The David Pakman Show - 10/10/25: Illegal prayer plagues admin while Trump falls asleep and Fox is left with no choice

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump appears half-asleep during Andy Ngo’s speech as Pam Bondi vows to “destroy Antifa,” revealing a bizarre authoritarian tone -- Even Fox News acknowledges Trump's tariffs are driving up prices, with coffee costs soaring and small businesses paying the price -- Fox News scrambles to defend Trump’s mental fitness as critics highlight growing signs of confusion and erratic behavior -- A real-time breakdown shows how Donald Trump turns fringe lies into mainstream talking points through repetition and right-wing media echo -- Kristi Noem prays with ICE agents before sending them into communities, blurring church-state lines and framing state violence as divine mission -- Republican soybean farmers who once backed Trump now blame his trade wars and tariffs for devastating their livelihoods -- Reports from major outlets detail Trump’s alarming physical decline, bizarre online behavior, and mounting questions about his health -- Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker condemns Trump and Kristi Noem for militarized raids in Chicago and vows to fight their power grab -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The Trump Justice Department indicts Letitia James, Trump doesn't win the Nobel Peace Prize, and much more... 🌞 Sponsored by BetterHelp: Get 10% off your 1st month at https://betterhelp.com/pakmanshow 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🤢 Reliefband: Use code PAKMAN for 20% OFF + free shipping at https://reliefband.com 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:00) Trump half-asleep during speech (06:43) Tariffs driving up coffee prices (11:26) Fox defends Trump’s mental fitness (14:26) Fringe lies become mainstream talking (23:21) Noem prays with ICE agents (28:50) Farmers blame Trump’s trade wars (37:27) Reports question Trump’s health decline (43:43) Pritzker condemns Trump, Noem raids (50:23) Friday Feedback segment  

The administration's obsession with Antifa is continuing, but does Antifa really exist as an organization? Meanwhile, Donald Trump barely able to keep his eyes open again. And Fox News finally has no choice but to address the fact that yes, tariffs are crushing the economy and pushing prices up. Meanwhile, Fox News suddenly feels the need to argue Trump definitely doesn't have dementia. Why are they suddenly worried about that? while Trump is having a medical evaluation today, and Christy Nome, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is leading likely illegal prayers before deploying her federal goons to snatch people off of the streets. And of course, your emails, comments and messages on today's Friday feedback. I think this is a good show.

We'll actually plan to record and keep a record of this one. Donald Trump hosted at the White House this group of conspiracy theorists and provocateurs and agitators. And during the absolutely riveting, riveting testimony of Andy No, Donald Trump is fighting for his life to stay awake. Now I've got to tell you, this is a little bit boring of a speech from Andy No, but Trump is so bored by everything. And here he is just doing everything he can to stay awake, struggling to do so.

And of course, Trump doesn't care about anybody other than himself. A story about what Andy knows has happened to him is not going to be enough to keep Trump roused. Nearly died. And after surviving that, the reporting that I saw on liberal media was- Uh-oh, there goes Trump. It seemed to suggest that I had deserved. it because they branded me far right. And some even went so far. And there goes Trump actually

eyes fully closing. As to suggest, I may be faked to my injuries. Yeah. Why is Trump always sleeping at events? There's the moment where his eyes really just completely closed. There's sort of like two sides to this. Side one is this is a really stupid event Trump did at the White House. Just like painfully, painfully dumb. So on the one hand, is like, yeah. Yeah, this is really boring. On the other hand, Donald Trump struggles to stay awake everywhere. That's the new thing. And while it was sleepy Joe this and sleepy Joe that, Trump's the guy who's falling asleep

almost weekly at events. Now, at one point, this was really gross stuff. Pam Bondi says like we've gone after drug cartels. We're going to go after Antifa and destroy the structure of the organization. The only problem is Antifa is barely an organization. And there's really no structure, but they need a target. So the new one is we're going to go after Antifa. It's breaking down the organization brick by brick.

Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump with Antifa, destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We're going to take them apart. to your bold leadership and the designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization, which is exactly what they are, Americans will no longer tolerate their unhinged violence. The only people even talking about it. I don't know what's up with Antifa right now as this kind of decentralized cell decentralized cells groups of people. It's mostly irrelevant to the national politics of the United States. You don't hear the left talk about Antifa. It's all just nonsense.

And here's Pam Bondi acting like this is a cartel, which has a leadership structure and central funding and sort of like a central core of command and control. Antifa's like mostly a philosophy. And every once in a while, you will see these cells where it's like some people get together around a particular event and they're there under the generic anti-fascist umbrella. What are you even really targeting here? But they need something to target, especially in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination. At another point, Donald Trump, he just can't help himself, a former Trump opponent, I guess,

says I used to have Trump derangement syndrome. Now I don't. And I got more attractive when I quit being against Trump. And Trump goes, oh, yeah, you're very attractive now. I'm going to tell to you anyway, because it's relevant to what we're talking about. I'm living proof that you can recover from TDS. I had strong Trump derangement syndrome for probably eight years. This is one of the reasons I recovered from it.

