The meltdowns will continue until the morale improves

Hey Washington, D.C. Class it up with crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new Faye footwear? Step into a local crock store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest crock store today. Donald Trump's overseas trip has turned into a political nightmare. We are going to look at multiple viral moments, including referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky as Vladimir Putin, claiming Japan launched 111 missiles and appearing to be guided around by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This stuff is going gigaviral. And this is the stuff that Republicans said, oh, if Biden looks the wrong direction, we've got a problem. We are going to dive into it. I will be speaking with the authors of the new book regime change, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. I think it'll be a very interesting conversation. Plus, the biggest foreign policy victory of this administration, ending the war in Iran 40 times, has imploded again as the ceasefire is over. The US is striking and Trump says forget about it. And finally, Fox News suddenly discovers that politicians accused of serious misconduct shouldn't hold office. But if they are saying that about Graham Platner now, where were they when it was Trump with dozens of allegations against him? What a program today.

Fox News hosts and guests accidentally describe Donald Trump when saying that Graham Platner has no business being an elected official in the United States. Let's discuss. You know, one of the kind of strangest things about American politics is watching people suddenly discover principles that they spent a decade abandoning. Take a look at this discussion on Fox News between Kelly Ann Conway, longtime Trump advisor and supporter and Republican Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. goes, this guy is a predator. You don't want him anywhere near power. Of course, he's talking about Graham Platner, but why doesn't that apply to Trump? And Kelly Ann Conway says, look, he's accused of abuse and assault and of disparaging our military. This is not okay. And of course, she's talking about Graham Platner. But it could also describe Donald Trump. Let's take a look at this and see if we can parse it. Knows that this guy is just, he's a predator. He is a predator and you don't want him anywhere near power. These allegations of abuse and assault. disparaging our military, calling them fat, you deserve to die, said to one of our troops and the Nazi tattoo, it just goes on and on. And it never seemed enough for your colleagues across the aisle in the Democratic Party to chuck this guy until the latest rounds of allegations, thereby showing Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that for the Democrats, they don't believe all women. They chuck that to the side when you're talking about a swing state. Listen, they don't believe all women. I know that there are some people out there gallivanting on X and TikTok and different platforms going. I don't believe the Graham Platner accusers, even though I believe all the Trump accusers because of some narrow weird thing. Listen, we believe women. Okay. When these two Conway and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. go, you don't want him anywhere near power. They should chuck this guy. If we're talking about the allegations against Graham Platner, I agree with the principle. I don't think this guy is a good candidate. I think he's got to drop out. I think he will drop out. I don't think he should be anywhere near political power. He has decades of documented poor judgment and disgusting statements and things that he said and now very serious allegations. I thought he wasn't being honest with me during our interview. That's all true. That's easy to say. Public officials accused of serious abuse deserve serious scrutiny. No argument. But where this becomes impossible to listen to with a straight face is that the people saying this, Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kelly Ann Conway, they have spent a decade defending Donald Trump, not despite the allegations against him. After the allegations against him, they go, this is the guy that we want. He's phenomenal. Trump accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women over many years, found civilly liable by a jury for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and a judge later said, New York law uses the label sexual abuse rather than rape, but the actions certainly describe rape. Republicans knew all of it.

And they nominated him again. And they nominated him again. And tens of millions of Americans voted for him three times. And they defend him and defend him. So I have a little bit of trouble taking lectures from these people about standards. Take a look at this next clip. Here's Congressman Brandon Gill speaking to Kelly Ann Conway going they didn't seem to have a problem with allegations from multiple women. You guys had no problem with allegations for multiple women about Trump. The difference is I think Graham Platner is going to be forced out. Trump was made president twice. Congressman, you can take this in so many different directions. I am completely disgusted with the Democratic Party and this candidate, their nominee. But I am worried for the country. If they're going to continue to stand by their men until they can't any longer, we may end up with bad candidates, bad office holders. Until it's too late, they'll already be there. Kind of like with Trump right now. Well, the key is what you just said there, which is they're standing by him until they don't believe that they can any longer. In other words, Democrats, to your point, had no problem with the Nazi tattoo that was on his chest. By the way, I don't have any friends who have Nazi tattoos on their chest, and I don't think that most Americans either. You have to go looking for somebody who has a Nazi tattoo on their chest. They didn't have a problem with that. They didn't have any problem with multiple credible allegations of abuse from multiple women until very recently. until we find out that the latest woman. You guys don't even have a problem with multiple credible allegations of abuse against Trump now. Who's made credible allegations is left wing politically. They had no problem before. They have had no problem with that really unsavory, just frankly, disgusting things that he's written on all kinds of different social media platforms, the messaging apps that he had been on that predators tend to frequent. They had no problem with any of that. What they have a problem with now is they've gotten to the point where they don't believe that he's a viable campaign. anymore, so they want to jump in and replace him. That's a problem. We need decent people running for office, not people that are so transparently scumbags. We do need I agree with that. We need decent people running for office. We don't want people who are transparently scumbags. But where was that standard in 2016 and where was that standard in 2020 or 2024 with Donald Trump? Where was the outrage and the speeches where, you know, these predators don't belong anywhere near power. And if there's smoke, there's fire when you've got so many different allegations about Trump. Where were the demands that Republicans chuck this guy? Instead, we heard.

