defeat in a midterm at the end of that 60 day negotiation period.
And so when that period started, I think it was around June 19th for some reason.
I have that date in my mind. We said, well, two months from June 19th is August 19th.
That is just a couple of weeks before early ballots start going out. Iran's not stupid.
Iran is a lot of things and they are radical theocrats, but they're not stupid.
They realize if things aren't going well on August 19th and Trump resumes bombing or has to explain
to the American people, why is this thing not over?
Why is this thing continuing?
That is a disaster for Trump, which is a point of leverage for Iran.
We set it on June 19th and it is coming true.
And now Republicans are worried and they're trying to figure out what the hell do we run on
because quite frankly, they have nothing to run on.
They have Trump is doing a great job, but he's not and it's sort of hard to defend.
The economy's doing great, except it's really not for most people.
And so they can't defend that.
Trump certainly didn't solve inflation.
And so what they go to is, oh, if Democrats win, scary stuff, insert scary stuff here.
And it really doesn't seem like people are falling for that in general.
And when the status quo is so bad, people are incentivized to try new things.
So this is really the nightmare scenario for Trump.
And most importantly, there are troops dying.
There are civilians dying.
There's an economy that's suffering.
Americans are suffering because of all of them.
And it was all optional and it was going to take two to three weeks, but we are six months in.
So I kind of go back to the question I asked you about last week or the week before.
And I heard from a few of you, how long do you think this thing is going to go?
Do you think we are going to go beyond a year with this thing?
Like are we not even halfway through with this at this point in time?
Or is it possible that if Democrats do take the House in November, they will be able to exert more pressure on Trump to
get him to off ramp. I still believe eventually Trump's off ramp is to go, we won and we're leaving,
even though the objectives won't have been accomplished and even though the entire thing is going to
start over again because we have no nuclear deal with Iran, I think the most likely scenario is
Trump goes, we did it, we won, we're getting out of here. And it will be up to us to determine
and evaluate. Did Trump really win there or what exactly is going on? Now, what are the troops doing
in the middle of this? That is something we have to talk about. There is an extraordinary situation,
happening inside Donald Trump and Pete Heggseth's military, which is that service members are getting
the hell out, many of whom believe they are being asked to participate in things they simply
cannot morally justify. And the numbers are skyrocketing. There are organizations that help
military personnel apply for conscientious objector status. And they are seeing those applications
at a level that has not been seen in decades.
This is, there's one organization called the Center on Conscience and War.
And they say, normally we get like 50 people a year.
50 people will come to us, 50 service members and they'll say, I have a moral objection
to what this military is engaged in.
Help me get that status.
Since Donald Trump's war with Iran started in February, they already have had 140 applicants.
That's six times the normal rate.
and that is the most they've seen in 25 years. Now, you might say, oh, these are 19-year-olds who joined.
They realized this wasn't for them. So they said, what can I say to get out of here? Not at all.
Many of the new conscientious objectors have served for more than a decade. This includes enlisted personnel.
This includes officers up through major. Some went to military academies before being commissioned.
and they are saying, we have to get out and we have to get out right now.
So what is it that is going on?
Well, MS now spoke anonymously with five service members who were trying to leave right now.
One believed Iran is deliberate, rather the United States is deliberately bombing civilian
infrastructure in Iran, including bridges.
When I raised concerns, I was told, at, don't worry about it.
That's not a problem.
The service member ultimately decided nothing I'm doing here is contributing to good,
in the world, I've got to get out.
Another said current leadership is just so unpredictable.
I've got to get out.
Here's a video report on this from MS now.
Seems as though we're also seeing records of the number of people who are trying to leave
the military as you mentioned as conscientious objectors.
And really they pointed to the specific military campaigns that the United States has started
over the past year.
I spoke to one service member who was deployed in support of Operation Epic Fury, which of course
is the war in Iran.
And this person told me that they believed that they were ordered to target and blow up
and bomb civilian infrastructure, which of course is a violation of international humanitarian
law as defined by the Geneva Accord.
I also spoke with two different service members who were given orders to support Operation
Southern Spear, which of course is the military campaign that President Donald Trump began
last September, which led to those 60 boat strikes that you were talking to, where those
vessels were allegedly carrying narco-terrorists and drugs.
that were being funneled into the United States, they also resulted in at least 210 people
who were killed. And both of those service members say they were concerned that there was a lack
of intelligence or justification for each of these boat strikes. One of them in particular said,
you can tell yourself what you want at night and say they were all precision strikes and they
were all planned, but there's at least one innocent person that I feel like I indirectly heard.
So it was not just a violation potentially of these international laws.
A lot of them said that they, you know, cited these surge in civilian death tolls.
Many of them talked about the, that Manab school bombing that happened in Iran at the beginning
of this war where 150 schoolgirls and teachers die.
So it turns out that Iran isn't the only issue.
Service members are raising concerns about Trump.
They're raising concerns about the operations.
targeting the alleged drug trafficking boats where the U.S. struck at least 60 small boats and
killed more than 200 people. One service member who loaded weapons onto planes said they watched
the planes leave with bombs, come back without them. And the service member said, I have no
idea who were targeting why, whether civilians are being killed. This is what I think is the
important part. These are not people doing what Trump did when he got his bone spurs letter to
not go to Vietnam, who are basically saying, I'm afraid I might die and that's it.
I want to stay home.
These are people who are morally feeling the weight of what they might be ordered to do to
other people.