And by the way, it's much better to not have TDS. I'm happier, I'm healthier, more successful. I even think I got a little more attractive after I got rid of my Trump derangement syndrome. Very attractive, says Donald, but suddenly he's awake. Suddenly Donald Trump has come back to life. Pam Bondi likes it. likes it. Very attractive, says Donald Trump. Wow, what an incredible, really a good use of White House time and taxpayer money. Finally, Donald Trump insisting confusedly that he understands

what was on the bullets that were left behind the shell casings from the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Trump sounds very confused here. Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a far left extremist who inscribe the words, hey, fascist catch, meaning catch the bullet onto the bullet shelf itself. On to the bullet shelf itself, this was maybe the dumbest waste of taxpayer money for bringing people to the White House. And I assume the people paid their own way. But what I mean is the cost of the event and everything you do at the White House cost money. I've been to some stuff at the White House. There's no shortage of money spent. The

idea that this was worth spending my taxpayer money and your taxpayer money on, terrifying stuff. But if there's anything to look up to, it's that while the individuals selected to participate in this insanity at the White House did not speak truth to power, Fox News is now talking about Trump inflation and that's very, very interesting. I saw this great little clip from fact post news about Fox News. talking about none other than Trumpflation. Now, they aren't calling it Trumpflation. They are simply saying prices are up on this. Prices are up on that. But you now have the undeniable

reality. Even Fox News can't avoid the reality that prices are up. And we all know who's president right now. And they can insist the prices are up because of Biden and only temporarily because of the terrorists. But over the long run, the prices are going to come down. People are not believing it. People are not falling for it. And Fox News seemingly cornered now acknowledging, yeah, prices are way up on a whole bunch of stuff. Coffee prices up a whopping 22% from last year. That's more than any other item tracked by the government. Now, look who's here now. Lauren joins us. All right, Lauren, we all know I get my daily double shot of espresso at work. How much would that cost at a coffee shop like the one you're at now in Manhattan?

I made it. I made it. Double espresso right here. Splash of milk would cost you $4.7. Stewart, much better free from Celinda in the studio. Look here, roasted coffee prices. As you noticed, drop 22% in the past year. Bad weather, you've got droughts, frosts, heat waves, all impacting the coffee producing crop. And that weather has hit production in a big one. Listen here. We cannot grow our own coffee in the United States. We need to depend on the tropics in order for this growth. And the primary countries of actual growth is Brazil.

Yeah. And right now, there's a 50% tariff on coffee from Brazil. Oh, oh boy. That's the nation's biggest coffee supplier. And it's Joe Coffee's biggest. supplier. Take a look at this bag right here. At the container that that bag came in is costing this New York coffee shop and roaster $68,000 more than it did over the summer. So he had to pass some of that along telling customers this. We decided to add a one and a half percent surcharge

to all transactions rather than implementing an item-based price increase because this reduces the burden on any individual customer. We spoke to some coffee drinkers about the higher prices. to say. What a report, huh? Super Barney will not buy coffee out. He thinks it's a waste of money. I agree. So you've never bought a coffee in a restaurant?

I wouldn't say that I've never bought it, but I definitely prefer buying it at home. We used to call Starbucks four bucks, but that was a few years ago. Now it's like nine bucks. Yes, it's terrible. And you have to go out and drive to get it. You have to have it delivered. It's not convenient. All right, now it's getting very stupid.

getting very stupid. Oh, my God, you've got to go and drive to get a coffee. All right, now we're getting into idiocy. What's the real story here? Fox News knows that prices are up. This is Fox business, Fox News, these two channels, part of News Corporation, they know prices are up. And so for a period of time, certainly February, March into April, until the Trump tariffs kicked in, there was this sort of plausible deniability where they could snow their audience and go, this is because of Joe Biden. It can't be because of Trump's tariffs because they haven't kicked in yet, even though there were certain sort of anticipatory price increases that took place before the tariffs were formally enabled. It's gone too long now. It's almost 2026. Trump's been in power

for a while. And so now they're in the next step, which is we can't deny that the price increases took place. We can't deny that the tariffs are part of the price increases. But notice what was missing from that report, Trump. They're talking about the tariffs like they are this thing. These tariffs happened not because of any particular person, not because of any particular political movement. It's just the tariffs. The next step will be, okay, Trump did it. Now, I don't know if they will get to that next week. I don't know if they will get to that next year or if they will wait as long as they possibly can. But the next logical step is yes, prices are up. Yes, it's It's because the tariffs.

It's because of the tariffs that Donald Trump put in place. So Fox News increasingly cornered. And not only are they cornered on inflation, they're also increasingly cornered on Trump dementia. Fox News host Jesse Waters is panicking and is now coming out and going, no, no, no, Donald Trump doesn't have dementia. I would argue the fact that this story has now made it on to Fox News is a major, major. your story. Let's listen to what Jesse Waters had to say. You can't be a dictator with dementia. You can't suspend an election and then forget

you suspended an election. Trump didn't need note cards to know who Hillary Clinton was. And the guy has the longest memory of anybody. He remembers every slight, every name, every statistic. The man is a lot of things. He does not have dementia. He can't be. Believe me, he really doesn't have dementia. I want to address a couple aspects of this. Three years ago, the story of Trump's cognition was essentially nowhere on legacy and corporate media. Over the last year, I've come to you and I've said, sirs and maims, we have growing coverage of what's going on with Donald Trump's health, both cognitive and physical. And slowly it has gone up and gone up and gone up. But the sort of firewall was it didn't get

