The David Pakman Show - War backfires, base revolts, gas prices spike as market collapses

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

-- On the Show -- Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat from Arizona, joins us to discuss Donald Trump's attacks on Iran, whether they constitute an impeachable offense, and how they will affect the midterm elections -- Hillary Clinton angrily rebukes Lauren Boebert after Boebert raises conspiracy claims about Anthony Weiner and Epstein files during a tense exchange that leaves Republicans scrambling -- Donald Trump faces backlash from Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other MAGA figures after launching military action against Iran despite campaigning on no new wars -- Gas prices surge nationwide as Donald Trump’s military escalation in the Middle East disrupts oil markets, rattles Wall Street, and pushes energy costs higher for American consumers -- Donald Trump struggles through remarks honoring a fallen soldier, pivots to discussing ballroom decor, and leaves the room in visible silence and confusion -- Melania Trump chairs a United Nations meeting on children in conflict, while Donald Trump speaks about drapes at the White House, creating strange presidential optics -- The White House confirms Donald Trump is using a preventative skin cream after visible redness appears on his neck, but officials decline to name the condition or treatment -- Marco Rubio and Donald Trump defend a preemptive strike on Iran as both proactive and defensive, saying the United States acted first to avoid a larger attack -- On the Bonus Show: Americans are told to leave the Middle East, a draft Barron Trump website launches, the House opens an ethics probe into Nancy Mace, and much more... 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF for a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:21) Clinton rebukes Boebert conspiracy(12:07) Trump faces MAGA backlash(20:43) Gas prices spike under Trump(27:08) Trump stumbles at medal ceremony(34:03) Gallego on Trump, Iran, midterms(50:47) Melania chairs UN meeting(56:05) Trump’s neck skin issue(1:00:38) Rubio and Trump defend strike   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have the Clinton deposition video and it is really something else. We're going to look at clips of Hillary Clinton eviscerating Lauren Bobert and Nancy Mace. It turned into a conspiracy hearing. It did not go well for everybody trying to make Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton look bad. Now, meanwhile, Donald Trump's own base is turning on him over the promise that he made where he would never start wars, but he has started one. Gas prices have already spiked 13%. Oil is surging.

The affordability president is now presiding over what could be another inflation shock. We're also going to look at Melania Trump chairing a United Nations meeting while Trump is at the White House rambling about drapes. And what is Trump's newest symptom, a bizarre neck rash and the White House explanation as usual only raises even more questions. Then, was it a defensive strike on Iran or was it a proactive strike on Iran? Marco Rubio says it was both. And we kind of have to go back to what words mean to try to figure out what on earth they're talking about.

Well, they trotted out Bill and Hillary Clinton for hearings about the Epstein files. And I couldn't imagine it backfiring. worse. So let me remind you, Hillary and Bill Clinton wanted open door hearings, on-camera hearings about the Epstein files. Republicans said no. It will be a closed door hearing. It'll be recorded. And then later, we will publish the video. That has happened. It was a complete and total disaster and seems to be one of the biggest political miscalculations that Republicans have made in a very long time. Now, maybe the most explosive moment and a lot of these moments involve Lauren Bovert, who tried to show up with very stiff and firm questions, but ended up getting beat back

brutally by Hillary Clinton. During the hearing, Lauren Bobert published a picture of Hillary Clinton, which is against the rules. Hillary wanted an open door public hearing. Republicans said, No, it will be closed door. That's it. And then Lauren Bobert publishes a picture, which was then reposted by Benny Johnson. Here is the moment where Hillary Clinton's legal team interrupts and says, wait a second, wait a second. Who published a picture? Lauren Bobert says it was me.

And Hillary is not taking it from these people. To the fundraiser to support my friend, Nia Lowy. All right. Excuse me. Can I interrupt? I have photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying from inside this room. Can you please advise me as to whether or not that's permissible and consistent with the rules, particularly given that we have asked for a public hearing?

If there are photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying, can you please explain how that can occur? I'm done with this. If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home. This is just typical behavior. We will go off the record. Oh, for heaven's sake.

To understand how that permissible. It doesn't matter. We all. So understand that what's happening is that's Lauren Bobert saying I did publish one. And it was before the hearing started to which Hillary says it doesn't matter. You'll now hear Bobert say that she is going to take the picture down. Or abiding by the same rules. I will take that down.

Yeah. I would like to take a break at this. Yeah. I'd like to have a conversation for now. Go off the record. Go off the record. This was such a humiliation for Republicans who tried to trot out Pizza Gate conspiracy theories, Anthony Wiener's laptop, frazzle.

We'll get to all of it. But it is hard to imagine. I mean, listen, Hillary Clinton is not that well like. Many Democrats don't like Hillary Clinton. Republicans really dislike her. And they came up with hearings that made Hillary Clinton look extraordinarily sympathetic. She showed up and answered questions, even though she had never met Jeffrey Epstein, met Jelaine Maxwell. I guess because Jelaine Maxwell was someone's plus one at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.

And they exposed themselves for the publicity seeking conspiracy theorists that they are. Here is Lauren Bobert asking Hillary Clinton about comet ping pong John Podesta Pizza Gate and whether pizza was a code. for something. You can't write this stuff. I mean, you don't, why interrupt your adversaries when they are doing a great job at destroying themselves? A campaign, $25,000 via affiliate to- Excuse me, because you state for the record, it was not to the campaign.

So if you wouldn't mind just stating-20,000 dollars to Hillary's 1999 setting- No, it was a joint-state campaign. Okay. State campaign. Joint campaign. Okay, sure. Fun. Okay.

