The biggest contradictions are being exposed

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For all the talk about hating communism, I want to argue today that Donald Trump actually loves full-blown communism as long as he's the one in control. Lately especially, Donald Trump can't stop calling Democrats communist. It's one of his favorite insults. But I think that there's a deeper irony here. And one of the most interesting pieces I read this week is in the Atlantic. It's written by Jonathan Chait. And it's called what Trump has in common with the far left. And the argument isn't that Trump is secretly like a Marxist or something like that. But it does make the point that a lot of the governing instincts of Trump resemble the worst elements of communist and authoritarian systems. And I think Jonathan Chate is really on to something. I've talked about this before in the context of authoritarianism from the right or left starts to look similar. And I'm going to explain that. Now, just to kind of set the stage earlier this week, Trump even joked about this, about communism and about he would be the greatest communist if you were in the country. Communisms easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin. I'd be as good as anybody. You've got free rent for the rest of your life. What they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months. This and then reading Jonathan Chait's article really got me thinking about the idea that Trump loves communism. Now, he presents it as a joke, but like a lot of Trump's jokes, it's very revealing. When you look at how Donald Trump wants government to operate, his instincts are a lot less capitalistic than many of the Democrats that he accuses of being communist. Now, take just one example. Trump has pushed for the federal government to take ownership stakes in private companies, including this deal where the government would get a 10% equity stake in the company Intel in exchange for about $9 billion in grants. Now, think about that for a second. The federal government. becoming a shareholder in one of the largest technology companies in America. When did that become a conservative principle? When did that become a right wing principle? And there's tons of these examples. Trump has repeatedly demanded that private companies charge the prices he believes they should charge. He's threatened businesses that don't comply. He behaves like large corporations exist to carry out Trump's wishes instead of just doing what's best for business. None of that is free market capitalism. That is government directing economic activity, which is a characteristic of communism. Now, I said it before. I want to just say again. I'm not saying Trump believes in the theories of Karl Marx. He doesn't. This is really not ideological for Trump. Trump is an authoritarian and authoritarianism starts to look similar no matter where it comes from on the political spectrum. They use different rhetoric. The way that they flag their beliefs tend to be sort of dressed up differently. But the governing instincts are very similar.

The leader becomes more important than institutions. Businesses succeed by pleasing those in power. Political opponents become enemies. Courts become obstacles. The press is the enemy. The government increasingly decides how private enterprise should behave. And this is why in the Atlantic piece, the argument is made. that Trump has really blurred the line between public and private, and he acts as though government should control private investment decisions and reward some companies and punish others based on loyalty to him rather than based on neutral rules. Even the approach implicit and to some degree explicit from this administration about how you decide whether a certain merger or acquisition should be approved. Have you been nice to Trump? Have you been doing good reporting on Trump or bad reporting on Trump as he defines it? Are you paying Trump off when he sues you for some bogus reason or are you fighting it in court? That's another very communistic idea. Jonathan Chate's article also notes another thing, which is interesting, which is that Trump regularly praises authoritarian leaders, including those that are communistic, not for their economics, but because they just crush dissent. He loves that Chinese president Xi Jinping rules with an iron fist. And when they find a drug trafficker, they have a one day trial. They're always guilty. And then they execute them. And he has said he loves that. And he loves how the people of China obey Xi Jinping. He loves how the people of North Korea obey Kim Jong-un. Well, what choice do they have? So it's Xi Jinping, it's Viktor Orban, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin. And the common denominator there is not left-wing economics. It's centralized power. brutal authoritarianism. That's what Trump admires. And if Trump had the opportunity to rule that way and it happened to be left-wing authoritarianism in the way of communism, he'd be fine. And so Republicans have painted themselves into a corner with this stuff because they have spent decades arguing Democrats or socialists or even communists. Sometimes they don't know the difference, but let's imagine they do. And the reason they say that the left are socialists or communists is because of support for expanding Medicare. Oh, my God. Give me a break. Stronger labor protections. Oh, the horror of communism. Meanwhile, Trump wants the government to own pieces of private companies. He wants to dictate prices. He wants to personally decide how corporations should behave. Those ideas are way closer to a state directed economy, the likes of which we see in communist countries, than anything that the vast majority of Democrats are proposing. So when Trump next time starts going, these communists, these communists, just remember, people who believe in free market capitalism don't want the government taking ownership stakes in private companies. They don't want the president saying what you need to charge.