Every excuse imaginable. The allegations are politically motivated. It's fake. It's because Trump is so successful. It's because Trump is going to drain the swamp. Voters don't care. Move on, move on, move on. I've got one more of these. Here's Kevin McCarthy. saying, when Republicans have a bad candidate, we don't vote for that person. We walk away. What? You made Trump president twice. The one thing I know about Republicans. When we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away for better or for worse. When Matt Bill Gates came forward, we got rid of them. Yeah. Forget about Matt Bill Gates. What about Trump? Trump is the one who has allegations like the ones against Graham Platner just way more. Forgive me if I can't take this seriously. If Republicans had consistently applied the standard, I would respect them. If they had said, listen, when multiple credible allegations against Trump surfaced, we walked away from Trump. And that is what Democrats should already have done, by the way, because the letter, listen, it's, it's been a long time of this stuff. The Reddit comments that were disgusting were out for a while. And he said, oh, I didn't mean him. I was young. I, you know, the Nazi tattoo. Oh, I didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo. Okay. I don't know that I really believe that. And then allegations and allegations and asked, is anything else going to come out? No, nothing else is going to come out. And it didn't seem believable. And then more stuff comes out. Okay. But I would respect them. if they were actually consistent on this standard. If they had said whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, serious allegations should disqualify someone from office. I said it about Trump and I say it about Graham Platner. Now, are there still some Democrats and people on the left who are defending Graham Platner? There are. I got a couple emails overnight. There was one who goes, this is a Jewish conspiracy to get rid of Graham Platner. And I'm a. I'm a person who is going to stick by him because this is all the Jews that want to get him out. That's what you're going with. I got another email from someone who it was a wacky email who was it was like, David, you know, some of us women. really like men like Graham Platner who take charge. I'm sure the women, this is an email I got. I'm sure these women that are now coming out against him had great sex with Graham Platner. What? There's a little bit of that. But there's a reason that there is a 95% belief that Graham Platner drops out. So if you had a coherent position all along, fine. But that is not what happened. The standard has become when Democrats have someone like this, it's a predator who must be thrown out immediately. If it's Trump, you attack the victims, you attack the media, you attack judges, you attack juries, you attack everybody but Donald Trump. So these are not principles. These are teams. Now, in my first book, The Echo Machine, I wrote extensively about how their principles evaporate as soon as they're inconvenient. In my forthcoming book, pay attention. I write about how the algorithms make it.

So that these people live in a different reality. And there are tons of Republican voters who have limited knowledge of the allegations against Trump because of what's going on with the algorithm. So if that topic is interesting to you and it really should be if you're following politics, make sure you preorder my book at David Pakman.com slash attention. There's also a limited number of signed copies available. So listen. The point here is not to deserve to defend your jersey no matter what. It's let's apply clear standards to everybody. If the allegations against Trump were about a Democrat, I would have had the same position. If the allegations against Graham Platner were about a Republican, I would have the same position. It doesn't seem like these are people who should hold public office, but the people making the argument on Fox News have zero, zero credibility. to deliver it. So let's start by applying these standards to the guy sitting in the Oval Office. Give me a break. We have now seen the fastest collapse of a foreign policy victory that I can remember. Recall just a couple weeks ago, Trump was everywhere declaring that he had done what no one else could do. He ended the war with Iran again. After 40 announcements that it was almost over or over, Trump announced we've got a memo. We have a letter of understanding with Iran. We're finally getting peace. We're going to have negotiations. Everyone said it couldn't be done and I am a peacemaker and I have done it. And again, it was like, oh, Trump gets the Nobel Peace Prize for, for what? Ending a war he started. In any case, none of it lasted very long because overnight, the United States has launched another round of military strikes against Iran. According to the Pentagon, they went after Iranian military assets because three commercial ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, the Treasury Department revoked the temporary authorization that was allowing Iran to sell oil under that interim agreement. So in other words, When someone tells you the war has ended and you see this, you realize it really hasn't. And then comes the most remarkable part, which is Trump himself sitting there at the NATO summit asked about the ceasefire. And instead of going, no, the ceasefire, yes, negotiations are continuing. It's a temporary setback. He basically says the entire thing is dead. It's dead. It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. 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, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. I'll speak to her. As far as I'm concerned, the ceasefire is over. Negotiators, they want to negotiate. They're 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 were, 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, talk to the press. They say, we never even talked about it. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo. They are cuckoo. Think about how extraordinary this is. The guy who spent. Days celebrating the agreement goes, it's finished. These people are cuckoo. It's not Democrats going. This isn't really a bona fide ceasefire. It's Trump. And then he escalates the rhetoric further with this whole like they're sick people. They're a cancer. They've got to be cut out. And he says even more military action could be coming. This is why I have been repeatedly saying one of the defining characteristics of Trump is he declares victory long before the work is done. And he did it with infrastructure week, what, 20 times. He did it with the border. He's done it with trade wars. He's done it with help. Remember healthcare? July of 2020. He goes, we have a new health care bill. It's going to be signed into law within two weeks and it never happened with Ukraine. I'll end it within a day of becoming president elect. And then it was I'll end it within a day of being soren in. It'll be within a month within a hundred days and then it's maybe, maybe never. And now we've got it with Iran. You announce the success and have a victory lap and tell everybody the problem's been solved. And listen, when he does it, the stock market does spike. But then this happens. And now as I look, the Dow is down 500 points once again. And then later we have to kind of figure out was anything really solved here or was it not? That original memo, it's important to remember. A lot of people thought the memo basically was like, okay, the deal is done. The memo said there will be 60 days of negotiations. That does not seem to be going particularly well. And remember that even before those talks really could begin, JD Vance went to Switzerland to supposedly partake in negotiations. In under 48 hours, he's like, I got to get home. And then we've got ships taking strikes and Iran is threatening and Bahrain is activating missile warnings. Oil prices are up. Markets are down. Now, to be very clear, if Iran attacks commercial shipping, any American president would face pressure to respond. That's totally legitimate. That's a separate question from whether the agreement was even remotely durable. And so the issue is less that the military was used. The issue is Trump sold to the country again the idea that he had ended the conflict. And he wanted the political credit right away.

