The David Pakman Show - When regimes collapse under their own lies

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump uses a primetime address to renew claims about the 2020 election and push the SAVE America Act -- Karoline Leavitt returned to the White House podium and defended the administration's Iran policy before previewing Trump's primetime address -- Donald Trump and Rep. Keith Self openly discuss targeting power plants, bridges, and civilian infrastructure during military operations -- Fox News host Laura Ingraham points out that Donald Trump won the ten worst states to live in, but fails to recognize the pattern -- A report says senior US military leaders quietly worry about Donald Trump's handling of NATO and national security -- Donald Trump's tariff policy unravels after the government is forced to refund $81 billion to importers -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Hegseth says the military will start testing men for low testosterone, a White House teleprompter operator allegedly made over $100,000 betting on Trump's speeches, Trump is expected to attend the World Cup final on Sunday, and much more... 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get up to 27% OFF at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🎙️ Plaud: Use code PAKMAN for 10% off at https://plaud.ai/pakman or shop at https://amzn.to/4fMahxp 🛡️ 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 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025.

Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. I can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker.

I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters, July 31st. Donald Trump delivered a bizarre, deeply alarming prime time speech yesterday, barely able

to read the teleprompter that of course he doesn't need. He wants criminal investigations. He wants to purge voters. He wants to revoke TV licenses. But it all collapsed when Trump's bombshell documents reveal that Putin's government was working to help Trump win. Caroline Levitt, the press secretary resurfaced. refuses to say whether Trump will accept the midterm election results.

Reporters confronted her over all sorts of election conspiracies. And we're also going to look at an administration that is gleefully threatening civilian infrastructure, a war crime. And there is growing concern among senior military leaders that this guy is not right in the head. Meanwhile, Laura Ingram accidentally discovers that the states that are kind of good places to live, didn't vote for Trump, and a stunning $81 billion tariff refund is going to be financed by, take a guess, by you and me, the American taxpayers. What a show today.

Shouldn't even be legal, folks. Donald Trump must be removed immediately. This is the logical conclusion from seeing him rant and rave like a lunatic last night, barely able to speak in a borderline criminal speech, Donald Trump attempting to seize the airwaves in prime time to lie to us about 2020. Now I'm going to tell you what this speech is really about in a moment, but first let me give you a little bit of the atmospherics and set the tone, a very weird start, a sort of jump scare with Donald Trump looking at the camera with rapidly shifting expressions, not realizing

that we're live. I understand this is very visual, but bear with me. Good evening. Before we begin, I'm proud to report. All right. So Donald Trump suddenly live and didn't even know it. He did sound absolutely terrible. You might have noticed there that he sounds hoarse and he kind of looked like a horse too, but that's a different story. Here is the beginning of the speech a complete and total clown show. Before we begin, I'm proud to report that our country is safer, stronger and far wealthier than it has ever been before. We are doing great. Less than two years ago, we inherited an economic and social disaster after the worst inflation in 48 years, the wide open borders with millions. All right. So again, I'm going to try to give you the meat of this thing,

Trump ranting about how terrible everything was under Biden and how great everything is now. That's the context, notable that Donald Trump really struggled to read, even, inserting random words that were not on his teleprompter, which of course he doesn't need. Barack Obama needed a teleprompter. Biden needed a teleprompter, but Trump doesn't. And I guess, you know, they had to pick a different teleprompter operator because it turned out Trump's regular prompter guy was betting on the betting markets about the duration of Trump's speeches. Kind of interesting. So maybe Antrifa was in charge of the prompter last night. information showing that China engaged in other election related activities to undermine my first

administration in our 2020 campaign. They did not want and they just didn't want it. They fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump. They fought like hell not to have it Donald Trump. Now, the whole point of this speech as we get into the substance, if you can call it that, was to manipulate you, the public into believing his lies about 20, 2020 and to use that to try to seize control of the 2026 election because he and his Republican friends are terrified that they are going to lose and lose badly and spend two years being investigated. Donald Trump rehashing a number of old claims and grievances, including that dead people are active on the voter rolls.

Buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls. And yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail. Now I will remind you, non-citizens can vote in some local elections. There are legitimate reasons why non-citizens might receive some ballots. Dead people can be on voter rolls until the data catches up. But as long as no one's voting in their name, it's not really a huge deal.

And as often is the case, there are some little kernels of truth that are used to imply criminality or maliciousness that are not borne out by any facts. Then Trump gets into the real point of this thing, suggesting the 2020 election was rigged. He talks about Venezuela as his evidence. And it is really a mind that is no longer working. A big a brain with very small ideas. Today we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela. And that's exactly what happened conspiring to digitally rigged their own country's elections in 2020.

And that's what they did. This reporting included precise details. about methods to regime develop to digitally all notice that he can barely even read this crap there are vote totals and ways that could not be detected even with an audit no matter how deep they went this intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never ever be hacked or that's really the point of this we must take urgent action This man has managed to brainwash. I hate to admit it.

It's embarrassing to admit it. Tens of millions of Americans. This man is a traitor and a criminal, but he has bamboozled tens of millions. He then talks about Chinese interference in 2019. And by the way, who was president in 2019? I wish we had someone in the Oval Office in 2019 who could have stopped this. Oh, Trump was president. And these government strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president.

They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot when actually your president has done a great job. No one's hotter than me, but also no one's a bigger traitor or criminal than me. The whole point is manipulation. So what's the ask? Well, Trump gets to it eventually. Listen to this. that were used to destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama

to be burned. It was supposed to be burned. These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people incinerated and checked. But it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. This is all totally made up, but it doesn't matter. We believe this was not done on purpose, but right? on purpose, but rather through gross incompetence of the people that was supposed to burn the bag. People.

But the findings are stunning. Today, I'm asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA, to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden, to fire those involved in the cover-up and to file criminal charges, if appropriate. Now, forget for a second that the premises are totally made up. He's asking people to investigate. We were told for six damn years that the information that would prove all of it was here and he would release it. And instead of giving us the facts, he goes, we need another search.