They don't want political loyalty determining do you get a merger approved or don't you? Those are not conservative principles. Those are authoritarian principles. And authoritarianism looks really similar, whether it's a red USSR flag or a red MAGA hat. Oh, hold on. I have my make truth great again hat. No matter which optics it comes wrapped in. It's basically the same thing. It's authoritarianism. And you can wrap it up in whatever you want. It is what it is. And Trump is certainly more ideologically communistic in reality than a lot of the people that he's criticizing. Donald Trump appears to have lost orientation to time and place. This is really weird. This is one of those moments where Trump seems to be arguing with a conversation that everybody has moved on from. Let me explain. Out of nowhere, Trump gets on his favorite platform, Truth Social. Truth Central. Exactly. And starts attacking California Governor Gavin Newsom over an interview from months ago. Gavin Newsom's recent career threatening interview where he said he can't read a speech. He was a stupid person, but smarter than the people in the room, racist. has mental incapacity, difficulty, and various other ailments, may be the worst interview given by a professional politician in 100 years. No politician has ever made such statements and survived. New scum is in big trouble when he openly admits that Kamala Harris is smarter than he is. President Donald J. Trump. What is he talking about? Well, as usual, Trump seems to have completely lost orientation to time and place. Months ago during his book tour, California governor Gavin Newsom said, hey, you know what? I struggle with dyslexia. I struggle to read a speech. I struggle to read a book. And Trump attacked him then. And what is really weird is that Trump is acting like this is a recent interview. It was months ago. It was debated, analyzed. Gavin Newsom was asked so many times about it. And Trump is all of a sudden back. He's acting like it happened yesterday. And this is a really weird, concerning and familiar pattern. Someone shows Trump an old clip, an old article, an old comment. And he treats it like breaking news. And then his supporters are expected to join him in relitigating all of the stuff that most of us have already moved on from. Now, the substance of the attack, I think is also interesting, quite frankly. Trump is obsessed. with Gavin Newsom's intelligence. Can he read a speech? His mental incapacity. And that has a very non-random tinge to it. These are the issues Trump is dealing with. Trump is the one whose intelligence has been questioned. Trump's the one who seems to struggle to read. Trump is the one who just earlier this week said the Islamic Republic of Japan sent 111 missiles.

at an aircraft carrier of ours and referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky goes, anybody want to ask President Vladimir Putin a question? And we see it again and again and again. Trump said this week he was president three times. He loses his train of thought. He's being helped around by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and he can't walk in a straight line. He's going left right. And instead of addressing those concerns, he projects those concerns onto somebody else. And it's Gavin Newsom. Now, he's also, by the way. obsessed with Gavin Newsom. During a speech this week, he goes, I wish Gavin Newsom would call me. He really should call me to help deal with crime in California. Crime, which is, by the way, declining in California. He blames Gavin Newsom for stuff related to water and dumping water, forests, and you got to rake the forest. He's digging up months old interviews to keep talking about Gavin Newsom. Now, I think that this is maybe the most important kind of. tell about what's going on. Presidents try to shape public conversation around their agenda, their successes, and challenges to the country that they can fix. Trump just gravitates to personal grievances and feuds and they never expire. This is months old. And if he feels slighted by someone and he doesn't feel like he's gotten the best of them yet, the calendar doesn't matter and he'll come right back to it. So this is a very strange post. Nothing happened with Governor Gavin Newsom that required a response. There was no new interview. There was no new controversy. There was new development. It was, as I like to say, apropos of nothing. Trump decided to open a file that had been closed for months. And so the broader question is, what is Trump's attention focused on? There are no shortage of real pressing issues here. The affordability crisis. The optional war with Iran. Lack of access to health care. Failed promises to reduce the cost of housing. All of this stuff. And Trump is. flying around switching planes. He goes from Turkey to London on the new plan on the old plane. And then he gets off and switches planes in London to fly back on the Qatari plane. He's talking about a reflecting pool and a fountain that got completely brown water coming out of it in D.C. And now he's settling scores over stale interviews and reviving stories that seem to come from personal desperation to seem cooler or smarter or more attractive or taller than Gavin Newsom. It says a lot about what Trump's thinking about.