And they're worried about the ethical implications of participating in these military actions
that they don't believe are justified.
And my message to every single one of these people is good for you.
It takes courage to say, I did volunteer to serve my country, but
That's not a blank check.
I'm not going to blindly do anything Trump or Heggseth tell me to do.
And there's something especially rich about Trump demanding unquestioning loyalty from people
who actually volunteered for military service because Trump famously did not serve in Vietnam.
And he did receive multiple draft affirmants.
And he got a medical exemption because of his heels.
So the guy who avoided military service during Vietnam is now commander in chief.
sending other people into wars and military operations that at least some of them believe they
cannot morally participate in. And meanwhile, Pete Heggseth is purging military leadership. And he's
forced out at least half a dozen officers. The army has been without a chief of staff since April.
All of it is a complete and total mess. Just for numbers. When Hegg Seth was confirmed,
the army had 10 active duty four star generals. Now it has five. This is the smallest number in
years. So we've got experienced leadership being pushed out, experienced service members trying to
escape, and remember that this is an all volunteer military. And one service member put it perfectly
when he said, when you volunteer to sign up for the military, despite what some people might think,
you're not signing up to be a robot. Military service is not supposed to be personal loyalty
to Trump. You're swearing an oath to the Constitution. And when
people who volunteered to defend the country decide, I can only defend my conscience by getting the
hell out of this military, we should be seeing these as alarm bells that are going off everywhere,
and they really are. Now, as far as the specifics of the adjudication of these conscientious
objector requests, a lot of that is still TBD. It's still in progress. And we are sort of going to have to
wait and see what the adjudication is. And there, you know, if you go back to Vietnam, there's this
idea that conscientious objector status was used very loosely and that for a lot of people,
it was just a lie and it was about I don't want to go out there and get myself killed. Right now,
the risk of getting themselves killed is actually quite low. There have been some service member
deaths on the U.S. side. And that doesn't mean we don't care about those. Of course, we do. But statistics,
we have a situation right now where if you're objecting, the math of I'm actually just worried
I'll be killed is not really that likely because it doesn't seem very many troops are going to
be killed. Now, if Trump ultimately says we do have to do boots on the ground, which is a whole
other situation, that will change. I would expect even more conscientious objectors in that
scenario. But for now, a record number of people decades high saying, I've got to get out of
this. This is wrong. Good for them.
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My hair is doing something very strange today for which I have to apologize.
I know I'm going to get emails about it.
It's extremely humid.
I'm in my the equivalent of my Tucker Carlson cabin in the woods.
And boy, oh, boy, is it humid here?
And that can just wreak havoc on my thick, semitic hair.
All right. This is not primarily a hair care show. So let's, let's continue.
Donald Trump has now reached the point where he is publicly asking the federal government
to punish journalists for saying things about him that he doesn't like.
And what I really want to emphasize here is that we are not speaking hyperbolicly.
This is what the president of the United States has now demanded.
Now, apparently Donald Trump was watching Meet the Press yesterday, where Kristen Welker
described his record of political endorsements as having mixed results. It's an uncontroversial claim.
Donald Trump tries to run up the score on his endorsements by endorsing people once the obvious
winner is already clear or by endorsing incumbents or whatever the case may be. And he does this
in order to say, I'm 98% right on my endorsements or 98% of my endorsements won. And when Kristen
Welker point out, eh, Trump's endorsement record sort of has mixed results, it's sent Trump into an
absolute rage, where he posted the following wall of, wall of text, some of which I will read to you.
He said, quote, Kristen Welker, the unpopular hostess of the one great, once great meet the press,
now considered meet the fake press, just stated that Donald Trump has mixed results on his endorsements
of candidates when the recent wins of Darlene Graham and Mike Mazay stand at 100% for the U.S.
Senate and 98% for the U.S. House recently and over the long term. That's, of course, a lie.
How can anyone be allowed to say this working for freely given public airwaves?
Uh-oh, it's starting to sound a little authoritarian.
Results are attached because of this purposeful inaccuracy.
She will be reported to the FCC.
I'm going to report you, okay?
She'll be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.
Unfortunately, she's not the only one.
The radical left news is going out of their way to harass, demean, and libel anything,
Trump, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, wall of text, please get down on your knees and pray at the
altar of Trump.
Okay.
So the point is Kristen Welker is going to be punished.
Think about this.
Think about what is happening here.
The president of the United States heard a journalist characterize his political endorsements
in a way he didn't like.
And his response is, I'm going to report you to the FCC so that you can be punished.
And remember that this administration has already put me on an enemy's list on whitehouse.gov
Because they don't like my coverage of Donald Trump either.
They've labeled me a leftist lunatic and a media offender and all of this stuff.
So I'm a little familiar with this authoritarian impulse of the administration.
Criticism of Trump is not treated as constitutionally protected opinion.
It's not treated as journalism.
It's not treated as political disagreement.
It's treated as something that deserves retaliation.
And for a guy who built his entire identity around being so tough and powerful and alpha, this
is really the behavior of a pathetic crybaby, which is what Donald Trump is.
Someone goes on TV.
They don't even say, oh, Trump looks so orange and crazy and his hair is insane and he's
obese and he's not a smart guy.
And they just go, ah, his endorsements have mixed results.