We need to keep looking maybe for two more years. They've got nothing. Trump then indicates he's directing states to purge their voter rolls. If you were not planning on voting this November, this should infuriate. infuriate you because Trump is trying to take away your will as a voter that we all should get out there and vote. Listen to this stuff. We're in the process of informing governors, senators, and members of Congress of potential issues in their states. If you look at voting today, it's in such bad shape in so many states and we are committing to fix it. And we're also

committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections we have very vulnerabilities dear god very important elections coming up we want those elections to be honest i've also ordered dhs to notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls and and by the way uh the federal government has no authority to order the states to do a dance to do a dance thing. The states run their elections. That's the way our country is set up. But he wants to be the one deciding who wins. He slips in there. We really need the Save America Act, by the way. Demands that Congress must pass the Save America Act. How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat?

The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because you... Well, there's a couple other reasons, including that it is not a pro voting bill, it is an anti-voting bill, which will make it more difficult to vote. Trump continues his brutal attack on mail-in ballots, which he says are corrupt, but remember that Donald Trump now regularly votes by mail. And hopefully there will be no corrupt mail-in ballots, which have you watched California in so many other places, mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. Trump regularly uses mail-in ballots. Trump's saying that all sorts of reports of Chinese election interference were kept out of presidential briefings back in 2020.

They hid the information from it. Is now under review, but it gets even worse, raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden, documents. show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. Now, if this weren't BS, we have to acknowledge it's kind of hard sometimes to translate everything into pictures and drawings that Trump can understand.

But he should go and ask the person who was in charge back then, Ratcliffe, one of the Trump's own guys. The biggest evidence that this was seen clearly as the rantings of a very sick person is that almost no one talked about it. The nighttime news shows last night, friendly to Trump, barely talked about the speech. Fox and friends this morning barely talked about the speech. One thing Fox News did say, very carefully, remember, they had an almost nearly a nearly 800 million dollar judgment against them for the Dominion voting nonsense. Fox even made a point to disclaim. We have not verified any of what this guy said.

Also heard the president make claims that electronic voting machines are vulnerable and easily compromised. Fox News has not seen that evidence yet is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the- Accuracy. The president's statements and claims- That's right. Struggling to read the disclaimer, but a disclaimer nonetheless, and even to

Tony DeCopal on the Trump-friendly CBS News says that when Trump speaks about this topic, he often lies. That is just delightful. We are coming on the air tonight because in a few moments, President Trump will be giving a speech. It's a speech expected to address safety and security of American elections, a topic, of course, that the president has talked a lot about for years now, at times almost constantly. And honestly, much of what the president has said on this topic has been false. Oh, where's Barry Weiss? Trump is not going to like that. So here's the deal. We know why Trump is bringing up all of this stuff now. He wants to cry election interference when MAGA loses in November. How many times does this guy have to be proven wrong about 2020? And these 2020 election lies are getting very old. You tell someone you've got the evidence coming for six years and then you go, hey, I'm announcing the evidence. Hey, can people look for it, please? I'm directing. everybody to look for the evidence. This is the definition of a childish, pathetic sore loser. And no matter how hard Trump and Maga try, we are going to show up and vote and win by margins

too big to rig in November. I believe it's going to happen. I'm going to participate. And don't underestimate the effect of echo chambers and filter bubbles on this. I write about this extensively in my new book, pay attention. I hope you've preordered it at David Pakman.com A lot of the MAGA followers don't even realize this has all been debunked. It's all lies because they are in their algorithmic digital echo chambers. We've got to break them out of it. Donald Trump spent last night trying to convince the country that the 2020 election was stolen from him and then he directed Americans to the White House website and said, we're putting

out the documents. And he accidentally put out a document confirming that Vladimir Putin's Russian government tried to help him win. This is one of the most spectacular self-owns of Trump's six or really 10-year election denial campaign. During his speech, as I told you earlier, Trump announced the release of newly declassified intelligence documents. They are going to prove my claims about foreign interference and corruption in 2020 to help

Joe Biden and to hurt me. And Trump focused largely on China. And he said to viewers, go and read the documents yourself. I don't know if anybody on Trump's team followed that advice and looked at the documents before they posted them. Because inside a National Intelligence Council assessment from August of 2020 is a crystal clear description of what Russia was doing. The assessment says, Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials oversaw an operation involving proxia. who were spreading allegations against Joe Biden, against Ukrainian politicians, against Burisma. And then we get to maybe the most devastating part. The document says that all of these Russian proxies were planning to intensify their operation

as the election approached with the goal of engineering a corruption scandal against Biden and the Democratic Party right at the peak of their campaign. Now, ultimately, you remember that Joe. Biden won anyway, but their aim, according to the documents Trump released, was to ensure Trump wins and Biden loses. Think about this. Trump holds a national address. He's going to expose foreign interference that was meant to harm Trump and did harm Trump. He puts out the documents and the documents say Russia was trying to help Trump. You couldn't script this any better. And a lot of the names in these documents are very important. One is Andre Durkatch, the Trump administration's own Treasury

Department sanctioned him in September of 2020. Trump's Treasury described Durkatch as an active Russian agent maintaining close ties to Russian intel for a decade. And Treasury says that Durkatch was running an influence campaign. Covert built around unsubstantiated allegations about American officials. He promoted doctored recordings met to damage. Not Trump, but meant to damage Joe Biden. Constantine Kilimnik, the Treasury Department identified him as a Russian intelligence agent involved in election influence. And he was working to hurt Joe Biden.

This assessment is not a Democratic campaign document. The U.S. intelligence community during Trump's presidency made these determinations. Dirkatch was sanctioned by Trump's administration. And now Trump has ordered the underlying assessment released. Now, to be clear, the document doesn't say Russian activity succeeded at changing vote totals or anything like that. Trump lost in 2020 and whatever influence campaign there was didn't succeed. But it establishes that the attempted foreign interference was from Russia to hurt Biden and help Trump. There's also a big rhetorical trick that is exposed here.

Trump takes evidence of foreign influence efforts and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stolen voter data, and he presents it as proof that votes were actually changed. These are different claims. There may be an active attempt from a foreign party to manipulate public opinion. That's very real. And listen, we do that in other countries as well. What Trump always implies is that the 2020-11. was stolen through fraudulent votes. They have still presented zero evidence of that. But more

importantly, even the influence campaigns were aimed at helping Trump, not at helping Joe Biden. So this is remarkable stuff and the opposite of the narrative that Trump has been pushing for six years. We really can't understate the stupidity and irony of this. Trump spends six years saying, we've got the evidence. It's going to be released. They were all trying to help Biden. And the only little bits and pieces that Trump publishes show they were trying to help Trump, not Biden. I hope people are doing what Trump suggested last night, which is go and read the evidence. He wanted the evidence to prove that sinister foreign forces robbed him of the election,

but they were trying to put him back in the White House. He says you all in America should look at the documents, and we did, and they published stuff that hurts their own cause. You couldn't script a stupider administration. And we need to do something to get beyond this ridiculous narrative. Biden simply won. Trump simply lost. And then you know what?