And none of it is doing a damn thing to improve the day to day life of the average American. That's the part that these Republicans really need to be punished for in November. If you Google yourself, you are probably going to find things you would rather not have there like your addresses, past and present, phone numbers, relatives, jobs you've had, maybe a profile on some site you've never heard of. And the problem is that that can become the public version of you that an employer sees, a colleague or a client, your landlord, your neighbor, maybe somebody you're dating. Our sponsor, Incogni. will help you scrub your digital footprint because Incogni removes your personal information from all of the most notorious databases, the people search sites, the directories, the commercial data broker lists. And Incogni will automatically send removal requests to hundreds of these sites and they'll just keep following up. If your data comes back, they'll get it removed again. Now, my favorite feature is custom removals with the Unlimited Plan. If you find your information anywhere online, even in sites not already in their database, you paste the link into incogny, they will work to get that taken down. You control what people find when they look you up instead of letting these random databases and outdated listings and search results introduce you first. Get 60% off an annual plan at incogny.com slash Pacman. With the code Pacman, the link is in the description. My friends, I need your help today. Very quickly, I've mentioned before I wrote a new book. The book is called Pay Attention. The first copy ever is on my shelf behind me. This book really exposes how the digital platforms and the algorithms work to push stuff that is emotionally salient, but not necessarily true into all of our feeds. If you care about. how to take control of your experience on these platforms. If you care about stopping the right from using these algorithms to their advantage, this is a must read. We are in a pre-order campaign right now. The pre-order campaign determines does Barnes & Noble put the book in their stores? Do they put one copy in each store or do they put five or six copies in each store? Does anyone important? Review the book. All of this stuff depends on the pre-order campaign. So I'm asking for you to consider pre-ordering this book. If you go to David Pakman.com slash attention, you'll see that there are a limited number of signed copies available from booksmith. You can get the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You can get it from book shop. You can call any local bookstore and say, hey, I'd like to pre-order this book. You can also get the book in audiobook or e-book versions. No matter which version you get.

If you would like me to send you this specific copy of the book, the one that's on the shelf is the first ever printed copy copy number one. I will do that for one lucky person. If you want to be in that raffle after you pre-order the book, any version, send a screenshot of your order receipt to info at david packman.com. On the day the book comes out, we'll randomly pick a winner. I will dedicate this book and the first ever copy of the echo machine. We have copy number one of pay attention and copy number one of the echo machine. I will sign and dedicate both and ship them to you with peace, love and appreciation. We need your help. We're approaching our first 2,000 pre-orders. Let's do it. And let's also keep an eye out for whether the Trump administration again tries to get my book pulled from Amazon. That's David packman.com slash attention. Sometimes one question. can tell you so much more than 12 press conferences. And that is exactly what happened when a Danish reporter confronted the NATO secretary general Mark Rutte to his face over his pathetic relationship with Donald Trump. Now, if you've watched this show, we've been very critical of Mark Rutte lately. Not because I think the, the UN is bad or I'm against diplomacy or whatever. It's because Ruda is going. well beyond being diplomatic into what looks like flattery and sucking up to Donald Trump. Because over and over again, I've played videos of Ruda laughing along with Trump, not challenging him, heaping praise onto him, placating him, even as Trump threatens America's allies, even as Trump. again threatens a fellow NATO country Denmark about taking Greenland. And Mark Rutte is supposed to lead that alliance. It has been painfully uncomfortable to watch. And finally, someone asked an obvious question. A Danish reporter looks him in the eye and he goes, you sit next to Trump and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have you lost self-respect when you sit there and say nothing? This is called journalism, folks. We need our press doing this. Rasmus Renebore from the Danish news agency. Yes. I. Dennis news agency Ritzau. Mark, you sit next to Donald Trump in moments where he talks about conquering Greenland, talks about lashing out at allies like Spain, starting trade wars. Things that it doesn't seem like the old Margoode would approve of. Does this have any effect on your self-respect when you sit next to him like that and say nothing? You know. Do you feel like crap about yourself when you do? What I always do is acknowledge when praise is Jew. And I think we should praise Donald Trump for the fact that NATO is so much stronger. Of course, it has to do with the Russian threat. It has to do. If NATO is stronger, it's despite Trump, not because of Trump. Trump hates NATO.

and he has no respect for it. With the war in Ukraine, but it's very much also has to do with President Trump delivering now what since Eisenhower, the United States tried to achieve equalizing spending between the US and Europe. And it makes Europe stronger. It makes Europe more relevant for the United States as a partner. So that is the transformative character of this summit, of what happened in the Hague, the implementation since the Hague, this summit as a point in time where we take stock, and I think that is extremely important. And when it comes to... Greenland, I already explained. We had the meeting in Davos. And I said, I agree with you when it comes to Russia, when it comes to China, gaining access to the high north. But let's do this together. We have NATO for this. Let's work together on this. This is exactly what we are doing. So listen. I'm going to give you two analyses here. Like I'll give you the initial analysis and then I'll give you the differential diagnosis on this, which is that actually Ruda knows exactly what he's doing with Trump. So first analysis. The question is an example of what journalism is supposed to look like. There's no five-minute setup. There's no placating the person, sucking up to the person you're about to ask a question to. No opportunity to dodge before the question is even finished. It's a direct question about accountability. Notice something about the wording. The reporter doesn't just ask whether Ruda disagrees with Trump. He says, what is this do to you? What does this do to yourself respect? And I think that that's an important question because this isn't really about policy disagreements. It's a guy who's built a reputation as an independent European leader who seems unwilling to push back at Trump. Trump talks about Greenland taking it. He threatens NATO allies with tariffs and attacks Spain and just injects chaos into the whole thing. And the reporter is essentially asking what the hell happened to you? Where is the Mark Rutte? who would have stood up for our European allies instead of smiling through Trump's attacks. And I think that that's a harder question for Ruda to get out from under. Now, there's another interpretation here, which is, you know what? Ruda appears to be laying down like a doormat for Trump. But the reality of what's going on is that he's playing the long game. And sometimes diplomacy requires swallowing your pride. And what Ruda has been able to do. is to suck up to Trump just enough that Trump's hostility to NATO is diminished. And that that is actually something that should be praised and cheered. I am not completely averse to that interpretation. And it is true that Ruda has kept Trump engaged by virtue of how he has handled it. But it does go too far into sucking up. And especially when Trump is talking about ideas that would have been considered, I mean, just outrageous a few years ago. If you're the head of NATO, I would argue your job isn't simply to keep Donald Trump happy. You have to represent an alliance of democratic countries. And the security of those countries does depend on mutual trust. And if one member threatens another member. or one member talks about expanding territory against allies, there is a reasonable expectation that the leader of the alliance should project at least some moral clarity, which is, hey, you can't do that. And what we've seen from Rhoda is silence or sometimes compliments or sometimes awkward laughter. So on the one hand, it is true that may be the best way to manage Trump.