In past public statements, as in 2017 speeches and interviews, you described Pizza Gate as a baseless conspiracy theory, alleging you and others ran a child sex trafficking ring from a Washington pizzerie basement. From a pizzerie. I like that. Have you reviewed any 2025-2026 Epstein files that were released that you believe reference or relate to those? Now what's funny is the question.

are worded so poorly and Lauren Bobert is so terrible at reading that the syntax comes out garbled and you'll see that Hillary Clinton's lawyers have to clarify what are you even asking? Specific 2016 claims regarding the Podesta emails, comet ping pong pizza used as code possibly. I'm sorry. You're asking her about whether she's reviewed emails in the Epstein files, which relate to the wacky pizza gate scam. You could characterize it however you want. I just would like to know if she's familiar with any of them.

So excuse me, your question is about whether or not she has reviewed any emails in the Epstein release files about PizzaGate. Correct. PizzaGate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people that caused a deranged young man to show up with his assault rifle and shoot up a local pizzeria. I can't believe you're even referencing it. You should be... There are connections to the language. Well, the QAnon people believe there are, so...

I don't know what Q&O people believe. Have at it. But you've accused certain parties, and I think even right now today, of promoting slow walking information in ways that fuels conspiracies. In your view, did any Epstein-Maxwell-related investigations or file hands? handling pre or post 2019 contribute to or intersect with the spread of Pizza Gate style theories about Democrat figures. Objection. I have no way of answer.

That is the most ridiculously. Have you or your representatives identified any Epstein file? Notice that she won't even let her answer the question. Content that has been misinterpreted online to revive those claims and what steps if you have you taken to clarify. Again, objects the ground of speculation. I think that this is all very reasonable. Well, first of all, Bobear thinks it's all completely reasonable.

I like that. All right, one more example. Then they got into the extremely salient issue of Anthony Wiener's laptop. All sorts of things here. You certainly are. You certainly are. We're just trying to get the truth out to the American people. Well, that would be very helpful.

Are you aware of any files that were on Anthony Wiener's laptop and folder that was titled in insurance, life insurance, with a zip file titled Frazzle? This is way outside the scope. This is way outside the scope? Is this within the scope? Mr. Chairman rules that it's not within the scope. Mr. Chairman, based on what you said in the public hearing, is this within the scope? We can go off your record for a moment.

Mr. Chairman, is this within the scope? We'll go off record and control. All right. So then they go off the record. And then here's one more. This is Nancy Mace kind of trying to do the exact same thing. And you don't have to do anything to get these people to humiliate themselves. They're doing a good job on their own.

Very much about at all. And then how do you know Howard Lutnik? I know Howard Lutnik because when I was senator on 9-11, the firm he headed, Cantor Fitzgerald suffered the greatest loss of life. As I recall, something like 650 of his employees were murdered. By the way, editorial note, Hillary Clinton's almost 80, and she is sharp as ever. By terrorists that day, Howard Lutnik missed being a victim because he was delayed dropping his child off to kindergarten. You ask the question. I'm going to answer your question. This was what I spent my time, doing. I'm a survivor trying to look out for other survivors trying to take them. And I was taking

care of the people who lost three thousand lives at World Trade Center. And now you're being defiant today. You asked me about Howard Lutnik. I have met with Epstein survivors. I'm a survivor myself. You have emails. You've denied that Jeffrey Epstein that you tried to get Jeffrey Epstein to give money to you. I did not. If you have an email with me asking Jeffrey Epstein for money. I have an email from Howard Lutnik sending it to Jeffrey Epstein and his people to raise money for you. I don't know. for an event, an intimate event for you at his offices at Chanter Fitzgerald. You're just sitting here today.

If you would let me finish. And upfuscate and say to this committee, you didn't try to get money from Jeffrey Epstein when there was an intimate event in an email that Howard Lutton emailed to Epstein's people and Epstein to get him to come to your intimate event at Canter Fitzgerald, a very small event. And so I'm not going to put it. You want to yell at me? That's fine, but I'll yell right back. I am looking out for survivors.

I'm doing the job that you would not do and refuse to do a second. area of state. Thank you and I yield back to... No, I'm going to finish answering the question, which I have a right to do. I am very sympathetic to your personal situation. I have read about it. I have seen you testify or speak on the floor about it. And I very much sympathize with not only what you went through, but appreciate your effort to stand up for survivors. I was a senator

representing the people who were murdered on 9-11. Anyway, I think you guys get it. Hillary Clinton, just taking control of this as whack jobs like Lauren Bobert and Nancy Mace, try to draw her into discussions of conspiracy theories and the like. Completely not newsworthy in any way these hearings of Hillary or Bill Clinton, other than the fact that Republicans so publicly debased and embarrassed themselves. I hope they feel good about themselves. And now, now let's see whether Trump testifies because he's in the files, what, 100,000 times,

200,000 times. Someone said a million. I thought that's probably hyperbolic. But if the Clintons need to testify based on their presence in the files, what argument is there for Trump not to testify? Donald Trump's base is starting to revolt. And impeachment is now on the table. I didn't say conviction, but I said impeachment.

Trump is burning up and skid marking to a stop over this Iran fiasco. Now let's set the stage. Trump ran on no new wars. I'm the anti-war president. I'm the guy who will keep us out of wars. In 2016, it was Killery will start four wars, but I won't. In 2020, it was Biden will take us to war, but I won't. And in 2024, it was Kamala Harris is going to start a bunch of wars, but I won't.