Trump came back in one in 2024. And we see it. We see it in that we're in a new war. We see it in that everything is more expensive. We see it in that job creation has declined. He won in 2024. He lost in 2020. It's that simple.

Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, has resurfaced. And when Caitlin Collins asked her, you know, Trump's been in office a long time now, he says the things he's going to talk about in his speech are backed up by evidence. Why hasn't anybody been charged if there was so much criminality? Here is Caroline Levitt's answer and it is a doozy. Speech tonight, he's been in office over 540 days now. If what he says is tonight is backed up by evidence, why hasn't anyone been charged? Well, he hasn't revealed it yet.

He hasn't declassified the documents yet, and you will see what he says tonight, and then we'll move forward appropriately from there. So we'll charge this all up tonight from the Justice Department? I don't speak on behalf of the Justice Department. Caitlin, you know that. Rachel. By evidence, will there be charges? You'll have to ask the Justice Department.

I don't charge people. I just speak on behalf of the president. My prediction is that there are no charges ever, at least insofar as Trump's narrative holds or doesn't hold about all of these crimes being designed to hurt Donald Trump because we found out from the documents, most of them were trying to help him. Continuing with Caroline Levin, a reporter mentions this has all been adjudicated in 2020. There were recounts. There were lawsuits. There were audits. And these elections were safe and secure. And Caroline Levitt says, well, you know, 2024 was too big of a victory to rig.

And the reporter goes, yeah, but Caroline, Biden's way. win in 2020 was big. Garrett. Caroline, welcome back. Good to see you. Likewise, to agree that this speech tonight is about elections past, not elections upcoming. The 2020 election has had dozens of recounts, lawsuits, audits. The 2024 election widely believed to be safe and secure.

There's not really any question about that. A lot of people look at this. Because it was too big to rig. Well, I think a lot of people look at this. A massive amount of votes for this president. That's why he's in the Oval Office right now. No one disputes that. there were significant amount of votes for Joe Biden, who won in 2020.

I know the question is, why is the president unable to let this go? Well, first of all, Garrett, I think part of the problem is that the media has refused to acknowledge that tens of millions of Americans across the country share the concerns of this president about the sanctity of our elections. And your prime... Yes, but what we're concerned about is that Trump is going to destroy the sanctity of elections, not that he's a victim of that. I have your question.

You're jumping ahead to a conclusion in this speech. before even hearing it yourself. I think that everyone should tune in tonight, including the people in this room, and you should report on the President's speech and the findings that he is going to reveal in this speech with a little bit of honesty and a little bit of integrity,

because it will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the President tonight, and everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening. And again, Garrett, again, I think all Americans, Democrat, Republican, should agree that we are the greatest country in the history of the world. We should have the safest and most secure elections in the history of the world. And what the president will be speaking about tonight

will show you that perhaps that is not the case. And we need to make some adjustments moving forward, including the Save America Act, as Rachel pointed out, is a- None of this is true. Just none of this is true. And Caroline really sort of gives up the game in the next question, which is a very simple question. Is Donald Trump going to accept the results of November's election? The correct answer would be yes. The honest answer would be no. Caroline gives neither of those answers. On the concerns about the election, will the president accept the results of November's elections? Look, Ed, you should tune in to the president's speech tonight before you jump ahead to conclusions about what's actually in the speech. Again, I've seen

a lot of reporting and misreporting about what the president will say. We hope CBS will take the speech and all Americans should take it. But I'm not presuming it. Not an answer that I find respectable. Will Trump accept the results? Yes, he will. Or just be honest and say, no, he won't. Or only if Republican wins will he accept the results.

Caroline Levitt says on the cyclospora outbreak causing explosive diarrhea now confirmed in 31 states, don't worry everybody. Trump is monitoring the situation. I will remind you that the White House gutted the CDC's parasite tracking team last year. But don't worry, Trump is monitoring the diarrhea. On the parasite outbreak related to produce, can you give an update on the administration's response to this? Are there federal officials on the ground in the hardest hit states right now doing any testing of production facilities or farms to try to figure out where this outbreak has started? Well, what I can tell you, having been back at the White House for just a couple of short weeks, I've been in meetings.

on this very topic and I can tell you the White House is closely monitoring the situation, has a handle on the situation. Just like with COVID after they disbanded the pandemic response team and then they monitored and they had a handle on it and COVID would be done by Easter of 2020. Remember that one? They are, they've canceled the parasite tracking team, but they are monitoring it and Trump keeping a very, very close eye on his diarrhea problem in the United States. Finally, Caroline Levitt insisting prices are falling with a very big misunderstanding about what it means for the inflation rate to go down. Turning now to the economy. Tuesday's CPI report confirmed what President Trump predicted.

Prices are falling and this administration's economic policies are working. Inflation dropped 0.4% last month, beating expectations and marking the largest monthly decline in more than six years. prices fell, including for gasoline, electricity, non-prescription drugs, car insurance, medical care services, and hotels. This is, if this works on the American people, we have failed a national IQ test. I know my audience gets it. If inflation is 4.2%, prices have gone up 4.2% over the prior 12 months. And then in the next month, if inflation goes to 3.5%, that just means that over the preceding 12 months, prices went up 3.5%.

Is 3.5 lower than 4.2? Of course it is. But is it's still higher than zero? Yes. All that means is prices went up, but more slowly. And Caroline Levitt is counting on this being tricky language for people who don't understand the math of it. Less prices go down by virtue of a negative inflation number, prices have gone up, but at a slightly lower rate than they did before.