And he wanted gas prices to go down right away and the stock market to go up right away. And for everybody to believe this is another historic Trump deal. And now, less than a month later, he's going, it's over. These people are cuckoo. And the guy who campaigned on endless wars are bad and I'm the peace president. We're going to get you peace through strength. And his supporters celebrated it now has an agreement that has fallen apart. before the negotiations really advanced. So obviously the immediate danger is more strikes. But the broader danger is this really may be a war that goes close to the midterms. And if that's the case, that is very, very bad for Republicans, but potentially auspicious if your priority is to get different people in charge or at least in control of the House of Representatives. I hate to make it political, but the politics of it matter. putting Republicans out of power in the House of Representatives would be a great thing to do. And if Trump's incompetence and incoherence push that along, then we have to accept that. A lot of people carrying debt don't think to themselves, I'm in trouble. They're not necessarily behind on payments. They're working. They're kind of managing. But if you're carrying credit card balances, personal loans, collections, medical bills, the question is whether your current plan is getting you out fast enough or just kind of keeping you busy. That is what our sponsor, PDS debt, can help you figure out. PDS debt gives you a free. 30 second assessment, you can compare your current path with their customized debt relief options. They will look at your unsecured debt. They'll use financial data to personalize a solution that will work for you and show you what you might qualify for before you have to decide anything. The programs really are designed to just reduce what you owe, simplify multiple payments into one lower monthly payment and work towards being debt free. There's no minimum credit score. savings start the day you complete the assessment and PDS debt is top rated in the industry with thousands of five star reviews and an a plus rating by the Better Business Bureau get your free 30 second personalized assessment today at PDsdebt.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Donald Trump having the worst cognitive day we have ever seen today. He referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Vladimir Putin multiple times. He says Japan shot 111 missiles and referred to former President Barack Obama as Obama and the JCPOA as the JCPOC. Dementia J. Trump is trending. Here is Donald Trump gesturing to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president at the NATO summit, and says, does anybody have a question for President Vladimir Putin pointing to the Ukrainian president?

This man is unwell. A lot of energy. Do you have a question for President Vladimir Putin? What? President. You have a question for President Vladimir Putin? Not so much. What would you like to ask it? Because I'm going to ask this is the worst that he has ever been. The decline is notable. It is palpable and it is serious. An extraordinarily confused Donald Trump says that 111 missiles were shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. Japan. What is wrong with him? Which is one of the most beautiful in the world. It's one of the biggest. He ever had Lincoln? And two months ago, we had a hundred. I told the story yesterday, we had 111 missile shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. Excuse me, sir. 111 missiles by Japan. It was shot at the aircraft carrier over a period of about one hour. 111 missiles going to a very expensive ship. This guy can't do it. If this would, if Biden did just one of these things ever, they would have called for his head. And Trump did three of them in a single day. Here he talks about the Obama nuclear deal. Remember Obamna? Obama. Oh, dear God. Oh, no. Again, that was, that was pretty much the, the Obama nuclear, the Obama deal. Obama. The, that was one of the. You can tell he's struggling. He's completely lost his train of thought here. Worst tragedies that happened. That's what happened in the Middle East. That deal set back that whole situation. They went with, frankly, they picked the wrong country. They picked the wrong country. JCPOC, what a terrible. I guess because it was Obama. and Obama's black. It's the JCPOC person of color or something like that. Guys, this guy can't do it. This is the worst he has ever done. What a terrible deal. I call the Obama nuclear waste deal because what he did with that deal is he caused tremendous hardship in the president of the United States in the last few hours referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky as the guy he is at war with Vladimir Putin. He said that Japan launched 111 missiles at an aircraft carrier of the United States and referred to Barack Obama as Obama and referred to the JCPOA as the JCPOC. Where's Jake Tapper? We need a book about this. As the completely outrageous scene continued, Trump started taking questions from reporters.

On the behalf of Vladimir Putin and speaking for Vladimir Putin, with Volodymyr Zelensky sitting right there, it is a circus. Last year you called Russia a paper tiger referring that they're not doing that group. Who did I call? I'm from telegraph to a Ukrainian media. No, give us a question, not for Volodymyr Zelensky, give us a question for Vladimir Putin. Why is he talking Ukraine today? Yeah. Why is it a good, hard question? When will he end this war? That's a good question. I don't think I've ever answered that question. I'm going to ask him that question. Trump speaking for Vladimir Putin to cover up the fact that he mixed up Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. And he says he speaks to him all the time, but he's never asked like, when are we going to end the war, which Trump has promised hundreds of times to do. Mr. President, what's the status of a drug deal between the U.S. and what's the status? By the way, I will tell you, though, he's going to tell you that. He wants it ended as soon as he can enter. Right. He wants it ended. He wants to end it soon. And I ask him and we talk. I talk to him a lot. I talk to him a little bit less, but the relationship is very good. But I talk to President Vladimir Putin a lot. He wants to end the war. Trump now speaking for the Russian president while sitting there with the Ukrainian president. I'm speechless. How? How is this it is time to remove him now. He cannot do this and just wait until you see how he was having to be helped around by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We'll get to that couple other moments. Donald Trump says you've got young guys walking around, but not really walking around because they don't have any legs. We have young guys around, not walking around because they have no legs. But their legs were blown off. Their arms were blown off. Their face was blown off. And they lived because of modern medicine you can do anything. But they're living. They're living like in hell. The highest IQ president in American history. Their legs were blown off. Their arms were blown off. Their face was blown off. But they lived because of American medicine. A more prescient and salient statement from an American president. I truly cannot imagine. Are there any magas in my audience ready to say, listen, David, I like Trump's tax policy. I like Trump's ideas on trans sports. But it's very obvious that he can't do this anymore. And he needs to either step down or be removed. Is there a single Magapitanian or a Magadonian or just a Maga in my audience who is prepared to make that declaration? If so, my level of respect for you would go up because this simply cannot continue. And if you think that Donald Trump was disoriented in his speech during this NATO trip. Just look at what happened when he tried to walk around. And again, this is a reminder at home. We have learned that Trump basically is limiting his schedule to 12 to 5. When he tries to operate outside of that schedule, things go pretty wacky.