We now have Trump openly launching a war in Iran. Republicans are falling all over themselves to say, well, it's not a war. Or it is a war, but Trump didn't start at Trump's going to end it. Pick your own adventure, Madlibs, whatever sounds better. It can be a war or not, depending on how you can praise Trump rather than criticize him. Now the civilian deaths are mounting. That includes children. U.S. troops have been killed.

Trump says more will be killed. Pete Hegseth says more American troops will be killed. Trump was running the entire operation over the weekend from Mara Lago while dancing with people and looking swollen and sweaty and orange as this was all proceeding. The backlash here is starting to come from the MAGA right. Now, I want to remind you, this is not an adjudication of whether the Ayatollah was a good guy. He wasn't. This is not an adjudication of whether Iran is better off with the Ayatollah.

Iran is better off with the Ayatollah gone. Of course, the Ayatollah was 86. They already had a succession plan in place and it's not clear that this will even really change who's in charge. But the Ayatollah is terrible. I'm against authoritarian regimes, theocratic regimes. I'm against Maduro. I'm against the Cuban regime.

I'm against Orban. I'm against Putin. I'm against Kim Jong-un. And of course, I was against the Ayatollah. But the questions are different ones. Was this legal? Does anyone care? Is Trump sticking to what he promised he would do during the campaign?

And now we are starting to see people like Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, pro-Trump pollsters who say this is the very wrong direction. Forget about Marjorie Taylor Green, who has already abandoned Trump. And later in the show, we'll get to her latest statements about what is going on. A whole bunch of right wing people are saying this isn't what we signed up for. This isn't what Trump promised. And this needs to stop right now. Now, what we do have are people like J.D. Vance and Toul C. Gabbard, who for the last eight years have been saying, we shouldn't be doing stuff exactly like this in the position of having to come up

with justifications for it because, of course, they're in the administration. Now, you can no longer go with Trump the dove. Trump would never start wars. He would never attack anybody. It's having to shift because Trump is starting a war. So the shift is this is defensive and later you'll hear from Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio goes, well, we had to attack them because if they were attacked, they might have come after us.

So we were being proactively defensive. What? Do words have no meaning anymore? Proactively defensive. And so we now have a situation where for different reasons, a bunch of different factions, say they've had it with Donald Trump. The constitutional conservatives say, again, he didn't go to Congress. We have no authorization for military force.

Congress determines whether we can do this. Trump didn't do it. And so there is a legal and constitutional issue. There are those who are simply, they don't really care about the legality. They never have. They care about the fact that Trump is going against what he promised while he was campaigning and they want him out. And so the situation in which we now find ourselves.

is one in which especially, and I would say arguably only if Republicans lose the House in 2026, it seems as though Trump is likely to get impeached, but it is also increasingly likely to include Republicans. In fact, if you look at the betting markets, more and more people believe that at least one Republican is going to join the Trump impeachment call. There's a Kalshi betting market. Will a Republican member of Congress call for Trump's impeachment before 2027, meaning during this year?

That has breached 50% for the first time over the last few days. In other words, in other words, there is growing belief that even some Republicans are going to say, yes, Trump must be impeached. Now they have a couple of options. The hardcore Trump base can go and do their mental somersaults. where logic gets flush down the toilet, they put themselves into any position they can because their dear and beloved leader has commanded it. We vote for him because he's the anti-war guy.

We support him because he's now the pro-war guy. Who cares? But the question that's now growing is even though he will have his hardcore cult base there, are we beyond the fracture point? Are we beyond the point at which Maga loyalty is going to remain because this has gone so far beyond the pale. I do expect that if Republicans lose the House in November, Trump gets impeached. I don't believe he will be convicted. There's not going to be a super majority in the Senate willing to convict. But I agree with a lot of the people out there who believe that Trump is

ultimately going to get himself impeached. The Iran stuff, by the way, is only one of about 10 different reasons he would be subject to impeachment. What do you think? Leave me a comment. Send me an email. info at david packman dot com a lot of people put on music while they work assuming it helps them concentrate but in practice familiar songs lyrics or constantly changing tracks often will take attention away from what you're working on rather than supporting attention and that's where brain fm comes in our sponsor brain fm is a music app designed to support focus relaxation or sleep with music created by human musicians working alongside neuroscientists. Instead of generic playlists, Brain FM offers task-specific modes

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The link is in the description. Well, gas prices are spiking and the affordability president is down on his knees in shambles. Trump's war is pounding your wallet. Let me first give you the sort of generic 30,000 foot overview. That overview is that gas prices have spiked over. the last three days, they are now up to the highest point in a while. And as you can see, after reaching a low of about $2.73 just weeks ago, they are now around $3.10 a gallon on average.

This is about a 13 or 15% spike in the last couple of months, really, under Donner. Trump. Now, let's talk about what we are to expect and why this is happening. The framing, of course, is Trump's going to get gas prices down. Trump is the affordability president. Every American is going to be more comfortable affording their daily cost of living under Donald Trump. We're expecting gas prices to spike another 10 to 30 cents per gallon just this week. We might see gas go up 10% in the next seven days.

That is a speed of gas price spike that we have not seen in the United States for a very long time. Why is this going to happen? It's going to happen, of course, because the peace president, the winner of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, who should have gotten 30 Nobel Peace Prizes, Donald Trump, has decided to get into war with Iran. Reminder, the Ayatollah was terrible. I don't like the Ayatollah. I don't like theocratic regimes. The question is, was this legal? Should the United States be the one enforcing regime change?