into right wing media where they started feeling the need to deny it. We have now breached that firewall as well. And you now have Jesse Waters going, guys, Trump doesn't have dementia. Trust me, he really doesn't. He really doesn't. This is a major, major deal. Now, Jesse Waters also said something funny, which is you can't be a dictator and also have dementia. What's interesting to me about that is they say that Trump's not a dictator anyway, so it kind of doesn't matter. But the argument is dictators by their sheer nature of what they're doing, obviously don't have dementia. The funny thing is there are cases of claims of dementia and dictators. If you look at Pina Shea in Chile in his later years, there was reporting and testimony

that he was mentally unfit and that he was experiencing severe cognitive decline. Now, it was debated. Is it really dementia? Is it age-related decline? Is it just a mental unfitness? But it's sort of that same kind of thing. Philippe Petent from the Vichy regime in France, there are accounts from the 40s, the 1940s, that he had serious dementia. There were widespread claims of that.

Now, whether it started while in power or after is sort of debated. What's tough about this, obviously, is that dementia is a modern medical diagnosis requiring evaluation. And by definition, dictators are able to suppress knowledge of what's going on with their health. Remind you of anybody? So Jesse Waters now doing the cleanup. No, no dementia here. But the questions are growing. And it is a real problem for this administration.

I want to do something that I hope is useful. We're going to look at the architecture of propaganda. How does a lie that is fabric. fabricated out of thin air, how does that become a media story, which is then believed and accepted by so many on the political right? Well, I'm going to give you an example. Here is Donald Trump saying, answering a question rather. Trump was asked about supposed proof that Antifa infiltrated January 6th.

This is a conspiracy theory that dates back all the way to back to January 6th, the argument is even though it looked like Trump supporters were doing the riots, it was really. Antifa pretending to be Trump supporters. Trump is asked about it here. And he goes, oh, yeah, we've heard of that in the back place. It's been actually very compelling proof that Antifa did infiltrate on January 6th, dressed up like Trump supporters and incited violence. Is that something that you would want the new J6 committee at Congress to look into it?

Well, I've heard that they dress up like, you know, they're fresh out of MAGA, but they have nothing to do with mega and they make trouble and they try and blame it. And yeah, we know some of that and we will be acting on some of that. We've seen it. We've seen it. So I think you could say a little longer, but you know, the problem is, although you have some very honest journalists in here, you also have some mostly largely dishonest journalists like MSDNC and CNN. Right. So let me, let me explain to you how these lies are born. And this is really important to understand the architecture of propaganda. This is the process you see unfold every single day in maga media. So step one is you need to seed the lie before it grows into a robust

plant with flowers and tomatoes on it or whatever. You need to first plant the seed. And so step one is usually like a Trump ally. Maybe it's a congressman. Maybe it's a pundit. Someone in the media. Maybe it's someone on the internet. They'll float the claim. They'll go, oh, uh, Antifa, infiltrated January 6th dressed as Trump supporters. Trump supporters would never do this. It must be Antifa dressed up in a MAGA hat. They've got no evidence. They've got nothing, but it's bait.

They've planted the seed. They know who it's for. The next step is that Trump will legitimize the lie. Trump will hear a lie that feels good. These weren't really my supporters. It was Antifa dressed up. It either shifts the blame away from MAGA or it flatters him or it stokes outrage. So Trump will repeat it.

And so in this case, Trump is, we've had a lot of examples of it, but this is sort of an example of step two. Trump is asked about it. Should it be, we now have proof, sir, that Antifa infiltrated dressed as Trump supporters. Should this be examined by the new J6 committee? And Trump goes, I've heard of that. I've heard of that. We're going to act about on that.

Now, of course, Trump saying we've heard that is the signal. When Trump says we've heard that, he is giving permission to his followers, go and spread it. Go ahead and spread it. So then you get to step three, newsmax, gateway pundit, influencers on X, they all start with. Trump has confirmed Antifa infiltration. Now, of course, all Trump did is say, oh, yeah, yeah, we've heard about that. So you've got the seed was planted. Trump goes, we've heard about that.

He's now watering the seed. And then you get the media outlets or the Twitter account. or whoever, continuing to spread it by going, Trump verified it. Trump said it. Well, what Trump said is he had heard something. This is the point. We then get to step four. Step four allows Trump and the people around him to go, this is being widely reported now.

You've got all these people on X. Newsmax is talking about Antifa infiltrating January 6th. Gateway pundit, Fox News, whoever. But all Trump is really doing is laundering his own propaganda. Right. It starts his gossip. Trump goes, I heard of it. Then they go, Trump confirmed it.

And then now Trump goes, it's being widely reported. And then you can get other Republicans. Now other Republicans have enough cover to say, everybody's talking about it. Newsmax is talking about Antifa at the riots. Fox News is talking about Antifa at the riots. Everybody knows about it at this point. It all started with nothing. And then it just gets amplified to high heaven.