And when it is increasingly notable is when he is on these trips. This happened on the Asia trip. This happened on the Middle East trip. With the time change and the different circumstances, he declines significantly. Let's talk about what happened on the tarmac. Donald Trump cannot afford for these videos to go viral. because they take four years of Republican attacks. And every single one of those attacks on Biden is pointed right back at Donald Trump. Trump arrived for meetings overseas. on his new gifted Qatari plane, the retrofit of which we are paying for with our taxpayer dollars. He looked very tentative walking down the stairs, walking down extraordinarily gingerly, and then had to be led down the red carpet by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Donald Trump visibly struggled to walk in a straight line, a growing issue. Do his children not care enough about this humiliation to put a stop to it? Joint Chiefs, he will be there. And then the man putting this all on, which is the president of Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be greeting him. And we are about to, there goes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greeting the President of the United States. Yeah, the president has a great relationship with him. And look at the hand clap right there. Also, the Secretary of St. Marco Rubio is traveling with the president on this trip as well from what we know. So he is interesting because this relationship doesn't just go when the president was president. He was building Trump hotels, Trump Tower, over in Turkey. So they were dealing on a business level first. And that's where a lot of these leaders, he got to know some Middle Eastern leaders too, prior to him becoming a politician because of stuff he's done in business. And from here, they'll go to the presidential compound. So we'll watch as that takes place. But Brian, you're absolutely right, a long relationship. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. This entire time, Trump just seems disoriented and he came down the stairs very gingerly. We get the sense he doesn't really know what's going on, but let's continue. One thing that he wants is to be given access to the same security initiatives as other NATO members. Turkey is a NATO member. His slogan has been from Texas to Ankara, and Kara, of course, being in Turkey. He wants access to those programs, and he'll be given him in a pretty extraordinary way with the re-access to that F-35 program. They're holding hands. People are easy about Turkey. A lot of things with Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But number two is how close. And Recep Tayyip Erdogan is guiding Trump, and Trump starts to struggle to walk in a straight line. Trump's right leg is dragging and off goes Trump to the right and off goes Trump to the low off to the left and the problems walking simply will not stop. He then pauses and has to be grabbed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan who says no, no, no, sir, please continue this way. And Trump looks confused and disoriented and is being helped around. Listen.

A lot of 80 year olds would walk carefully down airplane stairs. It's not the craziest thing. What is really the most important thing here is that Republicans never treated Joe Biden this way. For them, every single careful step was evidence of catastrophic decline. Tape on the floor telling him where to stand, which is very common across all sorts of public facing events, was evidence that he had no idea what was going on. And with Donald Trump, the standards are just completely different. And Recep Tayyip Erdogan clutching Trump's arm as Trump wanders around to guide him. All of it is the sort of stuff that with Biden would have been evidence that he had to be removed immediately. Now, one of the things that I think we have to acknowledge is that none of us can know exactly what's happening from any one video. But there are, this is really precisely the point. There are two points. Number one, it's not one video. It's now hundreds of videos. Hours after these videos, Donald Trump claimed that Japan sent 111 missiles at an American aircraft carrier, referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Vladimir Putin, and called the Obama JCPOA, the Obama JCPOC. When we had one video of Biden waving to someone off camera. It was he doesn't know where he is. He's demented. He's got to be removed. Republicans never extended any kind of charity or restraint with Biden. There was no benefit of the doubt. There was none of it. And instead it was Biden has dementia. He's lost. He doesn't know where he is. Millions of social media posts, Fox News segments, campaign ads, merchandise, a whole political narrative built around clips like this, but it was one. And now suddenly, Trump seems to have a serious problem physically and mentally. But the standards are completely different. Don't read too much into it. Don't read too much into it. It's just an isolated clip. You don't get to have it both ways. Either these videos are unreliable indicators of someone's overall health or they are meaningful evidence. Pick one. Because if Republicans insist on applying the same standard, they spent four years applying to Biden. then today's videos should be generating wall-to-wall coverage about Trump's balance, his awareness, his physical fitness, his mental fitness, his cognitive fitness. Now, is this the right way to judge a president? Ideally, no. Ideally, you would have reliable medical disclosures from the White House. But we don't have that. Because they constantly put out propaganda documents rather than serious medical reports. They created this game. Okay. They spent years insisting every single staircase, every single pause, every awkward interaction is proof that Biden is incapacitated. We have hundreds of videos of this kind of Donald Trump. So apply it evenly, my friends.

That's my only request. Apply the same standards to Trump that you applied to Biden. He doesn't seem to be able to do it anymore. And it's unfortunately very embarrassing for the United States globally. Identity 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 incogni.com slash pacman with the code packman the link is in the description It is great to welcome to the program today. New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan here to discuss their brand new book regime change inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump, which I have just very few pages left. I was hoping to finish the entire book, but I got through some incredible stuff, and I really appreciate you both being here today. Thanks for having us. First question I have is, the people you speak to as sources, are these folks who are motivated to talk to you because they are concerned about what they are seeing? Are you making the initial contact with some of these sources? Just generally, what is the motivation and circumstances of the people you develop as sources for a book like this? Jonathan, you want to check that one? Or do you want me to start? Yeah, I mean, look, we've made a practice of not talking about our sourcing for this book beyond a very extensive source note that we have in the book, which outlines the period of reporting, the number of interviews, the standards for what we use as dialogue and what we don't use as direct dialogue. Generally speaking, as journalists, especially with this administration, it's incredibly hard to develop good sources. A lot of people take big risks to talk to us. And we're operating an environment where the president has