Now, is it possible that when you add a negative number for a single month, it's still positive for the year, of course, but what we're talking about is if prices are up or down overall since Donald Trump became president? And they are up dramatically because inflation has been positive for the entirety of the nearly two years that Donald Trump has been back in office. I know my audience gets it. I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir. But maybe there's a MAGA that's coming by and we'll see this and realize, oh, yeah, they're lying to me. Caroline Levitt is back from maternity leave, but it is all a complete and total disaster. Most of my work is not just what happens on camera. It's the prep,

the calls, meeting with my team, figuring out what ideas do we want to produce. And this is why the The Plod Note Pro has been so useful for me. They're one of our sponsors. The Plod Note Pro is about the size of a credit card. It's thin enough to slide into a wallet. It attaches magnetically to the back of my phone. And I can use it for meetings, calls, interviews, brainstorming if I want to talk through an idea without stopping to type notes as I go.

I just hit record. I have my conversation. Plod will transcribe the audio. It'll separate the speakers. me a summary of the points that were most important and even turn that into action items of what do I have to do. I can also search everything later with the Ask Plod feature. And Plot is also built around enterprise level privacy and security standards.

Check it out. Go to plod.a.a. I slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 10% off all products. The link is in the description. The company theft usually does not start with some movie version of how hacking takes place. It's boring details that are easy to find. Your full name, current and former addresses, phone number, date of birth, employment history. If you put a bunch of that stuff together, people can then start to figure out, do I know your

security answers to security questions? Can I open accounts in your name? This is why our sponsor Incogni exists. Incogni works to remove your personal info from the internet, places like people search sites, online directories, commercial databases. Incogni starts by removing your info from hundreds of the most well-known ones and will follow up until it's done. And if you Google yourself and find your info anywhere outside of this database of hundreds of

these sites, you can submit a link to Incogni and they will do what's called a custom removal. All of these processes are independently verified by Deloitte and you can get 60% off an annual plan at incogny.com slash Pacman with the code Pacman. The link is in the description. Listen, my friends, if it weren't for you, there's no David Packman show. This is primarily an audience funded and supported program. All of the things we do, the podcast, the videos, the audio. Uh, funding the team that we have, all of these things. It exists if and only if people in the audience want it to. And I would love for you to become the next supporter of this show. You can sign up for a membership at join packman.com. It's quick. It's easy. It directly makes this show possible,

not through some vague and complex lattice work of layers of corporate whatever. It's just that's the direct way it goes. Also, a huge, Thank you to everybody who's been pre-ordering my book pay attention. We are making progress in the fight to push forward independently. I'm not on the daily show promoting the book. I'm doing it here and through social media. And we are offering a limited number of signed copies, which you can order at David Pakman.com slash attention.

You can also find at that link opportunities to just get the book without my signature. Same price, by the way. So it's just so you know. The audio book, the Kindle book. And if you want this number one numbered edition of the first printing of pay attention, it's this specific physical book on my shelf, submit your pre-order receipt or screenshot to info at David Pakman.com. On the day the book comes out, we'll pick someone who has entered the raffle. I'll sign and dedicate that book for them, as well as the number one copy of my first book, The Echo Machine. Donald Trump has now promised to attack what he describes as power plants and bridges,

and there's a Republican congressman that went even further about what should be done in Iran, explicitly endorsing attacks on civilian infrastructure. These are statements from the president of the United States and a sitting member of Congress And earlier this week, Donald Trump effectively promised war crimes when he said the following. Remember this? Do you anticipate that the strikes were seen this week against Iran will expand? Are you considering hitting energy targets or other locations inside of Iran? I'll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we'll hit energy targets.

It'll be a little treat like a dessert that I saved for last. But we're going to hit them very hard tonight. We're going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We're going to hit them very hard the night after. And then next week, it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges.

All right. So that was Donald Trump. And a lot of us said, well, hold on a second. Those really sound like war crimes that you were talking about, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure. Well, Republican Congressman Keith Self went on TV and he goes, we've got to do it. We've got to go after the civilian infrastructure. Do you see this is a critical juncture with Iran?

It's either going to choose a path toward peace or it's going to face the ultimate consequences. President Trump has given them every opportunity to be a good player and they have chosen not to. So President Trump realizes that now. So we are going to finish the job. Yes, we do have to go after civilian infrastructure if we are going to bring the regime to the table. Everybody realizes that the IRGC still has the guns in the country.

They still control it. They have the drones that they can send into. I thought according to Trump, they had nothing left. The straight against the shipping. So now is the time because Iran has proven themselves an unwilling partner in peace. They talk about the laws of war. Like, they are just sort of like, hey, did you want to pay attention to this? We're talking about the Geneva Convention.

We're talking about international humanitarian law. And they're just kind of like, yeah, I think we're going to do sort of whatever you want. And one of the most important principles is a distinction, a distinction where military forces must distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. Civilian objects include people's homes, schools, hospitals, water systems, electric grids, bridges and power plants. You can't lawfully attack them simply because damaging them would make life harder for the civilian population or pressure the government into surrendering. Now, it is of course true that in certain situations, if there is an overlapping military objective or you've got these particular situations. But this is a very important legal nuance.

If you have infrastructure that serves both civilian and military purposes, international law recognizes that as dual use. If it's a bridge that civilians drive across, but it is the bridge that a military is using to move equipment, then it can become a legitimate target. If you have a power plant that is providing electricity to homes, but it's also supplying a weapons factory or a command center, you might be able to make the case under international law that it is a valid target. But that is, and even then commanders have to consider proportionality and they have to take reasonable

precautions to minimize civilian harm. So this is why military lawyers spend a lot of time reviewing proposed targets before any of these strikes are authorized. But Trump is just sort of like, yeah, I think we're going to do it. Trump isn't identifying military bases. He's not explaining there are certain bridges, which have. a role supporting military operations. He's just like all their power plants, all their bridges are going to be knocked out. And Keith self then kind of removes even more ambiguity by calling

it civilian infrastructure. Trump talks about it as in just listing the types of places. He goes power plants and bridges. But maybe you could make the case that they are of military significance. Keith self just goes, we got to go after the civilian infrastructure. If you're targeting civilian infrastructure because it's civilian infrastructure, which sounds like exactly what they are saying, that violates one of the core principles of international law. I don't think these guys give a damn. Now, whether any particular strike ultimately constitutes a war crime depends on a lot of facts. Investigators would look at what was targeted. Did there, was there some way it qualified as a military objective, what military advantage could you expect to gain by going after

that piece of infrastructure, was the expected civilian harm excessive relative to whatever military advantage it might confer? You can only do that by examining evidence after the fact and making a legal determination, but the political leaders have a responsibility for how they describe military objectives. And in the past, American presidents and military officials usually have been careful to explain we are going after military objectives, not civilian objects. Even when there are civilian casualties, you can look at was there a legal and moral justification in the sense that the intended target was military.