It's on TikTok. It's on talk radio. It's everywhere. People who never saw and have no idea what the original source is, they see the echo. They see the repetition and they repeat it. And before long, Antifa did January 6th is no longer a fringe conspiracy. It becomes an established talking point. It's the self-sustaining propaganda ecosystem where the origin of the lie doesn't matter because

Trump said he heard about it. People reported that Trump acknowledged it. Maga now goes it's been widely reported, but it all started with just. a claim in some of the recesses of the internet. That's how it happens. And then they end up being both the source and the evidence, even though in reality, they are neither. You turn fiction into consensus. This is the architecture of how these things happen. It happened with they're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs. I think I even have that here. Hold on. I love Tesla. No, that's not it. Where is my eating the dogs?

America Grande ultra best. Oh, that's not a idea. Okay. I don't have it. Anyway, the whole eating the cat's eating the dogs thing. It was similar. And J.D. Vance even said, hey, you know, we're going to create these media narratives if we want people to pay attention to something. This is how it goes from nothing to completely mainstream. And you got to hand it to them. They're pretty good at pulling it off.

Today's show is sponsored in part by Better Help October 10th is World Mental Health Day. This year, Better Help is focusing on something that does not get the attention it deserves, appreciating Therapists, there are many in my family, I know them well. And behind every story of someone finding their footing again is a therapist who listened, ask the right questions, really just creates a space for conversation. Our sponsor BetterHelp has connected more than 5 million people worldwide with licensed therapists. They've been doing it over 12 years. One of the things that they do really well is match you with a therapist that fits your

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newest members at joinpackman.com. Christy Noam is the Secretary of Homeland Security, and she is now praying with federal agents before deploying them to, quote, secure the streets of America's cities. I'm going to play this video for you. If you're wondering, yes, that is Corey Lewandowski sitting to Christy Nome's right at the end of the table. A disgusting presence. But maybe the presence of this prayer is not only vile, not because prayer is wrong, but, because this is officially a government agency. And I thought we had separation of church and state in this country.

Listen to Christy. Time together that you give us good fellowship, Lord, but that you'd also give us wisdom and discernment to make the best decisions, not just for the people that are here enforcing the law, but also for the citizens of this country. And Lord, I just ask if you'd continue to put a hedge of protection around these officers, keep them safe, Lord, but that also that you continue to bless each and every one of them and their families and more that you would protect the freedoms that we all enjoy that were given to us by you. We love you. We praise you in your name. Amen. Amen. Wow. Government sanctioned prayer.

By the way, it is not lost on me. It is the Trump administration after all. The presence of the fast food burgers and fries as they all pray is really something else. So let's be honest about what this actually all means. Christy Noam is not praying for peace here. She is praying with federal agents who are about to go out and start snatching people out of neighborhoods, families, workers, kids, everybody's in the crossfire. And that is what she is referring to about securing the streets. And she's praying for the safety of the officers. And if you're thinking, isn't this all kind of unconstitutional, yeah, I mean, when a government

official acting in her official capacity as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Leads a prayer before a federal operation, you run right into the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. That's the part of the Constitution that says the government can't promote or endorse one religion over another and can't promote or endorse religion over non-religion. Now, if you go to the Supreme Court record, you see that the Supreme Court has allowed some ceremonial prayers. city council or legislature prayers.

That is not what this is. This is not a public moment of unity. This is the state blessing and act of enforcement where the government is wrapping a cross around a gun. They're sitting around with their guns. They're about to go out and do what they've been doing in these neighborhoods. And they say let's wrap a cross around the guns. Even if you ignore the prayer part, which you shouldn't, we also should think about the

legality of the deployment because there's legal questions there. There's legal questions everywhere with what they're doing. DHS and ICE have really narrow authority to operate in local communities. They can protect federal property. That's not controversial. We know that. Roaming the streets like a militarized police force, the law doesn't allow that. And I know it's so quaint, right? I'm the moron saying, oh, what about the law? The law, even when these so-called operations happen, they are running into Fourth Amendment and due process problems because people's rights are constantly violated. So you've got an agency by its mere presence on the streets pushing its legal authority led

by someone who thinks the appropriate way to start the legally dubious deployment is with a legally dubious prayer. This is not reflection. This is not accountability. This is religious theater meant to make cruelty feel righteous. They are doing really cruel things out on the street. But we just prayed. We must be doing the right thing, right?

And it's the same thing we have seen over and over. Politicians who invoke God before dropping bombs, they thank Jesus and then cut food assistance or whatever. It's moral cover. It's not moral clarity. And if she really believes in prayer, she should be praying for forgiveness. That's what Christy Nome should be praying for. For the fear that she's creating, for the families that are being shattered, the trust she's

destroying between immigrant communities and their own government. Thoughts and prayers don't mean much when they come right before you kick someone's door down or throw them into an unmarked van. The real point here is that none of this is about religion or allegiance to Jesus. This is about power. And it's about weaponizing faith, sanctifying state violence, and just intimidating anybody who dares to object. And by the way, if you're sitting at this table and you're not religious, do you think this

is an environment where you can go, oh, we're not supposed to be doing this? I objected this. This is actually illegal. No. And this is how they enforce compliance. It's terrifying. It's disgusting. It appears to be against the law.

But that's the name of the game these days. Farmers are done. The very people who help put Donald Trump back in office, you know, the ones that he would use as props at his whole, I love the farmers photo ops. They're turning on him. Every single week, we hear from more farmers who are saying this economic program is a fiasco. These are not coastal liberals who decided to throw on some farmers overalls. These are lifelong Republican farmers, many of whom voted for Donald Trump twice.