sued our newspaper has launched leak investigations on multiple stories that we've been involved in. So we just have a practice of not talking about it. I will say generally, you can't paint with a broad brush. Everyone has a unique set of motivations and they can't often be simple, be boiled down in a simple way. The only thing I'll say, the last thing I'll say on this is, you know, we have. made our reporting very specific in this book. You won't find, this is not one of those books where it's sort of like smoke in the air, you know, Trump was thinking this thing, this amorphous thing. Our reporting, you can check our work. It's on this day, at this time, in this room, with these people around the table, this was said. And for very highly specific and sensitive meetings in the situation room, Nobody in the meetings so far, we're about three weeks after we published an excerpt in New York Times about the Epstein meetings, we're about three months after we published very sensitive sit room stories about the lead up to the Iran War. Not one person in those meetings that we have very detailed dialogue has denied. saying what we say they said. So I would say, we're on very strong footing with our reporting, and we had to leave out a lot of things because we couldn't be 100% sure that it was accurate. I want to get back to the lack of denials. As a general statement, is your sense from all of the research and interviews you did for this book that there is more dissent within the administration than what is generally reported in legacy and corporate media? It's a good question. No, no, Jonathan, you take, no, you take one. No, it's a good question. But, yeah, I don't think that there's a ton of, this is not people, you know, rending garments in these, in these massive meetings where there's, there is still a desire, I think, by a lot of people to put a term one framework on this administration. And Jonathan and I. worked very hard to try to make clear that this is a radically different term on a number of fronts, one of which is that you would basically have a half dozen people who are making the decisions in this administration in the room with Donald Trump. More often than not, it can contract or grow a little bit depending on the issue, but that is who is in the room. Number one, number two, these are people who want to see him succeed. They, you know, were either with him for a very long period of time during the campaign when he was at his lowest, or they very much are on board with the fact that he is the president and this is his program. So you can have, you know, some dissent, say, you know, Elon Musk versus Scott Bessent, right? And, you know, we get into that in great detail and this sort of extraordinary physical confrontation that they had outside the Oval Office. But that's not. ideological. That is about implementing the agenda. All of the debates that you see within this administration really are about implementing what Trump wants. And ultimately, as we show with the Iran reporting in particular, you know, nobody in his administration thought this, in the senior ranks, thought that going to war with Iran this year was a good idea. The closest you would get would be Pete Hegseth. JD Vance was the only one who did what...

you know you could describe as metaphorically you know grabbing him by the lapels in these rooms and saying i don't agree with this and it cost him with trump he trump got aggravated with him but at the end of the day the answer in the final go no go meeting uh right before the strikes were launched says you know you know how i feel and and i will support you when trump was taking inventory of his team so It's just we cannot overstate how different this is. And for people who want to understand how different it is and how this term is running, that was the goal of this book. In the book you describe in some significant detail, the discussion around the release of the Epstein files and this allegation regarding Trump and nipples, which was very salacious and titillating prior to the release of the book. One of the things that's notable is, you know, JD Vance gives his opinion and says, I think this stuff is going to come out. We should just get it out there. Susie Wiles seems to represent Trump's opinion that he does not want that stuff out there. And there's other people in the room. Was Trump's involvement in the decisions around those files as limited as it seems in the book or is it that you simply were not able to maybe report on the specifics of Trump's involvement? Like you would think that Trump would be more involved maybe than it seems he was in that decision. So in a sense, he was profoundly involved because he had made clear to all of them through private and public comments that he wanted nothing to do with. He wanted this stuff to basically disappear. And he would get very snappy when people would bring it up around him. He would get irritated. He was paying attention to people like Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly who were talking about it. He was getting really pissed off. And so there was this sort of... general vibe of treading lightly around Trump when it came to this issue. He was not as far as we know in these situation room meetings where they were discussing what to do about the Epstein files. The three meetings that we report on over the summer did not include Donald Trump. They were having these conversations away from him. And as you alluded to in your question, they were pretty awkward conversations because some of the, you know, some of the AIDS was searching, they built this sort of beta private version of what was supposed to be a public facing Justice Department website where it was going to be sort of the library of all things Epstein, you know, everything that was in the DOJ files, everything that was in civil cases that, you know, and not covered by the DOJ. And one of the aids, as we described in the book, was searching Trump through this. And one of the first things that came up was this claim, secondhand claim by a woman, young woman, by, again, secondhand, uncorroborated, that Trump had abused this young woman's nipples. And so they have this conversation about, is this something that the president would be okay with? It's, of course, possible that there were...

conversations involving Trump that were more specific that we're not aware of. As with all things Trump, you know, we're constantly trying to learn more, dig more. We don't pretend to think that we have the final word on Trump and Epstein by any stretch. But we did the best we could to put out what we know in the book and in the newspaper. One thing, David, I just want to add one note to that, too, in terms of just your description at the top about that particular claim. Yeah. That claim was public already. That was a claim that had been out for a year and a half. It was made in an unrelated civil case related to Ghislaine Maxwell and a suit by Virginia Jouffer, who's one of the most vocal, was one of the most vocal, of Epstein's victims. And that was unsealed when a bunch of undocumented, a bunch of documents were unsealed by a federal judge. judge. So the point that was coming up was, do we put that, again, not we, this, I'm not endorsing this. I'm just saying this was their conversation. Does the administration put everything up on this public facing website, website, civil and DOJ? the problem is again that if you do for their perspective if you do everything uh you are going to run into donald trump a lot of times in these files because what ultimately emerged a decade months later in a new york times analysis from what was produced under this epstein transparency law that existed primarily out of frustration by the congress in a bipartisan fashion with the administration dragging its feet was 38,000 references to Trump or his family or his properties. And so again, some of those, you know, most of those, I think, are fairly benign. In other cases, it involves him traveling on Epstein's plane. more than was known before and so forth. But so as Jonathan said, we don't know what we don't know. But it is, everything related to the Epstein files is unbelievably complicated, has been one of the discoveries that we have made. And it is, I think, part of what is so frustrating for the victims who are looking for some form of justice. I don't know if you can put a number on this, but what... What percentage of the material you considered does the book represent in the sense of you've got the totality a hundred percent and you were able to corroborate or source to your satisfaction X percent that ends up in the book if the question is clear? Maybe 5%. Yeah, I was going to say that's high. Maybe 2%. Yeah, 1.5. That we used. That we used. So in other words, it's 1 of 20 to 1 of 50 elements you considered actually made it into the point. Maybe that's generous. I really think it's probably 1%. It's very low. It's very low. Thousands and thousands of pages were thrown out over three years. I mean, for example, we jettisoned.