is to suck up a little bit and to defer to Trump and keep him engaged so he doesn't screw NATO. But on the other hand, when we're talking about taking Greenland and Spain is horrible and who cares what the Danish have to say about Denmark, when all of that stuff happens and nothing is said, where we end up is wondering, have powerful people really become so afraid of upsetting Donald Trump that they've stopped defending the values they are supposed to represent. And so managing Trump, I think that that's great. Everybody's figuring out how to try to manage Trump. Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Iran is managing Trump, NATO allies. Everybody's managing Trump. Mark Rutte, JD Vance, everybody. But there is a sort of goes too far. And there is a reality here that what Donald Trump has done with regard to NATO and how he brings his bully tactics and Ruda praises him often. It is a little too much. And the Danish journalist is doing what journalists are supposed to do. And we need more of that in the United States. One other thing. You might have noticed that Mark Rutte doesn't go, that's such a nasty question. Who are you with? Oh, that's a failing publication. In Europe, and I can certainly speak to an Argentina because I watch a lot of Argentinian news, people expect that journalists are going to do journalism and ask them hard questions. And you don't turn every hard question into a personal attack. That's also a notable thing from Mark Rutte. And he, I guess, gets credit for that. That's the expectation. Trump would have flipped out if he got a question like this. But it's going a little too far with the placating of Donald Trump. You know how right wingers love to complain about the mainstream media. Every once in a while, the mainstream media hands them a stupid error, an unforced error. And CNN just did exactly that. CNN was doing a segment about the ongoing nearly month long mystery surrounding Mitch McConnell's condition. Is he dead? Is he on life support? Is he unconscious? And in the aftermath of questions being raised by this show and others about where the hell is Mitch McConnell, a bunch of people started coming out going, oh, I spoke to him for 20 minutes. I spoke to him for 20 minutes. And CNN aired a montage. And they included. such a message from congressman jack kimball there is one problem congressman jack kimball doesn't exist jack kimball is a very well-known satire account on social media it's a joke it's a parody

It's been around for years. And CNN puts the quote up on TV as if it came from a real member of Congress. Take a look at this. You have a lot of Senate Republicans coming out. We're going to just show some on screen, Isaac, all saying, I talked to him. I talked to him for 20 minutes. I talked to him for 45 minutes. And if we pause it now, what you see is that the lower left quote is from Jack Kimball saying, I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior senator from Kentucky. He's still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 45 minutes. Except that guy doesn't exist. We're hearing these pundits talk not just about his potential health, but what they think the issue is, a special election deadline. Yeah. And like, Audie, if you were, hadn't been on air for three weeks and there was no answers where you had gone, probably CNN would be interested to know what was going on with you. The quote they put up from Jack Kimball spending 45 minutes with Mitch McConnell is impossible because Jack Kimball doesn't exist. And so this wasn't, we have an anonymous source. This wasn't, you know, an AI deep fake or something like that. There was no sophistication to a disinformation campaign. It's a parody account that countless political reporters have known about for years. Now, mistakes happen. Mistakes happen. Every newsroom makes mistakes. And the important question is less about whether errors occur. It's how do organizations respond? What processes do they have? But this is the kind of mistake that damages credibility because it's so easily preventable. Somebody should have verified the source. It could be as simple as, wait, which state does Jack Kimball represent? Some producer could have asked that. Someone should have noticed, oh, there's no member of Congress by this name. And it would have been what, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds to fact check this. And instead somehow it makes it all the way onto a national cable news broadcast. And it becomes bigger than just one mistake because of the environment we're in. I write about in my book, we live in an environment. where misinformation spreads very quickly. AI makes really convincing fake content of all kinds, video, audio, etc. Political actors accuse legitimate journalists of being fake news and we're dealing with that. News organizations have to be more careful than they've ever had to be. And when they make errors like this, they give critics a gift. People spend all day trying to undermine trust in journalism. And now they don't need to invent examples because they were handed one. Now, I don't want to blow this out of the water and say that it's more than it is. I don't believe this was evidence of bias. I don't believe it was part of a grand conspiracy of something CNN plotted to do. It's pretty clearly just a simple failure in the editorial process. And these are two different things. A lot of viewers, though, don't distinguish between an honest mistake. and indicative of systemic bias. They see a major news network quoting a fictional congressman as though he's real. And it's embarrassing and it's completely avoidable. And it certainly shouldn't happen again. But let's not be handing them completely unforced opportunities to go see. This is what we're talking about about why you can't trust anybody.