And now they're saying it. He is destroying us. Here's an Illinois soybean farmer who says China should be buying our soybeans. They're not. This is a real problem. We can't help but feel very anxious of wondering why it's taking so long to get this resolved. Are you angry?

The farther we go into this season, the more we're going to lose. And China should have been buying our beans already. they're not it's like crickets why isn't china buying the beans well because donald trump's blanket tariffs have forced china not to do what trump said they would do come crawling back please sir give me a trade deal could i have another no china's just getting their soybeans elsewhere that's that's what they're doing at the end of the day here is another soybean soybean farmer who says we need a level playing field the tariffs are making it an uneven playing field and now you've got the the Chinese going to Brazil for soybeans. Not exactly the winning that Donald Trump promised us.

What we need more than anything is access to markets on a level playing field. And that includes China. Right now with the trade board and then the tariffs and retaliatory tariffs that have resulted, we're at about a 20% price disadvantage when it comes to what the China. counties have to pay for our soybeans versus the Brazilian soybeans. And the buyers there won't our soybeans. And we need to sell them our soybean. Understand that the tariffs were sold to us to the extent, I don't think any of us bought it, but they were attempted to be sold to us, as these are going to make us more competitive. This will make American companies, manufacturers, farmers, food growers, everybody will be more competitive thanks to the tariffs.

But shouldn't we be listening to the people being affected by it? The soybean farmer is telling us the tariffs make us not competitive. They give us a 20% price disadvantage. These are not bleeding heart liberals that are saying this stuff. Here's one more. This is Illinois farmer Grant Senesac who says, the harvest is awesome. We've got more. We've got soybeans coming out of our whatever.

But the tariffs mean we're not going to be able to cover what it costs. You know, it sucks. We're going to have a record, probably a record bean crop since I've started farming and we're and we're not going to get hardly anything for it. It's just kind of sad, you know, and then when you're hearing about a check from the government, you're like, well, you know, I want to be paid off of the job and the quality that I've done, not, not, you know, hoping for the best and thinking the best. It's, it's one of those things where we wish we had record yields with high prices, you know,

so that way we don't have to get a bailout. Let me explain what's happening here in like the clearest possible terms. Farmers are not mad because they had a bad season. They're mad because they played by the rules. Trump changed the rules and now they're getting screwed. He tore up. the trade deals. He tanked export markets. And now he's talking about bailouts to farmers that are barely going to cover the actual losses. And the truth is, China and other soybean importers have moved on. They're moving on. They're doing something else. When Trump made American soybeans more expensive, Beijing didn't wait it out. Beijing didn't come crawling to Trump

saying, give us a deal. They said, let's go to Brazil. Let's go to Argentina. Let's go to even smaller producers like Paraguay. And once those trade routes and relationships are built, they don't disappear. It's conceivable that even if the tariffs now went away, China would go, we got a good thing going with Brazil. We're doing fine. We're not going to rip up the Argentina deal because you guys now are having buyers remorse on the tariffs and are going backwards.

China's getting its soybeans. Global supply chains are adjusting. The world keeps turning. But our farmers are the ones that get screwed. So the battle of tariffs was framed by Trump as a battle to make America win again. And it just handed our export markets to competitors who are like, we're thrilled to step in. Of course, Brazil will make a deal with China.

Of course Argentina will. Brazil, by the way, now dominates global soybean exports. Farmers are profiting from the demand that used to come here to the United States. So China's going to be fine. Global buyers will be fine. Brazil will be thrilled. But it's American farmers paying the price for Donald Trump's tariffs. And it is not going to change potentially even if Trump backs off of the tariffs.

He's created a real problem here. We've got a lot more coverage of these furious farmers on the YouTube channel. Make sure if you're watching this clip on YouTube, that you're subscribed. And if you're listening, come on over to our YouTube channel where we have extensive coverage of this, YouTube.com slash the David Packman Show. If you've ever dealt with nausea occasionally, more frequently, you might want to check out one of our sponsors relief band, a wearable wristband designed to relieve and maybe even prevent nausea.

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Click enter voucher. Use code Pacman for both the code and the password. The link is in the description. appears to be increasingly wrong with President Donald Trump. And this time it is not the usual incoherence. Over the last couple of weeks, the behavior has really gone from erratic to genuinely alarming. And I love that people are finally noticing this. Now, start with the AI videos. We cover Donald Trump reposting this fake AI generated clip of himself sitting in the Oval Office announcing soon every American is going to have a med bed.

These med beds are this kind of right wing conspiracy theory about a secret healing machine supposedly hidden by the elites that it's almost like a tanning bed you lay down in and it'll analyze you and cure things and even regrow limbs. Anyway, the fake Trump video said every American will soon receive their own med bed card. The real Trump shared it almost as if it was something that he had said. And when asked about it, the White House press secretary said, oh, Trump likes sharing memes and he had every right to share it and he had every right to then later delete it. No one's talking about Trump's rights to post to social media. We know he has those rights. What we're saying is the crap he's posting is really alarming. We then saw

the infamous sombrero video. This was another AI generated video mocking Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Hakeem Jeffries is the first black house minority leader. And it showed him in a sombrero with, uh, I guess you, you would call it a waxed mustache. Um, and when he was called out for xenophobia, racism, Trump doubled down by posting another video involving a sombrero, I guess playing a guitar standing behind Hakeem Jeffries. This is not normal behavior for anybody. Like if, if your uncle was doing this, you would say, hey, what's with the stuff you're posting? This is the president of the United States. And it's not even normal behavior for Trump. Like even for what we've become used to from Trump, this is unusual behavior.