And even if you don't care about that, is Trump competent enough to do it himself? I would argue, no. So what's happening here is that the Strait of Hormuz is essentially frozen. This puts in a quagmire about a third of global oil. That is a massive market calamity. We then have Qatari liquefied natural gas totally shut down. That puts 20% of global supply at risk. And we are now seeing people gas was somewhere, or I'm sorry, oil.

Let me even look. Yesterday it was 70 something. So yesterday oil was at 72 bucks a barrel. Now oil has already reached almost $77 a barrel. Just today, oil is up nearly 8%. We are now looking at. from oil markets and oil traders of oil hitting $100 a barrel, $120 a barrel. There are even whispers about $200 a barrel.

Now, even the $100 mark, when we had oil at $100, we had $5 gasoline, $5 a gallon gasoline. Last time oil was at $100. We could be looking at oil at $120 or even $200 here. Now, initially we were told by the fearless orange leader himself that this was going to be a few day operation in the Middle East. We were then told this could be three to four weeks of hostilities in the Middle East. And now even the Trump administration is acknowledging this could be five weeks. Now, there's another part to that.

It's not only up to the United States how long this goes on. There is, of course, the growing concern that Iran is going to retaliate. There are concerns about sleeper cells in the United States. The point here is, even if Trump's plan is for five weeks, if others like Iran want to come after the United States or our allies in Europe elsewhere, more accessible to Iran, it's not only up to us how long this lasts. If this goes beyond three weeks, we could be looking at forced production shutdowns of oil and gas and there would be no real rapid off ramp to that.

And we would then see gas prices just explode. Now this morning, I'm sorry, stock market futures were down very, very big, about a thousand points. And as of this moment that I am recording, the Dow Jones Industrial average is down 1,200 points. it is on the screen. This, and if you go, well, I don't care about the stock market or gas prices, well, many, many Americans, tens of millions, is it hundreds of, 100 million or more, have much of their limited retirement savings in basic 401k index funds that track the stock market. You just lost two and a half percent of your retirement account today, today. Now,

We are going to see if indeed gas prices spike like this, we are going to see grocery prices go up. Why? Well, gas prices affect how much it costs to truck your groceries from where they are either grown or where they are manufactured or where they enter the United States to your local grocery store. If gas spikes going from $3 to $5 to $5 is nearly doubling, it's a 70% increase. You can be sure that your groceries are going to get more expensive. In 2022, every change to the inflation rate was Joe Biden's fault. By the way, when inflation under Biden fell, fell, fell, fell, fell to June 2023 and stayed

down. All of a sudden, it wasn't Biden didn't get credit anymore. But when it was up, it was Biden's fault. So who owns it now, especially since it is the direct result of Trump's tariffs and Trump's invasion of Iran. Will voters care? Will voters punish Republicans in November? It remains to be seen, but expect, expect everything to get much more expensive. A completely demented Trump stunned a room into silence. He could barely speak. I want to quote, fallen warrior of world of wars. and really terror,

Terra. Presented the president of the United States. Finally, we honor one more American soldier, a fallen warrior of world, of wars. And really, uh, really terror. Terra. Terra and Luna. The earth and the moon. Terra and Luna.

This guy can barely speak, folks. This guy can barely speak. Never mind the new syphilitic rash on his neck. We'll get to that later. Donald Trump silencing the room into confusion, discomfort. And then all of a sudden, he's off the rails. A shiny thing was visible in the background. And Trump started talking about the drapes.

This is part of the same event, folks. This was not a meeting of interior designers. This was a metal ceremony. And after Terra, fallen, waria of world wars, Trump is off script. See that nice drape? When that comes down right now, you see a very, very deep hole. But in about a year and a half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful

building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice, I don't think I'll even, I think I'll save money on the doors because you can't get more beautiful than that. I picked those drapes in my first term. I always like gold, but I think we can save it. lot of money. I just saved, I just saved curtains. But, and it will be, it'll be spectacular. It'll be the most beautiful ballroom. I believe it's because I built many a ballroom. I believe

it's going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world. And when you hear all that hammering out there, you know why the first lady is not thrilled exactly. She said, will the pile drivers ever stop? You know, they go from six in the morning till 11.30 in the evening. Can you imagine? Here. You know what? To me, that's a beautiful sound. She doesn't like it. I love it. You know what? To me, other than here, because we're donating it, not a penny to the tax. We have service members dying because of Trump's decision on Iran, never mind civilians who are also dying. Trump is at a ceremony for fallen soldiers. He then places a medal on a veteran.

And he is then in a high contrast moment, ranting about the drapes and the, curtains. At least he's not talking about toilets again, right? And flush pressure. Here, Trump is as awkwardly as anyone putting the medal on this veteran. Everything Trump does is bizarre. He pats the guy on the back. He almost chokes him with the metal. It's all wacky stuff. And he just can't do anything normally, anything, anything. Not really Trump's fault, I guess, that the metal is too tight. But look at Trump. Dear God. Listen, if this were Biden behaving this way at a medal ceremony, I can assure you that they would have said just on the basis of this, he needs to be removed under the 25th Amendment. This is the person making war decisions right now. Do voters tune this behavior out? Does it

gradually chip away at the credibility of Donald Trump? And these moments, these sorts of confusing moments, a lot of people are sort of in the mindset of just acknowledging it as normal or believing that it is normal because it's become so common. But this isn't normal. And we need to remember that the people that are just looking the other way are the same people that every single day we're saying Joe Biden doesn't know what year it is. Joe Biden doesn't know to these president. Joe Biden doesn't know his wife's name. Joe Biden doesn't have any clue what's going on. He doesn't know if it's day or night. And now all of a sudden they've gotten acclimated to this sort of behavior.