And you run to the federal government demanding.
punishment? Give me a break. Now, Donald Trump has also endorsed many candidates who lost. He doesn't
like to talk about it. Megan Dagenfelder lost in Wyoming and Corey Mills lost in Florida and Andy
Ogles lost in Tennessee. Mike Pillow or just Prillo is now everybody wants him to be called
just Prillow. Anyway, Mike Lindell lost in Minnesota. But whether mixed results is accurate does not
matter because presidents don't get to decide which adjectives journalists are allowed to use.
Like maybe Kristen Welker would have gone on air and gone.
He has a terrible record.
That's my opinion.
That could be wrong.
But there is something especially grotesque about a president threatening the press because of what they say when it is clearly not an issue of legal consequence.
When the press in the United States, the press occupies a special place in democracy.
And the press is the only profession explicitly protected in the constitution.
And so the First Amendment doesn't say Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of accountants,
dentists, or whatever.
It says freedom of the press.
And the FCC acknowledges that its authority over broadcast content is limited because the FCC can't
push back and sort of supersede the Constitution and the First Amendment.
And so the FCC commissioner Anna Gomez responded, listen, we at the FCC, we at the FCC,
don't have authority to punish journalists that the administration doesn't like.
Now, meanwhile, Disney and ABC are suing the FCC over what they say is this unconstitutional,
retaliatory campaign against the network. So I actually think every reporter who gets access to
this administration really has to band together on this. And at every press conference,
it doesn't matter if they're talking to Trump or whoever maybe replaces Caroline Levitt or
whoever is doing it like a daily daily briefing at every press conference every gaggle every opportunity
they should be asking about christin welker why should she be punished what should her punishment be
what law did christin welker violate does the president believe journalists should face government
retaliation every time they make unfavorable commentary and ask it again and again and again
don't ask him about a single other thing until he's willing to weigh in on this because this is
really not just about christin welker and it's certainly not about me it's
It's about, and it's not by the way, about Trump's batting average on endorsements.
There's a question about whether the government gets to intimidate journalists into being
afraid to criticize the president.
In countries where members of the media are afraid to criticize the president, we say that
is so un-American.
Those are forms of government that are completely antithetical to what this country was founded
on.
And so the answer in the United States has to be no.
No. If we look at Saudi Arabia and we go, it's terrible what they, how they treat journalists there, then we can't say Trump gets to request punishment of journalists he doesn't like. Every single journalist in the United States who has access to Donald Trump should make them answer for what Donald Trump is suggesting and for trying to punish journalists. And honestly, I have like a curiosity. If Trump was asked, what should her punishment be? What would he say? Would he say, well, she should be fired?
or she should be imprisoned or what exactly is the punishment that he envisions there should be,
which I can only imagine will open up the door to another completely authoritarian, anti-American
perspective.
So Kristen Welker, she has, I'm sure, great lawyers.
She has fantastic resources at NBC and all of that.
A lot of us, people like me who go on these White House enemies lists, we don't have that.
And the administration knows if they come after me and I've got to come up with $500,000 for legal fees, which ultimately I'll prevail or they'll drop the case or whatever if Trump goes defamation or something.
They know that making you defend yourself and the expense associated with it is indeed the punishment.
And so they don't care whether they're right or wrong about the law.
So journalists, please ask Trump, what should her punishment be?
This is absolutely bizarre.
Trump was asked about who he wants in a foursome and he says if he's involved in a
foursome, there must be Jack.
Oh my God.
You have got to see this.
Donald Trump was interviewed by Trey Gowdy on Fox News.
Now I know that this is sort of out of school.
Two very unusual looking people, okay, doing a total softball stuff.
suck up interview is what Trey Gowdy did. And Gowdy says to Trump, do you have a dream for some?
And Trump goes, well, I need you got to have Jack in a foursome. Take a look. I think we're going to
win. Do you have a dream for some and who is in your dream for some? I love Jack. Okay. Jack is great.
I happen to love Tiger. Tiger is a great guy. Now, I understand that they're talking about golf.
I understand what Trey Gowdy is asking.
I am going to exercise my constitutional right to hear this in a completely different context.
Now, then we get to the delusional substance.
Donald Trump talked about Iran.
And he goes, we don't really need a deal.
We're just crushing them and mirroring what he posted to truth social early this morning.
He just goes, we've destroyed everything.
We've destroyed everything.
These are evil people.
Take a look at what he said.
But we're doing a great job.
The blockade has been unbelievable.
The financial hits that we're giving them,
we're hitting them very hard.
Nobody's ever been hit like this.
And they're a failing nation right now.
And at the right point, we'll either win or they'll do something.
But I don't mind winning, just winning.
I don't need a signature on a piece of paper.
But we're doing very well.
Their Navy's gone.
Their Air Force is gone.
Their leaders are gone.
They're all of their anti-aircraft.
I mean, it's all wiped out.
They're tough people, the smart people, but they're very evil.
They killed 52,000 protesters as of three months ago, and sadly they've added very substantially
to that list.
Even people that aren't protesting, they go into the houses and they take them and they shoot
them.
These are very violent, evil people.
And if they had a nuclear weapon, Israel would be gone.
If I weren't president, Israel would be gone.
There would be no Israel.
And there would probably be no Middle East.
This is utterly delusional.
If, as I said earlier, if they have nothing, if they have no Navy, no Air Force, no
leadership, no air defenses, why are we in a six-month war with them?
Why are they still messing with the Strait of Hormuz?
Why are they still causing casualties of American troops?