Now then Donald Trump had a recent speech when he went on a bizarre rant about presidents falling down the stairs saying, you know, Obama would bop down the stairs and I'm careful, but if you fall, it becomes part of your legacy. And then he started talking about how he might use dangerous cities like Chicago and San Francisco as training grounds for the military. So not only saying completely whacked out things, but also jumping from one insane thing to the next. That's when retired general Barry McCaffrey went on TV and said that that speech was one of the most, and I'm quoting here, bizarre unsettling events that General McCaffrey had ever seen.

And his exact words were the president sounded incoherent, exhausted, rabidly partisan, meandering and couldn't hold a thought together. Even some members of Congress are starting to now acknowledge this. Pennsylvania Congresswoman Madeline Dean, we had the video. She confronted House Speaker Maga Mike Johnson saying the president is unwell. And Johnson's response was that there's a lot of Democrats that are also unwell or unhinged, I guess, which is not the most normal thing to say when someone suggests that the president might be mentally unfit.

You then look at the reporters. have noticed Trump is slurring his speech. Reporters, of course, have noticed the bruised hands that are covered with like a completely clashing color makeup. And the White House goes, oh, that's from shaking hands. Everything's fine. Everything's totally fine. Nothing to look at here. They said, oh, it's chronic venous insufficiency. It's fine. It's no big deal. That wouldn't explain the confusion. It wouldn't explain the slurred speech. And then Trump gave an entire CNN interview to Jake Tapper over text message, which is also not exactly normal. He just texted with Jake Tapper and they're calling it an interview.

When asked how CNN verified it was really even Trump writing that stuff, CNN was unable to verify it. Jake Tapper is just assuming it was really Trump, but of course, this happened during yet another one of Donald Trump's unexplained multi-day absences. So at this point, even the coverage is becoming part of the story, the Guardian, the The Independent Politico, Reuters, the Hill, they've all now run stories sort of starting to ask what's going on with Trump's health, what's going on with his mental state, what's going on with his strange behavior.

And I believe that that in and of itself is a signal here. You've got legacy and corporate media outlets that are suddenly kind of publishing versions of the same story. You don't really see that unless something is happening. And I've been calling them out for years for being irresponsible in not covering the Trump health story. The sheer volume of stories about it now is not a coincidence. You put it all together.

The slurred speech, the bruises, the rambling, the fake videos he doesn't seem to even recognize are fake. He doesn't seem to remember. He never gave a speech in the Oval Office talking about med beds. And suddenly you've got corporate media paying attention. This is a very disturbing picture of a press. president whose mind and body appears to be failing in real time. Now, I just want to do, you know, the thought experiment.

If this were Joe Biden, Fox News would have a countdown clock either to, you know, Biden's death or the 25th Amendment being invoked or whatever. It's Trump. Right wing media won't touch it and legacy in corporate media is not going to take it as seriously because they don't want to be seen as biased by the right. Aids continue to pretend that nothing is wrong. The base says he's trolling the libs with all of this stuff. But everybody can now see it. Something is very wrong. Loyalty is the only reason that there are still people pretending that everything is fine. It's a form of denial. And meanwhile,

the legal hits keep coming. Let's talk about that. Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois is dropping. a legal hammer on what is arguably the illegal militarization of American cities over the objections of the mayors and the governors of those cities. The mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois do not want troops in Illinois. Here is Pritzker talking about the heinous militarization that we are seeing and the plan to try to shame them out of their state. There's been zero account or transparency from ICE or the administration. Last week, federal agents dressed in camouflage gear conducted a military-style raid on an apartment building in South Shore,

a neighborhood of Chicago. They brought Black Hawk military helicopters and more than 100 agents in full tactical gear. Even though it was supposedly a very dangerous and important mission, And they brought dozens of cameras and set them up so that they could film their attack on the building in HD for social media. See for yourself. And then they play videos.

I think that this is a really interesting strategy. What Governor Pritzker seems to really get is that Trump wants footage that they can use on social media and commercials. They want to use the footage to instill fear. They want to use the footage to have, you know, people like Christy Gnome dressed up with a bulletproof vest going on raids and participating in this stuff. The optics. Who do we know from history really is focused on these sorts of optics?

Well, it's the authoritarian leaders and dictators of the 20th century. It's yet another way in which Donald Trump is really like them. And I really like, I really like that J.B. Pritzker understands that a lot of the lot of this is about the optics. And so he has a plan or so he says to try to beat this back or prevent it. Take a listen to this. in the core of the time, that they can do that, that's a solidate, and they can't. They can't have a few in that.

It's a way to tell us. It's a very easy, and you can do this is for any question. But that's why they're in the only work to do. The same one, you can still want to find out of time and find out of the community because of the first person that's not allowed to help. This is a guy who is actually fighting. Now, you don't have to agree with everything J.B Pritzker does.