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Today we're welcoming back to the program, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego representing Arizona. Senator, it's good to have you on. A lot of places we could start. I mean, let me start with just a very simple question. Just on the basis of this administration's decision making on the Iran strikes, do you think that this is impeachable behavior up to and including the president of the United States? Well, until I find a real justifiable reason for them to essentially go to war, and they actually haven't identified that, yes, because what happens, you know, there's a very few exceptions of why you can, you know, essentially use armed men and women to, you know, kill people,

basically, go to war. And all of their justifications so far have not met that. And some of them are actually pretty horrible justifications. At this point in time, I've been pretty upfront with my audience that I'm an anti-authoritarian. I'm against theocratic regimes. I'm not a Maduro guy. I'm not a Kim Jong-un guy. I don't like Orban. I think the Ayatoll is a disaster.

But we do have to go a couple layers deeper than that, which include was this legal? Is it appropriate or good for the United States to be pushing regime change in different parts of the world. And so I'm curious how you're thinking about the difference. I start from the, from the another perspective, just more because I come from a military man, right? Is this in our national interest, number one, right? If, and if you have to do war making, like, is this the only way to actually effectively, you know, secure our national interests, right? So that's the first thing that I always approach it when it comes to to this, right? Before you start getting into bad guy, you know, bad guy, worst guy, worst guy, worst guy, right? Because like,

we make decisions all the time to negotiate with, you know, bad guys. For example, you know, the leader of China, horrible guy, right? They have concentration camps of Muslims in, you know, in Western China, but we decide to still engage in trade with them, right? Is there our national interest to do something about that? It's in our moral interest, but are we going to go to war for China against that? No, right? Because it just doesn't, that's not directly into our national interest and we're willing to actually sacrifice our men and women, right? Is Iran a horrible, horribly run the regime, not the people, the regime, is it horrible? Yes. Are you doing horrible things? Absolutely. Do they put our regional partners in danger? I think so. How is a different story. How imminent was

that danger is a different story. And whether or not we're going to engage in fighting them right now is that international system right now because like from what i've seen it's not it's from what we're seeing from reports from marco rubio uh from speaker johnson was that we essentially went to war because israel was going to attack iran and iran was going to attack back so therefore we decided to just join in with with iran with uh israel which basically we're saying that we are our war making decision was left up to israel's actions which is ludicrous right and so That being said, were we properly even aligned and ready for this war? It doesn't sound like it.

It sounded like we had some stuff there. We didn't have force protection lined up. We certainly didn't have our allies lined up. Bahrain right now is going through some internal struggles now because as a Shia majority in a Sunni ruling party, you know, we're running out of like our defensive capabilities. And we don't really have an end goal, state goal of how this all ends. So number one, we didn't hit the first.

marker. There was no national interest in us for us to do this this way. There may have been other ways, and we could have discussion about that, but certainly not this way, certainly not this timing. And number two, we weren't even properly aligned to actually do it and have the protection that we needed for ourselves, our allies, and again, for the finishing and the conclusion of this war. So this whole thing, which is not planned out, it makes it extremely dangerous, extremely volatile in the fact of the way they're doing it. And you can tell right now that this administration only had the concept of a one to two one to three day war and now they're finding themselves in a situation we might be in this thing of a longer time which again how does this deal with our how does how does

this actually interact with our national interest because we're going to end up having to pull munitions and manpower from east asia and from europe to deal with this regional war that was essentially started by ninyahu what do you make of the conflicts between a lot of the statements and contradictions i'll give you a couple of examples on the one hand arguing that going through Congress wasn't necessary because this isn't a war. But on the other hand, people like Larry Kudlow and other kind of hangers onto the administration saying, this is going to be another war that Donald Trump ends. Or I'll give you, I'll give you one other example. This was defensive, but proactive, both words used by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio,

because the defensive part was, if Iran was attacked, they might have then come after the United States. Therefore, even though we acted proactively, it was in some sense defensive. It's almost like words have no meaning anymore. Right. Yeah. This is like, we're like entering in like 1984, Georgia, Orwell, you know, like double speak that's happening right now. So what, what let's let's get down to why we're here. We're here in the situation where there's like multiple reasons for this because the president himself has not taken the time to actually address the country and answer questions why we're at war. Think about that. We have moved basically 50% of our war-making capabilities to the Middle East and have contributed, have at least contributed to the region in terms of bringing

in, you know, whether it's our platforms in the air, our assets on sea, all this kind of stuff, probably also our intel. But the president's not actually answering questions. And so now he's leaving this up to his lieutenants. And they're basically road testing, different ideas, to figure out what is the actual message that will resonate first with their mess. agabase, then with the general public, and then with Congress. Versus a real president, first of all, we've never done this. Let's be clear, because this is a dumb way for us to go about this. But let's say if you decided to go down this road, you would have actually had the logic,

the reason down, and you would have actually been showing the country why we are where we are. Look, I hated George Bush, Donald Runsfield, Dick Cheney when they sent me to that illegal war. But they at least managed to lie to us. Yes. These guys are just telling us, like, we don't have to tell you. We're going to potentially put your sons and daughters at risk. We're going to end up spending millions and billions of dollars on these weapon systems.

And, you know, we'll come up with decision why we went there later. And by the way, to pay for all this, we're probably going to end up cutting more Medicaid and more food stamps. Good luck, right? They don't even give us that respect. What do you think about the timing of this in relation to the midterm elections that are now just eight months away in this sort of context, I don't believe that Donald Trump would try to use Middle East conflict to justify delaying or even attempting to cancel or mess with the November election.