Every single time Trump describes how completely destroyed Iran supposedly is, he makes his inability
to end the war sound even more pathetic. Now, the topic of the midterms came up. And what Trump is doing,
I got to hand it to him. It's very interesting. Take a look at what Donald Trump had to say
about the forthcoming midterms where we expect that it's not going to be particularly good for
Republicans. Take a look at this. I think Mike is going to be great. I think that we have some
really good candidates when you're running. And what I'm going to do, I was explaining before,
I'm going to go out and I'm going to campaign like I did for myself. And I'm going to campaign.
going to hope that people think that I'm on. And if I'm not on, if they don't go out and vote,
if they go out and vote, we're going to win easily. But some people like me more than they're
like the party. I mean, you know, you can't be insulted by it. There's nothing you can do about it.
But if they go out and vote, we're going to win. And if we don't, our country's going to be in
sad shape because we're going to go through a lot of things. We have now entered the if Republicans
lose, don't blame me, fade.
of the midterms. Trump wants complete control of the Republican Party. He wants total loyalty from
every Republican, but he wants no responsibility. You know, we talk about the so-called Patriot
Capitalists, who they, we want capitalism. Yeah, except when your capitalist fossil fuel company
screws up the environment, you want socialism to go and fix the problem. And similarly, Donald Trump
wants loyalty, control, and credit for anything good that.
happens if anybody rejects Republicans or me or it has nothing to do with me he wants to have it both
ways the topic of canada came up another completely unforced error a great alliance one of our
closest allies Canada Trump screwing it up and uh Trump goes why would we why should we
subsidized Canada they believe that they're one of the states of the United States take a look
but we lose all of this tremendous money they think they're a state but they're not a state
why should we be subsidizing Canada?
Trump seems genuinely unable to understand the difference between trade with another country
and subsidizing that country.
They're not the same thing.
And this is a longstanding problem.
Trump seems to believe if we have a trade deficit that we are, quote, losing.
It may just be the case that a trade deficit is the way to optimize trade with a particular
country that we're not losing that money.
And similarly, trading with another country where we have a trade deficit,
doesn't mean we are subsidizing that country.
But Trump doesn't understand any of this stuff.
Tariffs were taking in so much money from China on tariffs.
Sir, the American companies pay that it doesn't matter.
We've been dealing with this stuff for years.
Now, a very interesting and cognitively concerning moment, Donald Trump was saying, I think
John Ossoff might lose in Georgia.
Asoff's going to win, by the way, but put that aside for a moment.
But he can't remember Ossoff's name.
And so what does Fox News do?
This was not a live interview.
So they cut this up after.
Fox News covers Trump looking confused when he can't come up with the name, Asoff.
And then Gowdy quietly goes, Asoff.
And you can hear it in the background.
And Trump goes, Pee Wee Herman.
Take a look.
I've ever seen.
I think actually Mike Collins has a good chance in Georgia.
A lot of people don't know about that.
But I think they can, I beat that candidate before.
I call him Pee Wee Herman.
He's like Pee We Herman.
I beat him before on a congressional race.
I had a candidate running against him and they asked for help.
And I beat that candidate in a total shock.
And I think I'll do it again.
I think Mike is going to be great.
I think that Trump cannot remember the name of the Democratic senator that he is talking about.
And Trey Gowdy has to whisper it to him and they cover it with B-roll during a pre-taped
interview.
They say, oh, Biden was being helped by editing during interviews.
This is a tangible example of Trump being helped by editing.
He looked confused.
He couldn't come up with the name Asaf.
So in the edit, they put video of Assoff up and you only hear Trump's voice so you don't
see how visually confused he is.
And then Gowdy tries to give him in a stage whisper the answer.
And Trump just can't do it.
Pee We Herman.
Trump also, this will be news to many of you, he said that he has.
largely fixed inflation. That was big trouble. And frankly, you know, with the inflation,
I've largely taken care of inflation. By the way, the gas. This is one of those statements where
takes me back to the Biden era, where the Biden administration was going, it's all going great.
You are told inflation's fixed. And you leave the grocery store and look at your bill.
Or you get your insurance renewal and you see how much it's going up. Or you look at your rent or your
mortgage interest rate and you go, what on what the hell has this guy taken care of?
He's taken care of nothing.
This was supposed to be the easiest interview in the world with a Trump sycophant and
suckup and they still had to save him by covering his confusion with video of John Ossoff.
This guy is on the decline and just wait later in the show.
We'll get back to the insane thing that Donald Trump did.
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Something is going on with Donald Trump that we deserve an explanation for.
plain and simple. We have now reached the point where the 80 year old president of the United
States is falling asleep while standing up. Take a look at the video. It is disturbing. If there
kids in the room, maybe get them out before I play. I'm going to play it, okay? Take a look at this
video. As commander of Artemis 2, Reed Wiseman exhibited exceptionally meritorious leadership and executing
the first crude lunar mission in more than 50 years, commanding and leading the crew through
critical pre-launch validations, including SLS-R-S-2-5 engine readiness and Orion spacecraft power-up
and suit and deguery checks. During the mission, he commanded Orion's outbound trajectory,
the successful lunar flyby, and detailed geologic observation operations, ensuring the spacecraft
remained on the precise course required for the crew to surpass the Apollo 13 distance record
and reach a maximum of approximately 252,760 miles from Earth, farther than any humans in history.
Under his command, the crew executed returned trajectory correction burns, manual control evaluations,
and system verification procedures that culminated in a flawless, splashdown and safe recovery,
advancing the nation's readiness for future lunar surface.