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 sheath's 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 sheath underwear.com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 20% off your entire order. The link is in the description. There's a really clear pattern in Donald Trump's presidency that I want to talk about with you today. And it's really bigger than any one issue. Like sometimes it might apply to the economy. Sometimes it might apply to foreign policy or trade or immigration or energy. But we have this script that keeps repeating itself. And it basically goes like this. Trump declares complete and total victory on an issue. He takes a victory lap. Allies react as if it's real. Markets react as if it's real. People react as if it's real. And then somehow reality catches up. And then we're right back to where we started with less credibility and the impression that Trump is even more weakened than we thought. Now, I think that what happened with Iran this week is kind of the perfect example. A few weeks ago, Trump is celebrating that he had ended the war again for like the 40th time, but this time for real. We've got a historic agreement, peace negotiations for 60 days, a beautiful letter that everybody signs. It's really mission accomplished this time. Markets react. Everybody says he did it. Now, as a reminder, Trump has this week said the ceasefire is done. He even said that the Iranians are scum. They're sick people. They're cuckoo. Here is that clip from earlier this week. It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. Gunzo. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. And they're vicious violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon that use it as far as I'm concerned, it's over. I'll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate their good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars. We make a deal. And they, if I make a deal with him, we have a deal and he goes out, he talks. We make a deal. Everyone's agreed. No nuclear weapon. We make a deal. They go outside and talk to the press. They say, we never even talked about it. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo.

As far as I'm concerned, it's over. All right. So it's over as far as Trump says. So we then get to the defining characteristics of Trump's presidency. And that clip is a reminder. The defining characteristic is not solving problems. It's declaring them solved. And in fact, it's bigger. It's during the campaign campaigning on I'm the only person who can solve these problems and I will. And then it's declaring them solved. And then it's they actually aren't solved and it causes a huge problem for him. Now go back for a moment just to stick with Iran. Look at what right wing media spent the last month telling viewers. These are screenshots from Fox. Trump promises imminent peace deal with Iran. Friday, Iran deal expected to be signed. Trump, I have to make a deal with Iran. Trump touts progress in Iran nuclear negotiations. This is what Trump wants. This is why Trump claims that he has succeeded in all of these ways because the headlines become the message. The problem has been solved and now we can move on. Except again with so many issues, but sticking with Iran here, the problem isn't really solved. And that's why it keeps happening again and again. there's a reality that is sort of like indifferent to the political messaging at some point reality shows up when it does it all breaks the stock market declines precipitously like it did on wednesday when they realized damn this war is fully back on and think about how many stories we've covered like that Trump has said inflation is fixed and then inflation creeps up. And then he says inflation is fixed and then inflation creeps up. And now it's at the highest point. It's been in three years. Prices keep going up even though said Trump said they would go down. The tariff scheme was going to make America very rich. And instead, it made markets panic and it made people's buying power decline. And then we are told, well, the labor market is going to boom under Donald Trump. But we looked at the labor participation rate earlier this week. And it's actually been moving down when Trump promised that it was going to go up. Honestly, even on some of these that we don't want him to succeed, like Trump promised these massive deportations 3,000 a day or whatever. And it turns out that there aren't 3,000 so-called criminal illegals, Trump's word, not mine, to deport every single day, not anywhere close to that. And so they're not deporting that number of people and also they're deporting people that don't fit the description that Donald Trump created. So we end up with this combination of administrative failures, policy failures, PR failures.