But I do think that he would use equivalent domestic unrest to try to do it. What do you expect right now with regard to the midterms? Yeah. Yeah, I would agree that there is some conspiracy theories that this is him going to use this to stop elections. I actually don't think that that his his. rationale for doing this. His rationale for doing this is because his domestic, his domestic policy is so messed up and he's so underwater. The only things he has seen success at has been, you know,

essentially engaging in war, right? So if you think about the first 12-day war with Iran, it's a good example. Then you have the operation in Venezuela. Both went fairly well in terms of our perspective as Americans. Luckily, no Americans were killed in either one. And when when elected officials, especially presidents, see that they're failing, they try to find other places that they could somehow do better and thinking that that somehow is going to help them out. The only thing that he never quite realized is that the American public is sick of foreign adventures. They're sick of wars. And it doesn't matter even if a war goes well, right? Like, you know, I could honestly say it.

I think that, again, I was against it. But the operation that went well from a tactical level, people were still against it, right? And now you're seeing the same thing here. People are against this, even though, you know, it so far has not gone as bad. Like, without, of course, you know, let's not forget the six men and women that have died so far. And those that are injured. But that's where this is all heading. He's desperately trying to figure out how to control or change the narrative of his,

office when the real thing he could do right away is get rid of tariffs. But that would mean that he had to go against, you know, 40 years of messaging that he's been talking about, which is the fact that tariffs fix everything. And so what does the November election look like? There may be a, like, I think we have to prepare for the possibility of this man trying to do anything he can to stop the election. He'll use, first of all, any legal method, let's be clear. And then if that doesn't work, then he'll try to do anything else that's less than legal, but questionable. And then finally, the last step would be like trying to do something like overtly illegal. So how does that look like?

Number one, less legal but questionable will be, you know what, the U.S. Postal Service is not going to deliver any vote-by-mail ballots. Right. And maybe he'll start like anything that any vote-by-mail ballots that are post-marked election, because, you know, there are some states that you could return your ballot as long as it's by the post-mark election date. Maybe he says, we're not going to take that. And then he feels empowered.

He'll actually move forward and say, like, you know what? The whole thing is fraud, so the post office can, so no more vote by mail. When he realizes that American citizens are going to be pissed about that and they're going to just go vote in person, then he'll move to something that's like second that is less than legal, which would be, you know, trying to influence, you know, the counting of the balance, trying to see if there's ways for him to slow it down. And then lastly, the, you know, the overt, you know, authoritarian move, which is this was a corrupt election in these areas. it was influenced by these outside influences, you know, you blame them. You know, you pick your bag. It can be the immigrants. It could be the foreigners, whatever it is, China, Iran, whatever the,

the flavor of the day when it comes to who he wants to scare. And I'm going to seize the ballots, right? Those are the steps. If he feels that any of this is going easy, he'll just continue doing. So the first step is to actually stop him and show popular resistance to the things that, you know, are questionable but legal, right? When he tries to stop, you know, for example, the, the mailing of ballots by the post office. Last thing I want to ask you about generally is the economy. What we are seeing right now is going to have a significant economic effect. As you and I are talking, the Dow and NASDAQ are each down two and a half percent just

today. Gas prices average nationally are up 5 percent in the last two days. They're now up 13 percent since January. And there's the expectation that in the next. week, gas prices could go up another 10 to 30 cents, which would be like another 10% just in the next year. This was supposed to be the guy who would keep us out of wars and the guy who would oversee the prices on everything coming down.

Are you, how deep do you believe the economic calamity that's coming could be? Well, I think we were moving in a direction already that was a slowing down, continuing and slowing down of the economy. you have a problem with AI. And again, AI, it's going to do some really good things. AI is going to do some really bad things. I think this is where government needs to kind of figure out how to regulate the bad things and encourage the good things. But there's going to be unemployment that's happening. Right now we have the highest amount of unemployment among college grads since the Great Recession of 2008, right? That is all AI induced. What's going to happen even further

now is with this kind of war, is that and with the increase in, and, and, with the increase in, gas prices, first of all, consumers are going to retract because like if you're living basically on, you know, in a paycheck to paycheck situation and now your gas prices have just jumped, you're going to take care of those gas prices because gas prices gets you to work, gets your kids to school, right? That means you're not going to buy anywhere else or invest anywhere else. Number two, because of that, I also think there's going to be a lot of companies that are just going to hold still. They're going to hold still and not do any type of investment, not any type of retooling, any type of rehiring until this all settles out. And when you do that,

it takes a while to kind of restart that momentum. And that all ties into going into this election. Because we're less than probably what, we're in March right now. First early ballots, by the way, drop in mid-September in Virginia. Yeah. Right? So we're less than six months away from that, or seven months away from that. And the economy doesn't get restarted. You don't get any momentum going, going rehiring doesn't happen. And I think it's just going to create a stagnation in the economy of a lot of people that are unhappy. Number two, it is just a general feeling.