You don't have to agree with every policy policy position. You don't have to agree with everything that he says to recognize that he is locked and loaded here. Apologize for the firearms term. He is locked and loaded here and ready to fight. Now, there is a little bit of bad news here. The bad news is that the request that was made. earlier this week to block the deployment of those Texas National Guard to Chicago alongside

Illinois National Guard. For now, for now, a judge has declined to immediately block them. Now, this is a lawsuit or I'm sorry, this is a ruling that has many people confused. The judge did not rule that it's fine for Trump to send Texas National Guard to Illinois over the objections of Illinois. That is not what the judge ruled. What the judge has done so far is said, I am not going to immediately issue an injunction blocking that.

You can still proceed with this matter. You can still file your lawsuit. That's all going to happen. But the judge said, I'm not willing to just issue an immediate injunction as this is resolved. That is a legal loss. But the fact that the lawsuit is going forward is still going to hopefully be a problem for the Trump administration. So are there people out there willing to fight?

Yeah, there are. Are these fights that we are necessarily going to win? Well, you never know that. You never know that. But as I've said before, at minimum, we need to make it difficult for them. Governor J.B. Pritzker seems more than ready to make that happen. I think that's a great thing. Gavin Newsome seems to be on the same page.

Wes Moore seems to be on the same page. Governor Shapiro on the same page. Other governors I'm less able to speak to. I know I got a couple emails from people saying, hey, you know, what's going on with Gretchen Whitmer? Is she getting a little too friendly with Trump? We're going to analyze that and look at that. But there are at least a bunch of governors here who are willing to say, not in my city, not

in my state. And then we will have to see what the legal resolution is there. Is there anyone that is really fighting this stuff that I haven't mentioned? Let me know by emailing me info at david packman.com. I want to know about it. Many of you know that I grew up speaking Spanish, but I took French in middle school and high school. I'm a little rusty on it.

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get up to 55% off at babble.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. All right, let's get into Friday feedback for the week. You can always email me. Info at David Pakman.com will feature Reddit posts, Spotify comments, substack replies. You never know what might show up here. Here's a great question from I am an ominous, anominus. I am an ominous. Um, I am a nominous from Reddit. Would the Epstein files even be credible at this point? I don't get how we can even be confident than anything released would be true. What's stopping them from simply releasing forged or changed papers with whatever names they want on there or not on there. Yeah, I, my, my take on this, it's similar, but it's not quite as conspiratorial. Here's what I think is most

likely to happen. I think eventually something that will be called the Epstein files is going to be released. And the people who want to cover up the full and robust contents of those files will say, here it is. You got it. And it really won't be the full files. I will be far more confident that we are getting the real files and the full files if they are leaked. But even the leak could be fake, right? Like if you're, if you're thinking ahead a little bit more and you're like, okay, we really need to cover up the full files. If we just come to the table and say, you know what, you guys are right, we're going to release them now. And we hold back a bunch of stuff. People are going to go, no, you're not releasing the full files. What if we orchestrate a leak? So even

in that case, I do think, although for different reasons than this person is saying it, I do think that we need to approach anything that's released that is called the Epstein files with some amount of skepticism, some amount of skepticism. All right. So much feedback continuing to pour in about my interview with Rahm Emanuel. And you all mostly did not like him, like at all at all. I don't know that there's been a guest as disliked as Rahm Emanuel recently. W posted on the subreddit, yeh, Rahm, Emmanuel came off as combative and deeply unlikable

to me in this interview. He spent the whole time acting aggrieved as if he's not being listened to when I felt like David gave him more space to blather than any other guest he typically have, less of this please. Yeah, you know, one of the things that, let me, let me back up. I don't delude myself into thinking that my audience is a perfect representation of what's out there on the left. Like, I'll give you an example. I think my audience oversample socialists relative to the proportion out there in the world,

like as an example. So if you looked at Mike, the comments to my videos and you were like, wow, there's a lot of actual socialism here. I don't think that that amount of socialism as a proportion is what's out there in the real world, like just as an example. But I do think that the reaction to people is often pretty mirroring of what's out there in the general population. And if you compare my audience's reaction to Rahm Emanuel and my audience's reaction to Congressman Maxwell Frost, who we had on on Monday, you all really liked Maxwell Frost overall, the ones I heard from, of course,

and really didn't like Rahm Emanuel. Now, the caveat to this is, as I think of myself. I've never written to a show after listening to an episode. I've never left a YouTube comment that I can remember. And my point is, the people that comment and write in are a self-selected sample. And so in that sense, they may not really represent what's out there in the real world. But from the people I heard from, you all did not like Rahm Emanuel. And you did like Maxwell Frost. All right. Burnt Toaster asks, are the mid-t terms really the key? David keeps saying if Dems win the House in 26 midterms, Trump's agenda is dead because the House controls the purse strings. However, David and others have also said