And in some cases, chaotic legal fights that sort of undermine Trump's promises. Trump promised energy dominance. We just last week were having rolling blackouts and power shortages in the midst of the heat wave because Trump didn't do any damn thing. And then, of course, Trump ended the Iran war 40 times and we're bombing Iran again. So I don't even know that the point here is so much ideological. It's a governance point. It's real governance doesn't mean you gave a speech or you made an announcement. And also, by the way, real governance isn't signing executive orders. You can get stuff done by executive order, but the order itself is basically a memo. It's I would like someone to do a thing. Certainly, truth social posts are not governance. And what continues to be a sort of a drag on Trump is that the key is we've announced an agreement. We have to keep the agreement alive. They're not doing that. We have said something that if true will stabilize markets, but it's not working because it turns out it wasn't actually true. It's the implementation. That's the work and this administration can't do it. Trump loves declaring victory. The slow boring work that you need in order to make the victory permanent doesn't really work so well. Infrastructure Week became the biggest joke. And so did the new healthcare plan, which was always two weeks away because they weren't really getting anything done. And ultimately, people realized that and we're seeing the same movie with foreign policy. Mission accomplished until it wasn't. Peace until it wasn't. War over until it was back on. When Trump prematurely declares victory, he sets expectations. He's saying, I fixed it. When the problem comes back, people aren't comparing reality to perfection. They start comparing reality just to what Trump said reality was. That's really difficult. And so when voters go to the polls in November and they'll go sooner if they're voting earlier or by mail, they'll say, why does this keep happening? Why are the promises all failing? And the defining story of Trump's second term isn't so much policy failures. It's that the declared successes are falling apart well before they are finished and it is going to have. electoral consequences in November for Republicans. It's going to be very, very bad. You know the old saying it's always the ones you most expect. I don't think that's the saying, but that's the way I say it. The people who spend years screaming, everybody else is cheating are often the ones who end up having the problem themselves. Now, I'm talking about voter fraud.

For years, Republicans have insisted we have a major voter fraud problem in the United States. We need investigations and special prosecutors and task forces and tip lines and forensic analyses of whether there are barbecue stains on ballots and certainly prosecutions and all of this stuff. We finally found somebody worth investigating. The problem is he's one of the people leading the investigations. I'm talking about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's currently the Republican nominee to be senator representing Texas. He has built a lot of his career on I will crack down on voter fraud, voter fraud that we never had evidence for. And now it seems as though he has violated Texas election law. And it is. It's a perfect irony. Back in February, Ken Paxton said, we have a voter fraud tip line. And my office is going to stop at nothing to uncover illegal voting. And he even published guidance reminding Texans. You have to register to vote at the address where you really live. Remember, it's illegal if you misrepresent your residence on voter registration records. Now, fast forward a few months. And there's an investigation by by ProPublica and by the Texas Tribune And it turns out that Ken Paxton has voted in six elections using the address of the home he shared with his now estranged wife, even though according to court filings, he moved out years ago. Uh-oh. Investigators also linked him to another home in a completely different county where the evidence points to him actually living. Now, let's not take this out of context. I think it's important to understand how voter registration works because Republicans love to mislead people with this stuff. I want to be sort of forthright about it. I've said before, I'm sure, I'm pretty sure I've been registered in two places before. And the reason was when I lived in a place, I registered. And then I moved and I registered at my new address. I didn't deregister at the old one. Eventually, the system catches up. But there was a period where I'm sure I was registered in both places. Tiffany Trump, Trump's daughter. Same thing happened. She moved. She was registered in both both places. States don't always communicate perfectly. Records don't always line up. Whatever. That is not voter fraud. The question is, did I vote twice? As long as you vote once where you correctly currently live. The fact that I'm registered at the old address doesn't really make a difference. That's the law. Now, Republicans have spent years waving around these statistics of people registered in multiple places as if that proves that anybody's committing fraud. That is not against the law. What you have to do is vote where you really live. And there's usually ordinary explanations for a lot of this stuff. That's why election experts keep finding that intentional voter fraud is really rare.

The Ken Paxton story is different because this isn't an old registration that didn't get cleaned up. The allegation is he moved from an address. where multiple election lawyers believe he was no longer legally residing, and he was still voting under that address. Now, he has not been charged with a crime. He's not going to. His campaign is like, this is false reporting. It's politically motivated reporting. Politically motivated can still be true, but they're saying it's false and politically motivated. And lawyers are kind of muddying it up by going, oh. Residency cases are very complicated. If someone temporarily leaves but intends to return, you can keep voting out of that address. Maybe Ken Paxton thought he would reconcile with his wife or whatever. Intent does matter in these situations. But unlike a lot of Republican politicians, I think that nuance also matters. Let's not pretend. that a voter registration issue is criminal the way Republicans love to do when they try to pin it on Democrats paperwork issues aren't fraud they might be but they don't have to be and not every administrative mistake means an election was stolen I've been saying that for years they are huge hypocrites but then let's take it a step further Ken Paxton isn't a random voter He's the Attorney General of Texas. He's the chief law enforcement prosecuting the chief law enforcement office, I guess you would say, prosecuting election fraud. And he says to Texans, we have zero tolerance here for people violating election laws. And he created the tip line. And now the election law experts are saying the laws should apply to him. And he seems to have done something that is not allowed. Now, my view is. investigate everything, prosecute when appropriate, and then punish appropriately if people are guilty. But when you have Ken Paxton under scrutiny, you know that that's not the conversation. Suddenly, nuance, intent, complicated, shades of gray. And they're kind of right. But they need to apply it all the time instead of going Democrats are out there. Dead people are voting. Well, are they? Or did some people correctly submit an absentee ballot and then die by election day or simply die at some point later? And they're going back and going they're dead. Well, they're dead now. Were they dead then? Years pretending that none of that detail matters, accusing everyone and never looking at themselves. So I don't think the lesson here is really about Ken Paxton. I think the lesson is a lot of the people spending the time insisting fraud is everywhere should just make sure they're following the rules themselves. Big surprise, Ken Paxton is not.