This is kind of like talking to everyday Americans, not politicians, that there is no focus on the fact that people are hurting. Like they don't want the government, whether it's, by the way, Democrats or Republicans, to be focusing on these foreign adventures right now when people are suffering, right? people can't buy homes, people can't buy cars, people can't start businesses, they can't pay their bills, groceries are really, really bad right now. I have three kids and thank God I make a good salary. I have no concept of clue how someone like my mom who raised four kids on her own could have made it through, right? Like this is ridiculous. We're doing it in a time that people are really hurting. And you have,

again, the president who is focused on, you know, these foreign adventures that aren't directly right now in the national interests of this country. And I think that's going to just, hurt people and it's going to end up, you know, pissing them off to the point that they're going to come out and vote against it. I think you're absolutely right. And the economic pain is really going to be, it's not a theoretical thing. It's going to really be a week to week thing that affects people. We've been speaking. Yeah, go ahead. I'm just like, I'll give a good example right now. Yeah. The mortgage rates are the lowest it's been in quite a while. Yeah. But nobody's buying homes. That's right. Right. When, when that, what, what that means is that people are, you know, have the money,

have the money, but they feel so uncertain that they're not even willing to take advantage of the fact that mortgage rates are finally below 6%. And maybe they're going to go down a little further to five and a half, five. They probably won't go further than that, especially how much money we're borrowing, all this kind of stuff. But that tells you a lot, right? Because people have been anxious to go buy new homes, anxious. You know, I've, I got three kids. And like, I'm busting at the scenes at my house in Phoenix. I would love to go buy a new home. But people, like, I don't feel comfortable. doing it. And I know there's a lot of people also they won't do the same. This is driving people nuts. All these little economic indicators creates such anxiety, especially for working class people

that are just trying to live one check to another. And every little bump is just another little thing that makes your chest go a little harder. And it's causing them to go nuts. So like the amount of like stress that the American public is in, parents are in right now. These guys just do not understand. They are so removed. They're so isolated. They're such in a bubble. You know, they go to Mar-a-Lago every weekend and they don't know what the hell is happening on at the circle k you know at the oh you guys don't have circuit okay you know what people are thinking at the 7-11s at the gas pump you know at the grocery stores yeah trump uh in a tuxedo at mara lago dancing while all of this was happening is really a microcosm of of uh what what you're describing um senator reuben gayago always

great to talk to you really appreciate your time thank you thank you man the david packman show is an audience and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. Melania Trump sat in as the chair of a United Nations Security Council meeting. This looks like it would be AI. This looks like it would be fake. This looks like it would be impossible.

But it is truly horrifying and all too real. Here is Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States. With the rule 39 of the council's provisional rules of procedure, I invite Ms. Rosemary Di Carlo, under Secretary General of Political and Peace building affairs to participate in this meeting. A very awkward moment as Melania unsure of what on earth to do. I have some other videos of this and I will warn you, this stuff is difficult to watch.

We must all work together toward this goal. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President is how Melania was referred to there. Thank you. I thank Ms. Di Carlo for her briefing. I shall now make a statement in my capacity as First Lady of the United States. Right. First.

By the way, the looks on people's faces behind her are really something. My heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost their heroes, who sacrificed their lives for freedom. Yeah. And then I've got one more of these for you, which is really something. We must capture this positive energy and ignite it cross continents to transform our world. Right. Throughout our digitally connected human race. Intellect blossoms humanities for the mental needs.

Shelter, food security, clean water and healthcare. I'm going to stop it. I'm going to stop it because it is nauseating. But this was the first lady, Melania Trump, sitting in the chair of the president of the United States at the United Nations Security Council meeting. What was Trump doing at the time? Well, you saw it earlier. See that nice drape? When that comes down right now, you see a very, very deep hole. But in about a year and a half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful building. Right. And there's your entrance to it

right there. In fact, it looks. All right. So I won't play the whole thing. We played it earlier. Consider the optics here. Malania Trump is at the United States. United Nations Security Council meeting, chairing the meeting in place of Trump. And Donald Trump is at the White House talking about the drapes and the decor. What are the priorities right now? Is this delegation in the sense of Melania Trump being there in place of Donald? Is it distraction? Is it that Trump can't do it? Is it that Trump doesn't care to do it? That he doesn't want to do it. And there's this kind of weird, broader question. I don't know who looks more presidential at this Point? Like, would Trump slurring his way through with his makeup and his messed up hands

and the neck rash and the entire thing? Would Trump slurring his way through the meeting be more or less presidential than just sending Melania Trump who has no business being within a mile of any of this stuff? And it really kind of comes down to how supporters see it. I don't know. I want to hear from some magas. When you see Melania Trump sitting in for Trump there at the United Nations Security Council, do you go? this is so pathetic and not what we voted for and why isn't Trump there or and I think this is possible because there's such antipathy towards the United Nations among some in the MAGA right. Do you go, I care so little about the United Nations that I don't care who Donald Trump

sends? I don't know the answer. I don't know what the MAGAs think when they see this. I see it as yet another humiliation for the United States. The larger theme is that both Melania chairing a UN Security Council meeting and Trump at the White House waxing poetic about drapes and curtains, both are pretty unusual optics in the middle of a serious global conflict that some days is considered a war and some days isn't considered a war in Iran. And it really go, excuse me, it really goes to what I think is the core of this, which is Trump doesn't really care about any of this stuff. Trump's mostly bored with this. There's a reason that Trump was at Mara Lago wearing a tux and dancing rather than in D.C. where J.D. Vance was when the

strikes on Iran were launched, which is Trump loves the idea of seeming big and strong when it comes to something like, I struck Iran. But he doesn't really want to be doing the work. He doesn't really want to be getting updates and in the actual situation room. He'd rather be in, you know, the back ballroom of Mara Lago, bouncing in and out from playing DJ at the latest party at, at Maralago. He doesn't really care about this stuff. He's not really interested in any of this. He is there primarily just to be framed as a big boy. And Melania Trump at the United Nations only reinforces that. Donald Trump has another terrifying symptom. His neck now appears to be rotting. And the White House won't say why. And Trump's neck rot is again raising major health questions.