Trump is standing there, his eyes close, and his head starts to dip, and his body
sways, and then he catches himself, and he sort of comes to.
Now, was he fully asleep in this video?
We can't really tell.
Probably not fully asleep.
But this is not the first time that we have seen something like this.
Just days ago, Trump appeared to fall asleep during a Rose Garden event.
And cameras showed him closing his eyes after his remarks while other people were speaking.
And earlier this month, there was another viral episode in the Oval Office where Trump was nodding, nodding, nodding off.
although a woman standing behind him who kind of became part of an insane internet conspiracy theory
insisted he was just looking he was looking down that's all he was doing um we've seen other other clips
throughout the year trump closing his eyes he's falling asleep all the time now i think it's important
in these cases to be charitable for this reason you might go david why would you be charitable to
trump he hasn't earned any charity and of course you're completely correct but here's what i mean
we can be charitable and say any one
clip could be misleading. And maybe one of these videos where Trump appeared to be sleeping was exaggerated
or he wasn't really asleep. Like maybe, you know, the April video where he was slightly horizontal,
maybe that one caught him at a moment that wasn't really represent. But the point is it's happening
one, two, three times a week. And so even if we're charitable and we say maybe someone,
did something to make one of these look worse. We see it multiple times a week despite him saying
sleepy Joe was the guy who couldn't stay awake. Now, I think we have to be precise both ways.
And what I mean by that is when an 80 year old president repeatedly is unable to keep his eyes
open during official events, including now while standing, is it completely reasonable to ask
what is going on? Of course it is. Is Trump exhausted? Is he not sleeping enough? Well, we know,
we know that his whole thing is I only sleep four to five hours a night. Is there a medication
side effect that is involved here? Is there a medical issue that is involved here? There are a number
of conditions. So we have so many doctors in our audience who write in and they go, you know,
the daytime sleepiness, especially in these positions, bright oval office, he's sitting up or even
standing up in some cases, there are a bunch of different conditions that can have that as a side
effect or treatments that have that as a side effect.
Or are we to believe that there is a completely benign explanation for why the president of the
United States is falling asleep in public multiple times a week over a period now of how long
has this been going on?
Has the sleeping stuff been over a year at this point?
It feels like it sort of has.
Who has the explanation?
Presumably the White House has it.
And this is where we get to a hypocrisy that we can't ignore.
And it goes back to Joe Biden, which is that Donald Trump spent years mocking Joe Biden's
agent stamina and going, Biden has this ability to fall asleep anywhere.
That'll never happen to me.
He's sleepy Joe.
And Republicans, when Biden was president, would treat every stumble or verbal mistake
or awkward movement as evidence that he's demented.
He's got to be removed.
All right.
Well, listen, they set up a standard for presidency, for presidential health.
I guess we would call it.
And they must be applying that same standard to Trump because you don't get to spend years
demanding microscopic Zapruder film-like examinations of a president's every single movement.
And they go, oh, you're asking questions about Trump.
But that's HIPAA.
And it's completely inappropriate to ask.
And we've been completely transparent.
And he's the healthiest president ever.
Now, I am not saying being 80 either makes you incapable of being president or proves it.
It doesn't. What I am saying is we're talking about Trump. It's a particular 80 year old president
who's regularly filmed struggling to stay awake during official events with really bright lights
in front of him, a lot of people in the room and sometimes even standing up. And the answer
isn't, well, the internet just has to diagnose him or conspiracy theorist or whatever. The answer is
transparency. Just tell us what's going on. They promised transparency. They insisted.
that transparency is what was lacking in the Biden administration. All we want is the transparency
you said the American people are entitled to. The American people should not be in a position
of having to analyze frame by frame videos to figure out whether the president of the United States
is capable of staying awake while doing its job. Now, I think there is another thing here that
is this might sound like a defense of Trump and it's not. It's actually an indictment, which is
there's clearly something going on with Trump's health. The daytime sleepiness has to be related
either to some medical condition or medication. We don't know what it is. They haven't told us.
But there's another aspect we should just be honest about, which is Trump's really bored with
being president. Trump doesn't like most of the stuff related to being president. He wants to
pick his granite or his onyx stone or whatever marble that he's using to build crap with at
the White House. He wants to get on the phone with people who go, oh, sir, Mr. President, you're just the
best, you're so great. He wants that. He wants to be DJing at Mar-a-Lago. But most of the stuff that
presidents have to do, Trump doesn't want to do. And so my very rudimentary assessment here,
and I want to hear your numbers, leave a comment with what you think the split is. I think that
what's going on with Trump is 85% medical, the falling asleep. And 15% he is bored out of his
mind, bored out of his mind. Now, the reason I think it's only 15% is that Trump has been at stuff
lately that should be entertaining like the UFC fight at the White House. And he still fell asleep.
Now, it was close to 1 a.m., which is a whole other story. But so I think it's 85, 15,
85% medical reasons why Trump can't stay awake. 15%. He's just bored out of his mind. Leave a
comment and let me know what you believe the split is. There is a word we use all the time when
somebody does something horrific. And that word is crazy. Or sometimes we say, in
We say stuff like, you would have to be insane to do something like that.
And the Lindsay Clancy trial, which is going gigaviral, is a really interesting example of why saying someone is crazy or insane really doesn't tell us very much.
So let me kind of give you my sense of this.
If you haven't been following the trial, all my friends at home in Massachusetts are obsessed with this trial.