The David Pakman Show is an audience-supported program 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. There's a good Reddit post explaining like the second layer of the reflecting pool grift, and it actually has come true. I'm Pink Snail wrote on the subreddit. David hasn't realized the second reflecting pool grift. Delamination of the liner because of workmanship or material defect is a warranty claim. Vandalism is not. And Trump's friends are going to get paid again. Well, it's happening. Doug Burgum and others have started to say, well, listen, the people who did the reflecting pool did a phenomenal job. Why wouldn't we get them back in to redo it now that it's been vandalized? Of course we would. And indeed, another one of these sort of little predictions ends up coming true. I wish that the American people could just get beyond the partisanship of if Trump does it, it's okay. And just go listen. This is a corrupt scam. That's it. It's just this is a corrupt scam. And we're not going to stand for it. And we're going to protest. And it's got to stop. If you're going to do this, it needs to go through a proper proposal process. And that's just it. And with every passing day. it becomes a bigger and bigger story. Now, some of you, and I think there might even be a message coming up here as we get into Friday feedback, remembering that you can always email me info at David Pakman.com. If you have anything you'd like included in Friday feedback, I believe someone also brings up that there's this sort of like, we're in a war. Why is there so much talk of the reflecting pool as if this is the media's doing? This is Trump's doing. Trump doesn't like being president in the sense that he doesn't actually like dealing with stuff. He doesn't like to read. He doesn't have to think about competing interests and he just wants to decide and move on to stuff he's more entertained by. And the stuff he's more entertained by is. The reflecting pool. It's the White House ballroom. It's whatever statue he's looking at or gluing gold appliquees to the Oval Office as Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write about in their book. That's what he cares about. And the reason that there's so much discussion of the reflecting pool is because so much of Trump's time is focused on the reflecting pool. All right. And speaking of which JL 3269 wrote in and said, don't bother me with Iran. I have a pool to take care of. This is at the end of the day, Trump's attitude. And the reporting about the first year plus of Trump's second term is that he doesn't want to be bothered with this stuff.

And in regime change the book, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, I just finished the book, have a lot of specific examples of Trump doesn't have the patience nor the interests nor the attention span in dealing with what presidents need to deal with. It's not a good fit of a job for him is the way that I would be able to say it. Now, maybe something is turning at the national level. Dirty 30. posted on YouTube, quote, I live in Ohio and a few years back, you couldn't go into the country without seeing Trump flags everywhere. I rarely see them now. You know, there's this campaign adage. Law and signs don't vote people do. And I would love to believe that rural Ohio is turning on Trump as evidenced by not seeing as many Trump flags. But the truth is some Trump flags are more campaign items and there's no campaign. So some people took them down for that reason. And also, even the people, Trump's not on the ballot in November. And as I've said before, even people who say, I don't like Trump doing this. I don't like Trump doing that. They are still by and large going to vote to reelect their Republican representative or reelect their Republican senator. And it's important for us to effectively communicate, even if you like your rep or your senator. almost certainly with like five exceptions, they are voting to rubber stamp everything that Donald Trump is doing. And you are voting for Trump by voting for them because you're giving Trump a blank check. And maybe some people would be convinced by that. Call Me Miss Cleo said, I religiously follow your podcast instead of going to church. Listen, I don't know if that's a joke. I can't tell. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I believe that it is important for people to have whatever relationship with whatever house of worship they find to be appropriate. The podcast does not have to be a replacement for House of Worship. The podcast is certainly not a religion. In fact, one of the big differences between this show and what many religions teach is religions teach, we have the answers because we have the religious texts. You don't need to go and look anywhere else. What I teach and what I preach, for lack of a better term, is I'll give you my best assessment based on the information I have. And I encourage you to find other sources, to fact check me, to write to me and tell me, David, you got this thing wrong. That is also a big difference between the ideology espoused on this show and that that comes from MAGA. MAGA and Trump himself say, don't believe your eyes and ears. Believe me. Only I can fix it.