A look at this as you their speculation ranging from this is a syphilitic rash to looking in detail at the flakiness of it comparing and contrasting to Donald Trump's hands which are increasingly caked with off color makeup to try to cover whatever is going on there. Now because this looked so bad Donald Trump's personal doctor Sean Barbabella put out. a statement about this and the statement is really, really weird. We are going to put that up on the screen. Quote, President Trump is using a very common cream on the right side of his neck, which is a preventative skin treatment prescribed by the White House doctor. The president is using this treatment for one week and the redness is expected to last for a few weeks. That's Sean Barbabella, Donald Trump's personal physician. Notice a few strange things about this statement. Number one, it says it's a common cream, but it won't say what the cream is. Telling us what the cream is might actually give us insight into what the cream is supposed to do. They don't say why he's taking it. They say it's a

preventative skin treatment. Now, we can read into that. The fact that they're saying, saying it's preventative suggests that the rash isn't the condition they're trying to treat. If it's preventative, in theory, he doesn't have anything other than a reaction to the cream. So what they're telling us is that Trump's neck looks like this because of an unknown cream to prevent an unknown condition. Does anybody feel as though this is transparency? Magas, please tell me, do you feel as though that is transparency? Now, for at least six months, Donald Trump's right hand has been splotchy and covered in garish

makeup. He is still clearly doing that. And now we combine this with whatever that is on his neck. We've been told he shakes so many hands. He's using a preventative cream for what and which cream. The White House explanation is that it's common, but we have no skin cream name and no condition disclosed. The word preventative really suggests that we should be told what we're trying to

prevent? Is the redness a side effect? What is the underlying issue being treated? And so now we have a very acute pattern for six months and a broader pattern for eight years and an even broader pattern probably beyond that where we just aren't really given appropriate and full information about what's going on with Donald Trump's health. The explanations are always either incomplete or they're extraordinarily vague, oddly vague to a degree. Presidents routinely disclose medical details. Why is Trump not disclosing the actual story of what is going on here. And meanwhile, look at the contrast. Trump is making war decisions. While we have no idea what is going on with this guy's health, is he even competent to be making these decisions? And as a much broader issue, if we want to

zoom out, although it's probably bigger than what we would deal with today, declining trust when simple information isn't provided is not going to make anyone, trust your foreign policy instincts either. Not that we do. But there is this broader connection between total lack of transparency, total lack of availability of information, and it's analogous to the Iran stuff, as Senator Ruben Giego told us earlier. Trump hasn't laid out what is the ultimate goal of the operation in Iran? What is the, what are the metrics by which we will judge when it has succeeded?

And if the goal is regime change, which Trump has said it is. is, but Pete Hacks has said it isn't. Are we really going to see regime change aside from the legality, aside from the value of the United States doing this, are we even going to see regime change because we know that the 86-year-old Ayatollah, now deceased, had a succession plan in place. You may be saying, well, Iran and Trump's neck, what's the similarity is no transparent information as to what is the thinking of this White House and what is it that they are trying to do right here. All right, listen, you can agree that the Ayatollah was horrible. You can agree that Iran is better without the Ayatollah, even though the succession plan was in place,

and I don't know whether there will really even be regime change. You can agree that theocratic extremist regimes are bad for the average person, including the average person of Iran. But you can also still realize that these are not serious people. And exhibit A for that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio being asked, why now? Why now? And what he is saying here is this was a defensive proactive attack. Defensive proactive attack.

Because if Iran were attack, they would then have attacked us. Therefore, it's kind of self-defense in some weird way. The second question that been asked is why now? Well, there's two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond. respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic and in fact it bear to be true because in fact within an hour of the initial

attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch. In fact, those already been pre-positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks,

we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that indeed. Right. So it sort of sounds like what Marco Rubio is saying is that we were kind of goaded into acting by Israel, which aside from making no real sense from a foreign policy perspective, it doesn't really project strength that we weren't necessarily ready to do this. And Trump wasn't even necessarily that interested in doing it. But he was sort of goaded into acting quickly.

That doesn't sound like an alpha behavior. That sounds very, very beta. A Marco Rubio then with the Kafkaesque statement that we went proactively in a defensive way. proactively defense. No. What? What? What?

Did you tell lawmakers that there was an imminent attack? There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded. Because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first. We waited for them to hit us.

We would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way. We went proactively in a defensive way. Words no longer have meaning. And then finally, same kind of thing from Donald Trump. We were very nearly under threat from Iran. We were getting very close to being nearly under threat. Ayah, yai.

Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people. Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat. I was very proud to have knocked out the Iran nuclear deal by President Barack Hussein Obama. That was a horrible, horrible, dangerous document. They would have had... And arguably, we are in. this mess because Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal of Barack Obama's era because he didn't

like it. And that is exactly why Iran started restarted its nuclear research program, which led to the summer bombings, which now supposedly has led to all of this. If you follow that logic, Trump generated the conditions in which this is happening. We were really close to potentially almost being. under the possibility of a threat. And therefore, we went in proactively and defensively. It doesn't make any sense. Do words have meaning or not at the end of the day. We are going to talk about American nationals being urged to leave the Middle East as the conflict is spreading today

on the bonus show. We will talk about a website looking to draft Baron Trump as Donald Trump strikes Iran. And a House ethics panel is now looking into Nancy Mace over alleged improper reimbursements. Why do they all have sketchy stuff in their campaign finance, handling of funds? Endless, endless, endless problems. We will look at all of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember, join packman.com is the place to sign up. Get instant access to the bonus show.