99% of our reporting from the 23 through the end of 24 period, which was very painful. We have huge amounts that we didn't believe either met the bar for relevance for this book, which was a very high bar. It didn't help explain or illuminate the events that we're living through during this presidency, or we couldn't corroborate. And there was a ton that we couldn't corroborate from last year as well. It was deeply frustrating, but it is, but we're, that said, it resulted in a, in a product of work that we in a body of work that we're confident in. The political retribution aspects of the first year of the second term, you describe in the book, a bunch of different scenes related to this. There's the Laurel Lumer visit to the Oval Office, which seems, as you describe it, to be sort of the first that Trump is being told about some of these allegations or people. And very quickly, he sort of seems to say, hey, we've got to take action and quickly here. You describe scenes in the transition phase during which... Donald Trump is considering certain appointments, and he's sort of offhandedly told, hey, this person said one thing once, and like instantly that person is not viable for Donald Trump's selection. Can you talk a little bit based on what you know? How actively is Trump involved in the DOJ agenda today of the retribution and sort of revenge targeting campaign that's going on? Is it more reactive as you describe in the book where people come to him and say, here's some people? And he goes, yes, let's do it. Or is it more proactive his involvement? I think we describe it as actually pretty proactive in the book. I mean, on the one hand, the what the pieces that you're referring to in terms of the people who he considers to be deep state, right? That's what you're talking about with Laura Lumer, which is people in the government who. did not pass in one way or another this litmus test of where were you on January 6th? Where were you on January 7th of 2021? Who won the 2020 election? And that was a major factor in the transition meetings. And we write about that. In terms of the DOJ aspect and charging people who Trump perceives as his political enemies, we have a chapter. And then there's other scenes throughout the book as well, but we have a chapter where Trump is getting very, very frustrated last year about the lack of what he sees as Pam Bondi, then the Attorney General doing quote unquote the job. The job in Trump's mind is prosecuting people who he wants to see prosecuted. And there was no subtlety about it. Trump was on the morning of September 24th as we write in the book.

telling an aide that he thought he was going to have to fire the top leadership of the DOJ because they weren't doing what he wanted. Nobody was unclear on what he wanted and he had been very clear that Letitia James and then later James Comey were his his targets. Letitia James was always a top target. Trump is is very involved in what he wants to see done at the DOJ. I don't want to suggest that we know more than we do about every single aspect of that. We don't know whether he was on the phone with Todd Blanche for, say, the settlement involving his IRS lawsuit, and we have no reporting to suggest he was. But there is nobody in this administration who is unclear of what Trump wants. And that chapter in particular, I think, really lays out. just exactly how the line between the DOJ and the White House that had existed as a norm, not as a law, since Watergate has just been completely erased. Can you talk a little bit about, to make an analogy, I recently read a book about the Harvey Weinstein case and how as reporters were working the story over a long period of time, All of these roadblocks are placed with handlers, whether it's David Boyes or Lanny Davis, and there's attempts to interfere with the reporting, and sometimes there's threats. Can you talk a little bit about, in your work for a book like this, is there enough knowledge of what you're up to that people do try to interfere or to suggest that there may be repercussions if you go forward, or that sort of intimidation or interference with the reporting? Well, it's sort of different in this case because the Harvey Weinstein was very cloak and daggers, you know, private investigators, all kinds of shadowy, you know, whatever. Three days before we had an appointment to see the President of the United States, he posted on Truth Social threatening to sue us and attacking Maggie in very personal terms, which of course sets a message for the whole administration. We've certainly had stories that we've written, particularly when it deals with sensitive national security material that... a bunch of that was in the book as well that have been under investigation by the government. The president has obviously active lawsuits against the New York Times and many other media companies. So there's many tools that he tries to use, but they're not really a secret. They're very much out in the open. And that's by design. It's to try to create a chilling effect and let people know there's a cost to doing this type of reporting. We're very lucky. I mean, there's all this talk about.

You know, I understand it, but I just disagree with it. There's this sort of reflexive kind of criticism of quote unquote legacy media. I understand that I understand there's a lot of valid criticisms. But for us, it's actually essential that we're part of a big infrastructure and a big institution because we have lawyers. New York Times has the ability to protect itself and defend itself. And by the way, defend. all the other media institutions as well when there are first amendment cases you know david mccraw who's our top lawyer you know basically the whole the whole infrastructure and an industry of journalism basically owes him a debt of gratitude. We have security teams, technological security is so important in what we do now because of government leak investigations and the sophistication of the people on the other side of the reporting trying to find our sources. So it's only as part of this giant ship that Maggie and I can do the specific type of work that we do. To the best of your knowledge right now, who has the most influence over the decisions that Donald Trump is making day to day? It's not one person and it's issues dependent, right? I mean, all we can tell you is who is, who are among the powerful people in his orbit. And so when you are, when he's in the middle of a war with Iran, you have. Pete Hegseth is obviously in the room, but Pete Hegseth learned a while ago to bring Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with him to these meetings with Trump because they're just sort of better as a team and it becomes their safety in numbers. on issues of immigration, on issues of domestic policy, on issues involving DEI or a number of other focuses of Trump that were campaign promises, the border, that is Stephen Miller, and I don't think that's a surprise to anybody. In terms of the DOJ, It's Todd Blanche, who was Trump's personal lawyer. There's also, you know, and Susie Wiles, the chief of staff is obviously a major figure there. Scott Bessent is currently with Trump, was talking at the NATO alliance, and Trump really likes Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, respects him, turns to him many number of times. He's one of the few people who Trump really has not criticized or undermined in this administration, at least to the best of our reporting. But remember that Trump also has all kinds of inputs from outside the government. So one of the, I think, under-evaluated