multiple times that this administration defies court orders and ignores the laws in all norms. What's to say that even if the Dems do take back the House, why would the Trump administration suddenly follow the laws and norms? They've not cared about any of that before. And I don't see that changing if they lose the house. If anything, they'll accelerate their plans. Well, so here's a couple thoughts on this. One, everything is the key. What do we have in front of us right now? A couple of special elections and Proposition 50 in California, which by the way, according to the polling, is plus 20 in the polling. It looks like it's absolutely crushing. Right now, that's the key because it's what we have in front of us. We will then transition into the midterms. At that point,

the midterms will be the key because we can't take the White House back in November of 26. We can take the house back, we can take the Senate back. Hopefully at least the House happens, Senate's looking dicey. And so that will be the key then. Whatever is before us that we can work on, that's what is key at any particular time. At some point, the 2032 election will be key, but it's not key right now because we can't do much about it at this point in time. On this issue of doesn't the Trump administration just ignore everything anyway, there's a difference between a court order about a plane needing to turn around as compared to if Democrats take the House, they're just not going to fund Trump's insanity.

There's nothing to ignore in that sense. And so quite literally, the bills won't pass. The projects won't get funded. And so it is key. It is very, very much key. All right. Dave CC wrote in about my interview with Nathan Taylor from the election truth alliance whose perspective is that it's conceivable that Kamala Harris is actually the rightful winner of the 2024

election. Here's what Dave said. Nathan Taylor, election rigging conspiracy. I think it's bullshit. Dave writes, sorry, but I don't buy it. All of the time before the election polls were showing Trump slightly ahead. Harris slightly ahead or tied in swing states, but all within margin of error. If Harris was ahead by 10 or so in the swing state polls, I might start to think something dodgy was going on. Even David was saying things don't look good. in the run-up to the election. That's true, I was. Polls also were showing Latino, young men, and black support shifting to Trump in a big way.

As the election drew closer, polls were breaking in Trump's direction, even more as independents undecided started moving his way. Hillary had higher margins in the polls before the election, but still lost. When polls are that tight, Republicans usually win nothing out of the ordinary. I think the reasons for Harris's loss were the combination of the inflation spike, short campaign, sexism, and racism, Occam's razor. I do think that Republican voter suppression is a thing, though, and that has been getting worse over the years.

Yeah, listen, my assessment at this moment in time from the election truth alliance is that their allegations of irregularities may well exist in the data, but there is zero that they have presented or that I've been able to find in researching their claims that suggests that there was a theft or rigging of the election. The election ultimately reflected the polls. Hillary Clinton was polling better in swing states than Kamala Harris and she lost in 2016. Joe Biden was polling better in 2020 in the swing states and he won. Kamala Harris polled worse than both Biden who won and Harris who and Hillary who lost.

And the results reflected that. And so I am not convinced that what I can't, you know, I'm not a math guy in that sense. I can't deny the statistical realities that Nathan Taylor identified. What I can tell you is that no serious evidence of rigging has been presented. That's where I'm at right now. All right. Let's go to Spotify. Lucas and said I loved the segments.

on democratic messaging. To be honest with you, I'm afraid of burning bridges and the possibility of Dems becoming offended by this kind of calling out, especially with the midterms coming so soon. However, the politicians that are really going to make a difference and fight back against the conservative movement are not going to be swayed. If as a progressive community, we can hold these public servants accountable, then maybe there will be hope. But these days, I'm more cynical.

Yeah, you know what's interesting. I did that segment last week saying a bunch of the Democrats I've interviewed, they are failing. This is no good. I got overwhelmingly positive feedback from staffers to Democratic elected officials. I haven't heard from any Democratic elected officials on that. We had Maxwell Frost on the show on Monday. He didn't mention it. Not that I expect that he would know exactly what I said.

But it's incredible how much that segment I did calling out what's happening in the Democratic Party resonated, not only with my audience, obviously, but even with Democratic staffers. So that's very interesting. Stephen from Spotify on that same segment says your segment about Democrats messaging, where it falls short, and the rare moments when they connect is one of the most important segments I've heard in a long time. Stephen says, keep beating that drum. Well, I plan to, and you know, it's funny, I'm sort of tentatively scheduled to go to some

events in D.C. over the next couple of months. I'm kind of like, are they going to un-invite me? I kind of doubt it. I actually do think that the people in charge of these events agree with me for the most part, interestingly. All right. Eric Anderson on YouTube said, I'll only become a member. Oh, here we go. I'll only become a member if you make a video on Whitmer's kidnapping plot, showing that it was an FBI entrapment plot by our corrupt government and not a right-wing political attack. Truth matters. And when you lie about it, show your true colors.

Well, listen, Eric, I don't believe that the kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, was FBI entrapment. So I wouldn't do a segment about something I don't believe. That's one of the rules I have for myself on this show is I only do segments where I say things I believe. And I know that many people on the internet have alleged that it was an FBI entrapment plot, but no such evidence has been presented to me. And thus, I would not insult my audience in that way.

And then finally, on the issue of membership, James says about joining, that's okay. I'll save my money. instead of paying for constant, irrational, unreasonable rants about Trump and Republicans. Well, sir, you do you. I will say thank you to Rosemary Scott and Bert Weil. My newest two members, they have said, we're not going to be like James. We are going to sign up. And I really appreciate that.

All right. Info at Davidpacman.com. Questions, comments, concerns. Get them in. We've got a great bonus show for you today. You can sign up at join packman.com and get instant access to the bonus show