The trial is taking place in Massachusetts.
Clancy is charged with killing.
her three young children. Now, her defense stipulates she did the act. She physically carried out that act.
And that's not really what this discussion is about. The question is, was she criminally responsible
when she did it? Now, her defense says she was suffering from severe mental illness. This included
postpartum psychosis. She lacks criminal responsibility. So she should be found not guilty or not
guilty by reason of insanity. Now, prosecutors are saying,
whatever mental health issues she was having, she understood what she was doing.
She realized she was ending the lives of these three kids.
And she understood that it was wrong to do that.
That's the argument of the prosecution, not the defense.
Our normal way of talking about this stuff kind of breaks down in these scenarios.
And I'm going to explain what I mean by that.
You can be nominally mentally ill.
You can have delusions.
beliefs that are not based in reality. You can behave in ways that seem completely irrational to people
around you. And you can do something that makes people go, no sane person would ever do that.
None of that necessarily means you are legally insane. Now, the legal standard in Massachusetts
where this trial is taking place is a lot more specific. And it's basically because of mental
disease or defect, did you lack the substantial capacity to understand the criminality or the
wrongfulness of what you were doing? Or did you lack the capacity to conform your behavior to the law?
I've brought this up for years in the context of mass shootings because very often, and I think
it's a normal reaction after a mass shooting, people will say, obviously that guy was crazy.
You'd have to be crazy to walk into a school or a supermarket or a movie theater and just
start shooting people. And I agree that on some everyday definition of crazy, yeah, like maybe every
mass shooter is crazy in that sense. But think about where that would take us legally. If that means
every mass shooter is not guilty by reason of insanity, then that doesn't really make a lot of sense.
And we know that that's not how the law works. Now, maybe a shooter has developed some completely
warped worldview. And a mass shooter believes, you know, society has wronged me.
there's a group that's evil, whether it's Jews or Muslims or black people or whatever.
And so the shooter sort of convinces himself that what he's doing is justified.
You and I might hear that and go, oh my God, this guy's completely out of his mind.
But he might also know, well, murder is illegal and society considers what I'm doing to be wrong.
And he might hide his weapons and he would conceal his plans and try to avoid police and maybe even
leave behind a manifesto explaining why he decided to do it anyway. That in total is very different
from being unable to understand that what you're doing is wrong. And this is a big distinction
legally and from what we what we mean when we kind of colloquially go, that's a crazy person.
Now, there's a bigger philosophical problem here as well. Most people who do terrible things
have a reason in their mind for doing them. Now, the reason could be completely delusional. It might be
helpful, hateful. It might be paranoid. It might be the product of severe mental illness.
But if the standard becomes this person genuinely believed that they were right to do what they were
doing, that they were justified in doing it, you have a huge problem all of a sudden because a lot
of people that do horrible things believe they are justified. The terrorists who did 9-11 believed
that they were justified. We disagree, but does that make them insane? And they can,
can't be prosecuted for reason of insanity. Put aside for a moment that the ones who were actually
on the planes died. So this brings us all the way back to Lindsay Clancy. By the way, I have no idea what
the jury is ultimately going to decide. I have no clue. But the question for the jury isn't simply,
was she mentally ill? It's what was the mental illness doing to her ability to understand and
control her actions at the exact moment that her kids were killed? And even things like planning,
I don't know that necessarily settle the question. Someone could be experiencing psychosis and
plan something while in a psychotic state. What does that mean from the standpoint of the
responsibility under the law? Now, at the same time, having a serious mental illness does not
automatically eliminate criminal responsibility. And I think that this is the important distinction.
There's one question. What would have to be going on inside someone's mind for them to do something
this horrible. And then there's a different question, which is, were they legally responsible for doing it?
In normal conversation, we often just go, they're crazy. In the law, you can't do that. And whatever the
jury ultimately decides about Lindsay Clancy, this is a case that is really about the colloquial,
that's a crazy thing to do. And does this meet a legal definition, which indicates that there is
no criminal responsibility to the actions that someone engaged in. Again, I've watched a bunch of
clips. I'm not weighing in on what I expect the jury to do or what they should do. But I think this
question of like, what do we mean when we say someone is crazy? And what does that mean in terms of our
responsibility to treat them one way or the other way under the law is a different issue? Now, I want to
hear from you. I heard from some people over the weekend about this case. For the people in the audience
who have been watching it, what do you make of it?
What do you think about this argument around insanity as a defense?
And by the way, I got a couple emails from lawyers who confirmed what I suggested last week,
which is my impression throughout the trial from what I saw was that Lindsay Clancy's lawyer,
Reddington, was without saying it suggesting that Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband is really the person
responsible. Now, whether the idea is he's responsible through manipulation or he's responsible
because he did the killing, different people have different opinions. But my sense was that he was
sort of like subtly pointing in that direction. A bunch of lawyers said, yes, that is what the lawyer is
doing. But you're not allowed to actually say that as part of this particular case.
Because of circumstances, I don't totally understand, to be honest, for the lawyers to sort out.
So let me know what you think about this issue of insanity.
Leave me a comment.
Send me an email info at David Pakman.com.
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Donald Trump spoke to complete silence at the NASA Center in Houston. Not a single person applauding,
Not a single person smiling or reacting positively to a damn thing that Trump says during this disgusting, brazenly partisan speech that he gave.
We're going to take a look at some clips.
And here is Trump ranting and raving to stunning silence.