people in this administration, and we do get into this in the book, is Boris Epstein, who is Trump's personal legal advisor, top legal advisor, coordinates the law firms, coordinates people who are doing the work for Trump. He is immensely powerful in terms of influencing Trump on a number of issues. He has allies throughout the government in senior positions. It just can't be understated. Thanks so much to both of you for talking to me today. The book is regime change inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. We've been speaking with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Really appreciate your time. I know you're both busy. Thank you so much for having us. Some people assume focus is just about willpower, but if you've sat down to work and you're checking your phone, switching tabs in your browser, getting pulled into distraction, you know it's not that simple. I want to tell you about our sponsor, Brain FM. Brain FM is a music app designed to support focus. It's not the random playlists or ambient videos that people often will put on. It's music built from the ground up for cognitive performance. Brain.fm works with musicians and neuroscientists to create music that will interact with your brain's natural rhythms. Their patented audio technology is designed to influence brain activity related to attention. This is why Brain.fm is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation. The app includes a number of modes depending on what you're doing, deep work, creative motivation. There's a dedicated ADHD mode for people whose brains may benefit from extra support. There's also been peer-reviewed research publish showing that their music increased activity in attentional networks and also improved performance on attention-based tasks. it yourself with 30 days free at brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the description.

Listen, it's been a terrible 24 hours for Trump. There's no other way to say it. It started with getting off a plane and again being unable to walk in a straight line and having to be helped by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And then it came when Donald Trump started confusedly looking around and having to be redirected by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And then Donald Trump said to President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Vladimir Putin. And then Trump said that Japan. struck an aircraft carrier of ours with 111 missiles. And then he referred to the Obama JCPOA as the Obama JCPOC. It was a damn terrible day. But then Donald Trump fell asleep again. And he didn't fall asleep while Marco Rubio was talking during a cabinet meeting. He fell asleep while the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was speaking. If Biden so much as blinked during an event. Republican said that he was asleep. If Biden looked down for a second, they said he has no idea what's going on and he's non-compostmentous. If Biden seemed tired during or after an international trip, it was breaking news for days. Donald Trump is now in the middle of another one of these viral clips, falling asleep right during his meeting with fellow authoritarian Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Take a look at this. Trump leaning, desperate to try to stay awake. He should wear those glasses that have eyeballs on the outside. That would help. There he goes. Trying to pop his eye open. Realizing that the interpreter is speaking to him, but he just can barely do it.

It is not normal to fall asleep and to struggle to stay awake so regularly in the seated position, particularly in moments of relative adrenaline in the sense that these are on camera meetings, lights, microphones, high stakes, world leaders. It's not normal. And there have been people who have talked about sleep apnea. I know a couple doctors who are like, listen, you. You can tell Trump has sleep apnea when you just consider his age and weight, the daytime sleepiness, the breathing noises that he makes when he breathe. Like he just, it's the full picture of sleep apnea. They haven't told us Trump has sleep apnea. But a bunch of doctor friends are like he obviously has it. His head is tilted downward. He's not visibly engaging with the speech. Here's the sort of more zoomed in clip of it. You can tell he, I love it when he just opens his left eye. He's like, am I supposed to be asleep right now? He's trying to pay attention to the interpreter of for what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is saying, but he can't do it. And of course, this immediately spreads online. And the right wing goes, he's clearly just doing engaged listening and all of that stuff. I care about the political aspects of this. They never applied this level of caution when it was Joe Biden. Like I said earlier, they didn't say maybe Biden was just resting his eyes. Maybe Biden was thinking. Maybe we can't diagnose someone from a one 10 second clip. How about a thousand 10 second clips? Instead, they went case closed. Biden can't stay awake. He's mentally gone. He's unfit. Remove him now. And it wasn't just social media doing it. It was campaign messaging. It was cable news segments in political ads. And, you know, they were sending out fundraising emails making these claims. Sleepy Joe can't do it. He's demented. And they built a whole narrative. around these types of moments. So do they believe in that standard? That's all I want to know. If they do, this clip should be dominating conservative media for the next week. The president can't stay awake. And he said Japan shot us with 111 missiles. And he called President Volodymyr Zelensky President Vladimir Putin. Now, if they are ready to cop to the fact that they don't really believe this is the standard. Maybe those Biden clips never really proved what they said they proved in the first place. So I don't even know if the larger point is whether Trump fell asleep this particular time. I think he was trying to stay awake and probably was dozing. The larger point is they spent years saying these clips can be used to diagnose presidential incapacity. That's when the camera was on Biden. Now the camera's on Trump. And everybody on the mag side is like, oh, no, we need nuance now. That's the hypocrisy that I'm pointing out here. And when this is happening, listen, is it two to three times a week now for months that Donald Trump is falling asleep in public? It's a very humble request. I just want the same standards applied. Am I crazy for wanting that?

And as I've said before, when they go, oh, we have a principle of free speech that we always adhere to. And then free speech gets a little bit inconvenient for their political adversaries. And then they go suppress their speech. We have a principle of low regulation. We don't get involved. Businesses can do what they want to do. And then Twitter prior to Elon Musk owning it goes, hey, we're not going to allow you to just post dangerous medical misinformation. And they go, no, regulate Twitter to force them to publish medical misinformation. Give me a break, guys. You don't believe this crap for a second. Don't try to convince us that you do. Donald Trump said the ceasefire between the US and Iran is over, which we covered earlier. But he also said a lot of other things during this event. in Ankara with the NATO summit and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and also with Mark Rudda. And I want to look at a couple of these moments because they are significantly consequential from the point of politics. Now, just as a reminder, this is the event during which Trump said that the Iranians are scum, vicious cuckoo and that the ceasefire is dead. It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? Yeah. 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. They're 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 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, 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. They're cuckoo. Okay. So we looked at that earlier in our broader discussion of the collapse of the ceasefire and the resumption of the war with Iran. Now, there was another question that was asked as a follow up to this, which I want to look at now. Good question for a reporter, which is our talks not even going to continue. Like, okay, the ceasefire is done. They're bombing. You're bombing. You're calling them cuckoo. You're calling them scum. Fine. But will the negotiation continue because we're still in the 60 day period of negotiation because of Trump's beautiful letter?