It doesn't make the deaths any less tragic, but there's at least this way that you can justify legally. Trump is talking about it in a different way. He's not going, there's military necessity here. He's just going, we're going to really screw everybody, including civilians by knocking out power plants and bridges. And then congressman self comes in and goes, oh, we're going to go after civilian infrastructure. The rhetoric is indicative of the fact that the United States used to argue democracies

distinguish themselves from authoritarian regimes by fighting within the law. And there's a reason that those constraints exist. When leaders like Trump start talking brazenly as though civilian infrastructure is in and of itself a legitimate target, they are weakening one of the most important principles that was developed after the horrors of World War II and subsequent wars. And when I hear elected officials applaud this idea, this should really horrify anybody who thinks that the rule of law should apply. And if you don't think the rule of law should apply when we are attacking Iran, Should it apply when other countries attack us?

Because you got to be very careful when you start opening up that door. You know, sometimes the answer is sitting right in front of somebody and they still can't bring themselves to say it. And I have such a great example of this. Laura Ingraham was discussing CNBC's ranking of the worst states to live in for 2026. And she almost gets it. She points out something remarkable. She goes, every single one of the 10 worst states to live in was a state that Donald Trump won. Listen to her say it.

She's almost figured it out. Now check out this recent list. 650 CEOs were polled and they rated the best states in which to do business. The top 10, including Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, a Republican. They're run by Republicans except Virginia, which is at number 10. in North Carolina, kind of a purple state at number five. So money and people, resources, are pouring into red states. So how do the socialist brush this off?

Well, they do so either by ignoring it or distorting the data or the little help from their friends. This CNBC report just comes out. They listed the 10 worst states to live in for 26. All the states on this list, okay, Trump won. Every state, except Georgia in 2020. And the list included four of the top 10 states for business. How does that make any sense?

They have kind of a weird calculus there. But this is obviously a blatant effort to dismiss and denigrate more conservative states. All right. There's a really good question in there. And she never follows it to its logical conclusion. If the states consistently ranking near the bottom when you look at quality of life, education, health, economic opportunity, infrastructure. If those states consistently vote Republican and the same states that dominate quality of life,

education, health, economic opportunity are blue states. Maybe we could learn something from that. Now, before anybody gets upset and emails me, this doesn't mean every blue state is wonderful or perfect. It doesn't mean that red states are all terrible or don't have nice areas and good places to live. There are really nice places to live in right-wing states and there are struggling parts of blue states.

We're talking about averages and patterns. And when researchers look at states across the board and you look at a number of different metrics, blue states come out ahead. This isn't new. We've looked at this in detail for a decade. Life expectancy, educational attainment, household income, economic output, health insurance coverage, access to medical care, worker productivity, innovation. How many high-paying industries are there?

States contribute a lot more in federal tax revenue than what they get back. Many red states are takers rather than contributors. This is not every state, but this is the pattern. And a lot of times people respond by going, well, people are moving out of California. Some people are moving out of California. Some people are moving in. Millions continue choosing to live in California, in New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, Connecticut.

Because those states offer opportunities that people value. If every blue state were the disaster that right wingers portray it to be, you would expect businesses, universities, hospitals, venture capital, biomedical, the highest paying industries in the country to leave blue states and go to red states. But they're not doing it. And instead, what we see is that many of the largest economic engines remain in blue states. And these are the states that the right loves to attack. The irony is that right wing media celebrates individual success stories.

from these same places, Silicon Valley, the Boston biotech sector, New York's financial industry, Seattle's tech companies, research universities and medical centers. These are the broader ecosystems built over decades by making investment, investing in infrastructure, investing in research, building up public institutions. Now, are a lot of those states more expensive to live in? Yes, that's right. Housing affordability is a big problem in a lot of those states. A lot of those states have, you know, annoying traffic.

Often state taxes are higher or they have state taxes versus not having state taxes. These are real issues. But it is also true that there is a marketplace here, supply and demand. And people are willing to pay more to live in those places because you make more money. The schools are better. There's more cultural amenities. There's greater economic opportunity. High demand to live in those blue states is.

one of the reasons prices, one of the reasons prices get high in the first place. Now, this doesn't mean Democrats have all the answers. Blue states have problems to solve. Housing affordability is a big one. Cost of living is a big one. Homelessness. A lot of these cities have public transit that could be a lot better. These are real problems. The question is, can we acknowledge both sides of the ledger? Because when you step back and you go, let's just compare states in general, on average, looking at a dozen important metrics. It's a real. consistent pattern. And so Laura Ingram's question, how does it make any sense that all the worst places to live are the ones that voted for Trump? Well, if you understand governance and you understand

investment in education and and healthcare and infrastructure contributing to the quality of life in a state, it makes sense that the places that consistently are attracting talent, businesses, universities, and investment are the places that are making the investment in that stuff to begin with. So Laura Ingram is kind of asking the right question, but she's stopping short of the very obvious answer. The brutally hot weather we have has a way of exposing malfunctioning underwear. You take one long walk or commute in the humidity or you're in a studio like this one.

that's overheated one day and suddenly it's the sweat and the friction and the readjusting. And this is where sheath underwear is a game changer. We have a sponsor, Sheath. They just make great underwear built around a pouch design that will separate and support. It'll reduce skin on skin contact. It'll eliminate the chafing when things get a little sticky. Their lineup includes five or eight inch boxer briefs. They've got trunks, base layers, socks and more.