Then we had a little interlude of four years, but somehow it was limping along.
It was okay.
It was limping along.
And now I'm back.
And we're doing more than limping.
We don't limp. Eight years later, these dreams are really coming through at a level that nobody ever imagined.
Nobody imagined what is happening now. And even more importantly, what space has done for our military in terms of offensive and defensive capability is incredible.
Don't forget, I was the one that gave you space force. And we had no space force. And when people heard about it, they thought we were kidding.
if they thought it was like comic book stuff.
It wasn't at all.
It's turning out to be one of our most important branches.
It'll be some and only getting more important with time.
The silence is incredible.
And what Trump is doing is he's doing the usual partisan rally routine,
except he's doing it in a room full of scientists and full of engineers who are giving
him absolutely nothing.
And it's, I was chuckling to myself as I watched this because it turns out that
when you assemble a bunch of really smart people and you say, hey, listen to Trump speaking.
This is what happens.
They stay silent and don't say a word as they wonder, why is this guy here?
Why is he saying this stuff?
Now, Trump used one of the, you got to hand it to Trump.
He'll sometimes come up with these phrases that I've never heard before.
He came up with the phrase, I genetically believe.
I genetically believe in space because my uncle was smart.
Take a look at this.
I had an uncle who was a great scientist, a great man.
He was at MIT for 41 years, Dr. John Trump.
And he loves space.
He used to tell me about space, space, space, soul space.
He would throw in the word nuclear every once in a while.
But he loves space.
So I guess we have genetically, we sort of, I believe in that stuff.
I love it.
I find it so interesting, so amazing.
It's very special thanks to also associate administrator, chief engineer,
Amit Shah Thria, and it's Artemis to lead flight director, Jeff Radigan.
Artemis too.
I don't know what it means to genetically believe in space.
You believe that it exists or you believe that we should explore it?
What are you saying?
Trump's uncle was a brilliant scientist and therefore Trump inherited some kind of hereditary
commitment to the existence of outer space and it's genetic.
And as part of this exact same visit, Trump ranting and raving like a lunatic on a landline phone
to astronauts on the space station, it looks like a comedy.
skit. Take a look at this.
I'm not a space force because I did that. I was during my term.
And a lot of people didn't believe in it. A lot of people in the next administration wanted to end it.
And frankly, the military put their foot down.
The military absolutely put their foot down.
They wouldn't let that happen.
It was almost a revolt.
And now it's a part of the whole thing.
A lot of the victories, when you look at Venezuela, when you look at what we've done with the drug,
people coming in by boat and by land, frankly, people are going to be able to be able to be able to be able to.
frankly, that people don't know about so much.
We get all that information from space and what the people
here and what some others are doing.
So it's incredible, incredible how important it is,
such a big deal.
And it will get, with the high technology,
it will get more and more with years.
It'll get more and more important.
So congratulations.
You're really pioneers in a true sense.
They're really pioneers.
And Jared certainly is a pioneer.
And when I came originally, I went to Florida
and looked at the Kennedy
Space Center. And it was closed. It was just closed. And the runway was grass through.
It had grass throwing through the cracks. A lot of cracks and a lot of grass growing through.
And now when you look at it, it's like a different world. We're back. But it was sad to watch that.
It was very, very sad. Sad time for our country, actually. And I just congratulate everybody.
And be careful, be safe. And we love you all. Thank you very much. Thank you.
This really is like an SNL cold open where the premise is that the president has somehow accidentally
been connected to the space station and he doesn't know what to say.
Imagine being above earth doing extraordinarily sophisticated work and they're stuck on a landline
listening to Trump rant and rave at them.
Now there's a broader point that I want to make here.
of the things that I've been saying for a long time is we really should have more backgrounds
represented as president of the United States. And whether that's teachers or whether that's
astronauts or scientists or medical professionals, doctors, nurses, etc. I'm kind of open to all of it.
But the entire like business person lawyer failed business person
person makes the best president thing is something we have to get out of. Now, a lot of you have
been writing to me lately. This is not really about Mark Kelly. But I've gotten more emails lately.
And I was in L.A. A lot of the people that I would bump into. So these are like staffers for
podcasts and this sort of thing. Not people who are publicly weighing in, but who are very much
following politics on a day-to-day basis. They said, we really like Mark Kelly. And Mark
Kelly, of course, a former astronaut, currently a senator. I like Mark Kelly a lot as well. I also
am aware that he is the furthest thing from an electrifying speaker. That, I mean, you know,
certainly Asoff would be at the other end of it, very, very good speaker. Gavin Newsom,
Pete Buttigieg, um, Shapiro and Pritzker, maybe a little bit less so, but still, still very good
speakers. There's a lot of people out there who are very good speakers. Mark Kelly is not,
that good of a speaker. He's not that electrifying. He doesn't seem as passionate. When I've seen him
in debates, he's sort of been like, okay. I love the idea of a former astronaut as president of the
United States. I don't know if Kelly has exactly what it would take from a sort of personality
standpoint, but I'm interested in hearing from people in the audience. What do you think of
Mark Kelly? What do you think of the idea of former astronaut as president? His name is not being
mentioned that much, certainly not in the betting markets or the polls.
But a lot of people that email go, I really actually like Mark Kelly.
Let me know what you think.
All right.
Who is most likely to end up in prison from the Trump administration when this fiasco is finally
over with?
Now, I want to be precise about what I mean because if Democrats take back the house, they don't
become prosecutors and they don't become jailers who lock people up and throw away the key.