And Trump goes, that's a waste of time. They can talk, but it's pointless. Does this mean that talks with Iran will not resume? I don't care. They can talk, but I think they're wasting their time. They're a bunch of lying guys. I do it. My whole life, that's all I do is deals. My whole life is, that's how I became president, I guess. That's a deal too, right? But I made a lot of money. I had a lot of great success. Tremendous success. Everything I did, I was successful. And I deal with these guys, and I say, this is from a different school. They're liars. They're cheats. They're sick people. They've hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now that were protesting. You know, when people say, how come they haven't taken over? They can't take over because they're dead. They killed them. Nobody's going to take over. They have no guns. And the other side has machine guns. And they're killing them. The press hasn't reported. But they're bad people. They're bad people. And frankly, I don't want to waste my time with them. Now, I'll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don't see it. I don't like these. This is not how you end a war. It's just is if your goal is to end a war, these are not the steps and the path to doing it. And I think it's becoming clear to Donald Trump. Listen, sometimes Trump does actually come to a realization. And Trump was telling us on Ukraine, Russia. Within an hour of becoming president-elect, it'll be over, within an hour of being sworn in, it'll be over within 100 days of being sworn in. And then he's kind of like, yeah, I don't really know that I can end this thing. And he's mostly walked away. Still pays lip service to it, but has mostly walked away. Now Trump is realizing the exact same thing with Iran. It's not quite so easy. This really isn't how you end a war. Now, Donald Trump made a number of other statements, including talking once again about TikTok, falsely claiming that he is number one on TikTok when Trump. gets a talking point he likes, he sticks with it. You know, I watched a couple of people critical of the fact that TikTok, TikTok is so bad. It's so dangerous. It's so horrible. They're spreading all these rumors. And the numbers came out yesterday. You know who's number one or tick tack? I am. I'm number one of TikTok. And all I talk about is how bad communism is, right? They say, oh, it's terrible. They're spreading, but I'm number one. And I listen to Gordon Chang. I like Gordon Chang. But he's always like negative. Oh, China's so terrible. They're so terrible. And TikTok is so terrible. But I'm number one on TikTok. I have like four billion views or something like that. So I don't know. People have to get the priority priority straight. There you go. TikTok is important. Of course, Trump lying. The David Pakman show actually is bigger than Donald Trump on TikTok and on TikTok. But it doesn't matter. Why let the facts get in the way of a good talking point? Trump later mused about getting assassinated. And I've got to tell you.

There is a little bit of a darkness that's been creeping in to a lot of Donald Trump's public statements. Remember the whole thing about, I don't know that I'm going to be going to heaven, increasingly thinking about his legacy and increasingly thinking about his mortality. And now Trump says he's gotten lucky with avoiding these assassination attempts, but that luck. Often it doesn't last very long. Take a listen to this. Very interesting. We have had a really good day. We're going to have another good half a day. Sorry, I think I played the wrong clip. This is the one about Donald Trump's assassination. In trouble for 47 years. And we took out their first set of leaders. We took out their second set of leaders. They want to take out. the U.S. leader, me on whatever list. I saw things this morning. I'm on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I've been a little bit lucky, but that maybe doesn't last very long. Uh-oh. Because it's the way it goes, but we have great people. But these are evil sick people. All right. So Trump suggesting that avoiding assassinations, he's been lucky to do a degree. It may not last very long. And I do think that there is a darkness there as Donald Trump is sort of realizing. Hey, there are a lot of people that want me dead. And I don't know how long my luck is going to run. I don't know if I'm going to heaven. There's definitely a descending darkness on Trump. And then finally, finally after Donald Trump's extensive meltdown, this is the clip I wrongly started playing before. Mark Rudda laughs shakes Trump's hand. And reporters are rushed out of the room. No more questions for the orange president, please. We have had a really good day. We're going to have another good half a day. And then I'll see you later. We'll talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

urgently getting everybody out. Listen, it's time for Donald Trump to come back to the United States. And I don't think he should do any more of these trips. He just can't do it. Think about what the last 24 hours have been. Ceasefire blows up in Trump's face and he starts calling his negotiating counterparts on the Iranian side, scum and cuckoo, and declares that it is over. He says, Japan bombed one of our aircraft carriers with 111 missiles. He calls President Volodymyr Zelensky President Vladimir Putin. He calls the Obama JCPOA, the Obama JCPOC. He struggles to walk in a straight line after getting off of the plane, and he has to be led around by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. How can anyone say that this is working? How can anyone say that he's capable of this? It's got to come to a close, folks. It just has to. Now, on today's bonus show, we will talk about Graham Platner's desire before he drops out of the race to choose his replacement. I don't think he's going to be able to do that. I'll explain why. We will talk about another big price hike coming for Obamcare premiums. Obamnacare. Obamacare. But the price hikes are coming. And an ice agent has fatally shot a man in Houston during what is being described as a targeted enforcement operation. What happened and what is going to happen legally? All of that and more. When I'm joined by producer Pat on today's bonus show, make sure that you have preordered my book pay attention at David Pakman.com slash attention. A limited number of signed copies are available. And as I remove. My make algae great again hat, I will remind you that this hat and a whole bunch of other great stuff is available at the David Packman store store. David Packman.com. I'll see you on the bonus show. And I'll be back here tomorrow unless someone stops me.