You can get bamboo. You can get modal, cotton, airflow fabrics. The airflow fabrics are designed to be cooling and breathable, whether you're moving around or just lounging around. And sheaths bamboo and modal options are built for soft, comfortable daily wear. You might be doing morning errands. Maybe it's a late night show you're going to. So during these blisteringly hot months, don't.

just crank up the fan and hope for the best. Upgrade your first layer. Go to sheathunderware.com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 20% off your entire order. The link is in the description. Shopping for a mattress is one of those things that most people put off. Once you finally decide, we're going to do it, you just start guessing, which is why our sponsor Helix Sleep is such a great way to go. I've been sleeping on a Helix mattress for years at this point. You go to the Helix website. You take a short little sleep, uh, sleep quiz, answer a few questions about your body. How do you sleep? What kind of feel do you like? What are you looking for? And they will match you with a model that is built around your preferences. And that's it. It just simplifies mattress shopping. The thing I most like about my helix

mattress is that the whole process was very straightforward. I just answered a few questions. They matched me with a mattress that is what I wanted. And I've had it for years. It's in perfect condition. I'm far from needing to replace it. Go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman for 27% off sitewide, a discount they are only offering to my audience. The link is in the description. One of the most unsettling stories to come out of the Trump administration this week has nothing to do with another Trump dementia clip or a truth social post. It's a report that America's senior military leadership is very concerned about the way Donald Trump is running the Pentagon and also about the alliances of the United States under Trump. Now, we've learned about this because according to veteran

journalist John Sopal, the former BBC North America editor, he spent years covering Washington. He has relationships with the national security establishment. The report is a is that America's top military brass are extremely worried about Donald Trump's approach to defense and foreign policy, which is like, of course they are. Any sane person would look at what Trump is doing with defense and foreign policy and go, this doesn't seem so smart. And if this is true that the military is military leadership is concerned about this, it is worth paying attention to. Active duty military officers don't go on TV to criticize the president. They don't hold press conferences.

So that expectation, if we go, well, they should say it publicly and loudly and put their names on it. They really don't do that. And one of the things about the United States is that civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle. And so serving officers are expected to remain apolitical. If they are quietly acknowledging these concerns behind closed doors, we would expect that to be how they communicate. And the fact that they are communicating that tells us just how bad it has gotten. Now, Sopold describes conversations and observations, suggesting that senior military leaders are very uneasy with Trump's approach to national security, to NATO, which I would argue

also relates to national security, and management of the Pentagon, which also relates to national security. This is a pattern we've seen before. Go back to Trump's first term. And we saw an extraordinary number of retired generals and former senior military officials eventually speak out. We ultimately heard, ultimately, from James Mattis, from Mark Millie, from John Kelly, H.R. McMaster.

And these were not political pundits who just wanted TV appearances. They worked alongside Trump. Some of them resigned. Others waited until they had left government before they publicly spoke. But they said Trump is impulsive. When Trump is presented with expertise, he dismisses it. it because he knows better. He is hostile to America's traditional alliances. He's prone to making national security decisions based on instinct rather than strategy. And by the way, his instincts are

terrible. And so we've seen this sort of thing before. Now, according to this reporting, many of today's military leaders reportedly have the exact same concerns. The difference is a lot of them are still serving. So their conversations are happening behind closed doors. One big issue, driving the concern about Trump is Trump's view of NATO. And we can have a debate that's a, I think it's a reasonable debate, important debate, about whether European countries should spend more on defense. Maybe they should. And presidents in the United States who have been Republicans and Democrats have made that argument.

Barack Obama made that argument. Joe Biden made that argument. George W. Bush made it. So Trump is not the only Republican, nor is it only Republicans making the argument that allies should contribute more. whether the U.S. should be committed to NATO is very different. NATO works because the American commitment is credible. And the whole point of NATO is security through deterrence. Potential adversaries have to believe that attacking one NATO member really means you are confronting

the United States and the entire alliance. If Trump starts going as he has, well, I don't know if we'd necessarily come to the defense of any ally. In fact, Trump has threatened allies, like threatening Denmark with taking Greenland. When allies start wondering, is the United States really going to honor these commitments? That is a security risk to the United States and to our NATO allies. And Sopal points to Trump's hostile rhetoric towards NATO, his frustration that NATO didn't immediately show up to help him fight his war against Iran. His warmth with Vladimir Putin, by the way, is a concerning sign towards NATO. Now, these career military planners really do spend their lives thinking about alliances and logistics and intelligence sharing and deterrence and stability.

These aren't partisan concepts. And there was a history in the United States of partisan differences being put aside for continuity in these alliances. And it's an important foundation of American security, I would argue. And one of the most striking lines from this report is that senior commanders are being quietly on our side when the commander in chief is not. In other words, that there are senior people who are not on the side of Trump. And there is another question that comes up, which is if senior military leaders are this concerned, what should actually happen here? Well, the constitution has an answer to that. The military serves under civilian and authority. Its responsibility is to provide candid professional advice, carry out lawful orders,

refuse unlawful orders and stay outside of partisan politics. If you have senior military officials who believe the country is heading in a dangerous direction, they do have options. They can argue that case inside the chain of command. Okay. They can resign if they conclude that they can no longer faithfully serve. And after retirement, they can speak publicly. They can write a book. They can testify before Congress, they can tell Americans what they witnessed. Responsibility for changing political leadership, though, rests with democratic institutions and with Congress, the courts, the media, and voters. So when a story like this breaks, someone will inevitably say, the military is the only institution

that can stop Trump. It's really not. That idea misunderstands how the American system works and a military stepping in against an elected president is considered a country. coup. The strength of the United States is that power flows from citizens. And so if Americans believe the country is on the wrong path, we've got to get engaged civically. We've got to organize. We've got to vote. We've got to demand accountability. Military commanders are supposed to protect the country. We decide who governs it as civilians. However, when people who have spent their whole

careers in the military thinking about all of the stuff I mentioned, and they are very worried about the direction under Donald Trump, we should then be saying, hey, we as the public need to evaluate what they're saying and judge whether this guy can really be allowed to remain his president. Now, one final thought. If these reports are accurate, the concern in the military isn't the story because generals are supposed to save the country. Like I said, they're not. It's here's another group of people who work closely with Trump and they're reaching the same conclusions we've reached, which is that Trump really can't do it. And we've heard now from defense secretaries, retired generals, national security advisor,

chiefs of staff. Trump doesn't have what it takes here. So there are two possibilities, either a stunning number of experienced public servants, many lifelong Republicans, military officers, they've all arrived at the same conclusion, But they're wrong. They're confused. Or they are right that Donald Trump is a threat to national security. We have a chance to vote. And even though Trump's not on the ballot, we are either endorsing people who rubber stamp everything Trump does or we don't. I say that we don't and we get him the hell out of there. Let's talk about tariff refunds. Donald Trump spent months telling