I'm the person to solve the problems. Nobody else can do it. I'm the ultimate authority. I'm the ultimate source of intelligence. And I go, listen, I'm one person trying to figure things out along with you. Let's all work together to figure it out. Don't just take my word for it. Hopefully trust, but go and verify. And that is cults don't tend to like that. Cults tend to like a much more hardcore authoritarian ideology, the likes of Trump. Okay, Don Muir says, David, you should ask people to double check they are subscribed for sure. I have been subscribed to you for a year. And when I just checked it, it shows I need to subscribe. So this is on YouTube. Listen, this really pisses me off. This is one of the biggest sources of frustration. For so long, people write in and they go, I was subscribed. I know I was. I went and looked and I wasn't subscribed all of a sudden. And I could again subscribe to your channel. I bring this to YouTube every six months. And I have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Often I'm told that workflow doesn't reflect the programming of the website. And I go, damn right. It doesn't. But people tell me it's happening. Sometimes I'm told, David, these people are just confused. They thought they were subscribed. They probably liked the video of yours and they got some recommendations in their algorithm. They never subscribed. And then they went to check. And of course, they're not subscribed because they never did. They are confused. But I get thousands of messages like this from people saying, I was subscribed and all of a sudden I'm not. And the latest. answer I've gotten from YouTube is we're going to address this in a forthcoming workshop, a workshop that has reportedly been in the works for months. I don't have an answer. All I know is as long as I've been doing this, I've gotten thousands of emails. And for every person that writes in, there's a hundred more that don't with the same issue from people who are convinced they were subscribed to my channel for a long time. And all of a sudden, they are not. I don't know what else to say. It's just happening too frequently. All right. Combo nickel writes in and says David is getting swole. I usually listen to the podcast downloading it on my phone. So I don't often see David on YouTube. David has 100% put on 10 or more pounds of muscle since I last saw him on YouTube several months ago. I see you, David. You know, I think I've put on like four pounds of muscle. 10. 10 is a little bit of an exaggeration. I think four pounds of muscle. And some people have noticed, I got to go up a size on my t-shirts. I really appreciate everybody who is so closely following. all of this, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know anything about 10 pounds of muscle. And on the subreddit, Richard Rowe says John Stamos is apparently a fan. On a lighter bit of news, dude just briefly mentioned in passing that Pacman was one of his favorites on the latest love it or leave it episode, completely random and unexpected, not sure about the crossover audience for Pod Save America and the Pacman show.

or if people here are too young to even care about or know who stay most is yes so when that happened i'm in touch with more what we might call celebrity types than I talk about on the show because out of respect for them they're not all publicly political and I wouldn't want to out someone if someone has a business for example that depends on not being political if they're not willing to say political stuff publicly then I don't out them But Stamos is someone who I've been in touch with for a while. And it was awesome to hear him say that this show is one of his favorites on the lover or leave it episode. I think that was great. A bunch of people saw it. Very cool. And I did when I moved to the United States one of the shows that I would watch. was, well, I actually would watch a lot of different shows, including the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And I would watch. I liked Family Matters. And what else did I watch? All sorts of different shows. In any case, Full House was one of those shows. And so I grew up watching Stamos as Uncle Jesse. And it was great to hear that he is a fan of the show. Jason wrote, Pacman can have the last meaningful interview with Trump. While Susie Wiles won't allow it, Trump is very desperate for approval from the left. He would definitely love to meet with the handsome and articulate David Pacman to try out his charms on him. Even if Pacman is at only 75% his normal normal composure, the interview will be very revealing. I recommend David start with Pacman being like Pac-Man in the 80s video game and how that means people underestimate him, pure gold. Go slow, though, build trust like swan did. Yeah, listen, I would gladly interview Trump at any time. I would fly to D.C. take the train, whatever. I would get there or wherever Trump is and do an interview. And I would be shocked if that is something the White House would ever go for, but I would treat him fairly. I would ask substantive questions. And I welcome the opportunity to interview Donald Trump. Don't expect it to happen, but I'm ready if he is. Get your emails in. Info at David Pakman.com. If you have anything to say, remember that we are now in the pre-order phase for the David Pakman show for the latest book, the David Pakman book, pay attention, which is now on my shelf behind me.

I will also be signing and giving away this specific book. This is the first copy ever printed to a random buyer of the book. All formats qualify. If you would like this book, pre-order the Kindle version at David Pakman.com slash attention. Pre-order the audio book. Pre-order the hardcover book. Pre-order a signed copy. Email me info at david packman.com and say book raffle, provide your proof of purchase. And on the day that the book comes out, we will pick someone. I will dedicate this cut book and the number one copy of my first book, The Echo Machine, and send both through the mail to the winner. Very exciting stuff. We will see you on the bonus show.