Democrats, if they take back the house in November, can't indict anybody.
Hakeem Jeffries can't point at Stephen Miller and go take him away.
And what's important to remind the audience here and especially the MAGA people who were
proudly chanting, lock her up for much of the 2016 and 2020 campaign and 2024, lock him up or
lock her up.
I don't want the Democratic version of lock her up.
I actually believe in law and order.
What the Trump people do is they go, that person belongs in prison and then they try to figure
out a way to get him there.
What I want is a process.
Nobody should be immune from a process because of who they're friends with or who they know or how much money they have.
So if there is suspicion, then there should be a proper investigation.
Get the documents, put people under oath, follow the evidence.
If somebody committed a crime, refer it to the appropriate authorities.
If they didn't, they don't go to prison.
Now, if Democrats take the House, what they do get is subpoena power.
And we've talked to many members of the House about this.
Committee chairs can say, we want the following documents.
We want the following testimony.
They can investigate who ordered what? Where did the money go? By the way, tomorrow we will talk about
what is going to happen with the ill gotten money of Trump? What legal warnings did people receive?
Did anybody lie? Did anybody obstruct an investigation? And sometimes that is where the criminal
exposure will come from. Now, Congress can also make criminal referrals to the Justice
Department. That is not an indictment. Congress basically says, hey, listen, we've been investigating.
We found evidence of a possible crime. Now you as the DOJ decide what is it that happens next.
Under Trump, the DOJ is obviously not likely to enthusiastically prosecute Trump officials based on
Democratic referrals. So we should be realistic that even if Democrats take the house and they find
what they believe to be evidence of criminality and refer it to the Trump DOJ, that is unlikely to go very
far. Now, we should also be realistic, and I think most people in my audience get this, but maybe if you don't,
we should also be realistic that Trump himself is incredibly unlikely to ever spend a day in prison.
People have been predicting Trump in an orange jumpsuit for really close to a decade at this point.
I don't believe that he will ever see a day in prison. The more interesting question is everybody
around him. Pam Bondi would face endless questions about decisions at Trump's Justice
department and politically sensitive investigations, handling of the Epstein files, she would need to be
investigated for sure. Stephen Miller would be a target. His aggressive oversight of immigration
policy. Who ordered some of this stuff? What legal warnings were given? What court orders were
ignored here? And who's responsible for that? So he should be looked at. Christy Noem, other officials
who have carried these policies out. Now, Bondi and Noem are gone. That shouldn't get you out of being
investigated. And this is one of the most unfortunate things in American politics. If you quit,
most people forget about you and then you don't have to worry about legal problems. Noam and Bondi
should still be investigated. And then there's a lot of people whose names we don't even know.
You know, there's a political appointee who wrote the email that set off the entire thing.
That person should get subpoenaed. That person should be brought forward and ask questions.
And if they panic and they lie to Congress, well, that should be a criminal referral.
lying to Congress can be a crime. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro went to prison for contempt of Congress
after defying subpoenas from the January 6th committee. So there can be real consequences here and there
should be. And there's another possibility that we should talk about. Maybe Democrats investigate
some of this stuff and discover that the behavior they found was outrageous and immoral,
but it wasn't against the law. We then have a different question.
And I believe this goes to the core of Trumpism, which is that we had the framers of the Constitution
set up checks and balances in a way that very clearly never imagined that the people would
elect someone like a Trump.
Now, Socrates gave us the idea.
In democracies, sometimes the people voting make really stupid decisions and put terrible people
in power.
And that is exactly what happened.
And we now have a situation where there's a whole bunch of people.
of stuff that has happened that maybe should be a crime but isn't. Now, I want to be really careful
with this because we have an over criminalization problem in this country. I don't want criminal
statutes for every single behavior that I don't like. But it's also possible that Donald Trump
has exposed areas where our laws never contemplated a president or an administration willing to
push power this far. And maybe some conduct that right now does not violate laws.
but violates norms should be criminalized. Like maybe there are some conflicts of interest that do require
or should have criminal penalties. Maybe some abuses of presidential power need clearer statutory
boundaries. That is a legislative question. It wouldn't be an excuse to retroactively prosecute
people for something that wasn't a crime. That is not going to happen. But the point here is
We are not just going, lock this person up and that person up.
We want to find out what happened.
We want to get people under oath, get documents, follow the evidence.
If they didn't commit crimes, they don't belong in prison.
If they did, they shouldn't be protected by their proximity to Donald Trump.
And maybe most importantly, if we do all that and we discover, hey, here is a genuinely corrupt
behavior that happens to be perfectly legal, maybe we need to fix that for the next administration.
That is what law and order is supposed to look like, supposed to look like.
And it does not look like that in the United States.
Part of the reason many people never even hear about this as an issue is the filter bubbles
and the informational, informational silos where we are talking about this.
And there's a whole bunch of other people out there that simply never hear about it.
That's one of the things I write about in my forthcoming book, pay attention.
We have only a few days left, really only a few days left until the book is out.
but only a few days left to order your personally signed copy of the book.
This is not a sticker that I signed that you put in the book.
This is an actual signed book.
I will be filming my signing session.
And that is going to be happening soon.
So you can get signed copies of the book or the audio book or the Kindle book, whatever
you prefer at David Pakman.com slash attention.
We also have a phenomenal bonus show coming on.
You can sign up and get instant access to the bonus show at join packman.com.
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