Americans tariffs are such an easy way to win the economy. And he insisted, I'm going to put these blanket tariffs on countries, the countries will pay the tariffs, the deficit will go down, we will win, win. It's the cornerstone of my economic agenda. The federal government has now been forced to hand back $81 billion in tariffs because a large part of those tariffs that were collected were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. That is not an MSNBC talking point. That is what the government's budget figures now show. Eighty-one billion, according to the Treasury Department has been refunded this fiscal year after the Supreme Court said some of this stuff is against the law. The overwhelming majority of those refunds went out in May and June. We're now finding out

about it. Now, think about what this means. For months, the administration said tariff revenue is proof the policy is working. And we would say, hold on a second, American companies are paying the tariffs. And every time the Trump allies would go, we are finally filling government coffers and forcing other countries to pay. And we would say it's not being paid by the other countries. It's being paid by American companies. And that cost is passed to the consumer. Well, we eventually got to a point where the money has to be given back. The companies that initially paid the tariffs are being given refunds because the court said the legal authority was exceeded by the administration. The companies are getting the refunds. Now, there's two really important aspects to this. First, Trump insisted China, Europe,

whoever is paying the taxes. They're paying the tariffs. That's not how terrorists work. They are paid by the company importing the good. It is then passed along to the consumer through higher prices. So if you as a consumer, if I as a consumer paid more for stuff because of the tariffs and the companies are now getting a refund, where is your refund and where is my refund? Well, the answer is we are not getting them. The companies that imported the goods are getting refunds because they were the ones that paid at the point of customs. That is how the law works. But if you were the family paying more for everyday goods because of the tariffs, you don't get a check in the mail. You paid more. And then also you were paying the refunds. And it is the company that gets the money back. The

government doesn't have its own money. Like when the government refunds someone, it's tax money. It's always our money. So where we find ourselves is that Trump was wrong about who paid the tariffs. He said it was China and other countries, but it was companies and then they passed that to us. We paid the tariffs by paying higher prices. And now we are paying the refunds after the government lost in court. Think about the astonishingly stupid way that this policy is worked out. And the timing really couldn't be worse for Trump because the administration has been saying, hey, look, all this tariff revenue is really helping us narrow the deficit and all this stuff. Well, the refunds are now flowing back out the door. The deficit is widening and we have interest payments on the national debt

surpassing a trillion dollars for the fiscal year. What is remarkable is that Trump doesn't give a damn. The White House is preparing a new round of tariffs. Look, everything old is new again. Tariffs are going to be starting up again with a new round. We're back to war with Iran. It's all happening. again. And this is an economic disaster. It's sort of like a pump and dump of economic policy. You announce sweeping tariffs. Businesses and consumers adapt. Prices move. They charge more markets react. Courts go, it's illegal. Taxpayers then are told, you will now be financing massive refunds. And then the administration goes, what are we going to do? We'll do more tariffs, but with a different legal theory. Economic instability. The supporters who say, oh, Trump,

is a master businessman. Does this seem like a genius scheme? This is impulse governance. And if someone told you this was the business plan of a CEO, investors would go, this is crazy. We can't do this. So the promise was we will all be richer because of tariffs. Instead, many Americans paid more for products because of the tariffs and now we're paying for the refunds out of taxpayer money.

Give me a break, guys. It's time to put a stop to this. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program and the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at joinpackman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. I didn't think this would happen, but after saying last week that I've anecdotal

been hearing from people that they're getting unsubscribed from my YouTube channel. I heard from hundreds, if not over a thousand of you, saying it happened to me. As we get into Friday feedback here, here's just a couple. Joanna wrote in and said, yes, I was subscribed and now I am not. I just subscribed again. This is just one of hundreds or even more examples of this. Barry Corkeran wrote in and said, last. Last week, I found out that I had been unsubscribed.

I'm going to be totally transparent with everybody. I don't know what the hell is going on. YouTube insists this simply cannot happen. I've written to YouTube dozens of times about this. And they go, well, listen, usually people think they're subscribed, but they're not, or they were, but maybe they decided to unsubscribe and forgot at a thousand people. are shocked to discover. I thought I was one of your subscribers and I checked and I'm not. I don't know, guys. I don't have an explanation. Is if there's anybody out there who might

have some idea why this is happening hundreds, over a thousand people going, I was supposed to be subscribed. I thought I was subscribed. Please let me know. Info at David Pakman.com. What do you think is going on? Leave a comment. What do you think is going on? YouTube says it simply doesn't happen. It just can't happen. You're subscribed. You're subscribed. That's it. We do not unsubscribe people. And yet a thousand people wrote to me and went, it happened to me. I don't know what to make of it. Sarah Billings wrote in on Spotify and said the current full retirement age for receiving full social security benefits should be the cap on age for anyone running for president. Currently at 67, that places them at 75. I think the idea here from Sarah is you can't run for president if you're older than

And then if you win, even if you serve two terms, you'd still be 75 by the time you're done. Sarah says, it still seems high to me, but we need a cap. And if you're old enough to retire, then that's what you should be doing, not running the country. What do people think? Is the retirement age as set by Social Security, the age limit that we should put in place for being a candidate for the president of the United States? I am not, I am only asking you ideologically because my reading of the law is it would be very difficult to put in place additional requirements because the Constitution explains who is eligible to run. So let me know your thoughts. Sarah's idea is 67 as it is currently the retirement age

for Social Security. Okay, I got another message from a name that I I don't think I can pronounce it. I'm not going to try, which says, thanks Belgium for saving soccer from Trump and FIFA. You know, one of the incredible things that happened with the World Cup and Donald Trump intervening and encouraging FIFA to reverse the red card decision on Flo Balligan so that he could ultimately play in this knockout match with Belgium. One of the sort of most remarkable things about it is there have been decades. of effort to there has been decades of effort to get people more interested in World

Cup soccer in soccer in general in the United States and it's been happening and the US team was playing relatively well for a team that is not one of the best teams but still certainly in the top quarter of the teams or whatever and then Trump has to get involved and ask for special treatment and reversing decisions from the that were made on the field and all this stuff. And it's just globally embarrassing. This is just one example of people who wrote in and said, this was just a total and complete embarrassment for the United States.

And it turned so many people against the United States, people rooting for the US to lose to Belgium because there were, Trump was involved in overturning on field decisions. Ultimately, the US did lose even with flow balligan playing and it all became sort of moot. But Trump has a way of getting involved in anything and just turn. turning people against the United States with things as biggest foreign policy decisions and with things as relatively small as red card decisions in the World Cup. It's pathetic. On the topic of Graham Platner, Barbara Arbabarb wrote in and said, how do you square it's not true with so I quit? You know, I think that there's two answers to this. My instinct was exactly the same as

barbarous when the allegation that broke the camel's back came out against grand platner and he does this very strange nearly 12 minute video 12 minutes to say you're quitting dude come on 12 minute video where he goes it's all fake what what do you mean it's all fake all of it is fake and i quit my instinct was if you really didn't do any of this stuff if this is really a hit job with false allegation after false allegation, you stay and you fight. That's my instinct. Now, I know that there's another perspective on this. I understand that. I'm not naive. I know that some would say when the power of the establishment is against you and it is determined to destroy you, it doesn't matter if you are innocent of every single one of these allegations, you know that you can't

win. And he got out because of that, not because he did anything wrong. I don't know. What do you think? My instinct is if you really didn't do any of this stuff, you don't just go, well, I quit. It's all fake, but I'm quitting. That's my instinct. Let me know what you think. If you disagree. C Lynn Ring posted on our subreddit about the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show. So you can make money. Is it possible for paying members to access the bonus show through a podcast player or is it only available on YouTube? No, Lynn, I have great news for you. And of course I have, where is my, uh, oh, the bonus show where you want to make money,

everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. No, listen, on a bonus show where we're making money and everybody else who makes money is bad. Of course, you can put the bonus show in your podcast player. So I'll mention this here just because this is a question that comes up for a lot of members. If you are a member, there is a dedicated. podcast feed that you can add to your podcast player.

It does not work on Spotify. Spotify doesn't allow custom feeds, but every other podcast player does. You can add this custom commercial free podcast feed to any podcast app and it'll include the bonus show. So that that is available and take advantage of it. All right. Mostly Sober Wizard asks on the subreddit. How in the world did the GOP sweep Hegseth's allegation?

so easily. If you believe Hegset didn't do anything, you have to believe that a very loyal and conservative-minded Republican operative who was chaperoning Hegseh with her husband and kids back at the hotel, who was warned about him, who had text messages showing she didn't like him at the time, ended up at Heg Seth's hotel extremely drunk and arguing with him seen by witnesses. Then she out of the blue decided sleeping with him was a good idea, the person she was just yelling at while her husband didn't know where she was and was waiting for her. Then she decided to lie about it immediately and get the police involved. The Hagsath defense is actually insane, but they got away with it easily, kind of messed up. I have an explanation for this. Okay. I have this is a

really good question. All of these other people, they have allegations against them and they come up with a response and there's some plausible deniability and they still end up suffering politically. And somehow Pete Hegseth had the most unbelievable defense to the allegations against him. Consensual and this and that. It's all completely unbelievable. And somehow it swept under the rug and he still became Secretary of Defense. How did it happen? How did Hegseth survive and others didn't? And I will tell you how. When Matt Gates was nominated to be the attorney general and immediately the drama exploded, there was a belief by Trump and people at the White House and others.

that the value of continuing to push Gates relative to the bad press it was getting was out of balance. And it just wasn't worth it for Trump to keep pushing that he wasn't going to be able to do it. Child sex crimes allegations and all this stuff. It's really ugly. It's not going to work. With Hegseth, they had already had the sort of sacrificial lamb of Matt Gates. And Trump determined we're just going to keep going. And once it became clear that Trump was going to keep going with Hegseth.

And that at the end of the day, Republicans weren't really going to sabotage his nomination. They just pushed through it. And it's that simple. And it's actually scary because we sort of like to think, I believe, in independent media and in the media in general, that we can really influence what happens in the highest levels of power. When everybody goes, this guy cannot be Secretary of Defense, it's simply not going to happen. And the problem is that they can also control it with their media. And when they all get on the same page and they go, listen, we don't give a damn what the left says. We are simply going to stand behind Pete Hegseth, this completely unbelievable perspective of the story that Hagseth told it, it was consensual, but we were arguing and the husband

and all this different stuff. It just kind of doesn't matter because they've decided we are going to push through it and that is it. And it is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in American media. that's for sure. Greg Benedict wrote in and said, have you ever used a box cutter to cut up your cardboard to put out to the curb? Can you imagine five football fields of hard rubber? Yeah, this is a reference to Trump's claim that someone put a slit in his rubber with a box cutter at the reflecting pool. Trump and others said, we believe that someone took a knife or a box cutter and they cut a slit down 300 yards or something crazy in the reflecting pool. It was never believable. And there's cameras everywhere and they still haven't gotten it on camera.

Okay. But it's a very good reminder. I get one box from Amazon and I'm trying to put it out at the curb with a box cutter and it's completely nuts. How on earth are you going to do 300 yards with a box cutter? It's a very good question, very good question to which I don't have an answer. The answer is it didn't happen. It's just another lie from Trump. Pez Drake on the subreddit writes, we can't let Marco Rubio off the hook. Marco Rubio is the U.S. Secretary of State. American Foreign Relations are all under his umbrella of responsibility. Democrats need to link Rubio and the Iran war deal roar repeatedly and persistently. No one should be discussing this incredibly unpopular war without mentioning his name. And we need to

prompt the press to keep pressing Rubio on Iran on the record. I have. agree. Listen, one of the things that's going on, and this is outlined in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book regime change, one of the things that's going on is that Marco Rubio is rapidly sort of surging as the buttoned-up diplomat who understands how things work. Unlike the naive J.D. Vance, Rubio is a serious individual. And I will grant them. Rubio is a more serious individual than is J.D. Vance. But Rubio has essentially decided what Trump wants I'm going to push for. And that is a disaster. And when he tries to separate. separate himself from Trumpism if he inevitably runs for the nomination in 28, maybe against

J.D. Vance. We need to have the scaffolding to remind people, here's the stuff Rubio did. And whether he believed it or not and he was just following orders, he deserves to be held accountable for it. Excellent argument, excellent email. And I agree completely. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. Remember that you can get the first ever printed copy of my new book, pay attention and the first ever printed copy of my first book, The Echo Machine, these two books together, will go to a lucky person for free. All you need to do is pre-order any version of my book, pay attention. Could be the signed hardcover. Could be the not signed hardcover. Could be the audio book. Could be the Kindle book. Any version. Send your receipt to info at David Pakman.com. And we will put you in the

raffle. Someone, I will, I will personalize them. Someone will, someone will. win both of these first ever printed for copies of the book. People are liking it. People are liking it. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We'll be back on Monday.