The David Pakman Show - 10/1/25: Military skeptical of Trump as speech goes haywire, government shuts down

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump openly admits that presidents are responsible for shutdowns while bragging about using this one to make irreversible cuts -- Trump slurs his speech, appears disoriented, and shows symptoms raising concerns of a possible stroke or other serious condition -- Trump delivers a bizarre speech to generals about gold paper, civil disturbances, and fake news while wasting taxpayer money -- Top military leaders criticize Trump and Pete Hegseth’s chaotic meeting as a clown show and openly mock their weakness -- Gavin Newsom taunts Trump over his weight and hypocrisy, sparking debate about Trump’s insecurities and false claims about himself -- Organizers plan over 2,100 “No Kings” demonstrations across all 50 states as protests test whether mass resistance can disrupt Trump’s rule -- Trump shocks with threats to cut health care during the shutdown while rambling incoherently alongside Robert F Kennedy Jr and Mehmet Oz -- Multiple new polls show Trump deeply unpopular, collapsing on the economy and immigration, and increasingly propped up by a radical minority -- Trump’s administration subsidizes coal in 2025 despite its economic collapse and health costs, clinging to nostalgia instead of reality -- On the Bonus Show: Trump shares a deepfake of Jeffries and Schumer, Republicans block an elected Democrat from taking office ahead of the shutdown, OpenAI prepares to launch an AI video app, and more… 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.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) Trump admits shutdown blame, vows cuts (06:51) Trump slurs speech, health concerns raised (13:15) Bizarre Trump address to generals (23:30) Generals mock Trump and Hegseth’s chaos (30:00) Newsom taunts Trump over weight, hypocrisy (35:10) Nationwide “No Kings” protests planned (40:47) Trump threatens health care cuts with RFK Jr, Oz (48:28) New polls show Trump collapsing in support (56:29) Coal subsidies return despite collapse  

Welcome to the show. The government is shut down. You all know that I find this to be just this endless loop of attention seeking behaviors and hurting Americans for no real reason for a mechanism that's optional. There's no rule that says the government has to shut down. There's no rule that says this is how government's must be funded and if the budget is not agreed to, the government shuts down. This is something that is done by political choice.

It started with Reagan during the 80s. I explained a little bit about it yesterday. And so where I kind of find myself is number one, obviously is a political show. If the government is shut down, I have to address it. On the other hand, as I said yesterday, I hate participating in this political game that is only bad for people. It's it's never good for anyone out there in the world when the government shuts down. And it's also not good for anyone out there in the world when media coverage becomes about the who met with whom and did they cancel the meeting or did they do it?

And why won't they say a vote for a clean resolution? I think the only people that win are the opportunist elected officials. This includes Democrats and Republicans, although for different reasons and different circumstances depending on who's in power. But at the same time, I do have to address it. And so what I'm going to try to do is really focus in on the political consequences, but I want to restate, not that people who listened to the show wouldn't know by now. I want to restate that this is a completely optional thing. It's a dog and pony show, but it is not a meaningless one in the sense that people do get

hurt when the government shuts down. Now, there are people already feeling the pain and that's really my focus, 750,000 federal workers furloughed, some might be fired. That's another thing Donald Trump is trying to do. do, which we'll address later on today, which is create firing lists. Trump claims that during a shutdown, he has more power to lay off or fire federal workers. Legal experts say, no, he doesn't, but when has the law ever gotten in the way of what Donald Trump wants to do?

Government services are stalled. Trump is bragging that he is going to use this opportunity to make irreversible cuts to programs that Democratic elected officials care about and that Americans of all political stripes depend upon. Let me focus maybe on the most important or salient aspect of this from a political standpoint with government shutdowns, who you blame. You as if you are an American, right, I mean, I know we have 20% of our audiences outside the United States, but what is the blame going to do with regard to how people vote? And what Donald Donald. Trump may not want you to remember is that when Barack Obama was president, Donald Trump

said when the government shuts down, all that matters is who is the president. People blame the president. People remember who was president at the time. These are Donald Trump's words. This is from Fox and Friends with a much younger looking Steve Ducey and Brian Kilmead. This is not Ainsley Earhart. It was a different host at the time. I don't remember who this was.

And here is Donald Trump's view on this. You know, the interesting thing is in 25 years and 50 years and 100 years from now, when the government, you know, they talk about the government shutdown, they're going to be talking about the president of the United States. Who was the president at that time? They're not going to be talking who the head of the house was, the head of the Senate, who's running things in Washington. They're going to be talking about during the Obama administration.

So a guy's like Boehner who is in there working hard and he's got one of the truly hard jobs of the law. They're going to be discussing him. They're going to be discussing one person. So I really think the pressure is on the president. Well, that is very interesting because by Donald Trump's own logic, this one's on him. It's not even his first. This is not Trump's first shot down his president.

This is a record that should be embarrassing for anybody. But Trump is treating it like yet another opportunity just to settle political scores. And he's mocking Democrats. He's using, you know, racist AI cartoons where Hakeem Jeffries is styled with a Mexican sombrero and a fake mustache. And it's all whacked while millions of Americans face higher health care costs. Federal workers wonder, okay, I'm furloughed, but am I even going to have my job? And so this is not, this is a self-imposed problem that we do this.

shut down dog and pony show, but it also has extraordinarily real consequences. When what is it, half the country can't afford an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing or putting it out a credit card. And then some people are going to have checks delayed. Offices are closed. Health services are slowing down. National parks are forced into chaos. And all of it is by Trump's own admission when Obama was president, it is all the responsibility. and the fault of the president. So when Trump points fingers at Democrats, just go to what Donald Trump said before the president owns the shutdown.

And that means that right now, Donald Trump owns the economic pain. He owns the confusion. He owns the chaos. It's on him that he's not meeting and then meeting and figuring nothing out. The question is whether voters will hold him accountable. And to be perfectly frank, I don't know that in November of 2020. 2026, assuming this is the final shutdown before the midterms, I don't know if it will be. Maybe it will.

Maybe it won't. I don't know if voters are going to hold Trump and Republicans accountable 14 months from now. Actually, I'm sorry, 13 months from now when we vote again in the midterms. The most terrifying aspect of this other than the human pain and suffering, the economic pain and suffering, the uncertainty. People saying, if I get a flat tire, I've got to put it on my credit card. And now I'm furloughed. And now Trump is looking to fire me, putting that aside, I don't know that voters are actually

going to hold those deserving of blame accountable. And we failed an IQ test as a nation. I'm so sorry. I know it's offensive. We failed an IQ test as a nation when as a country we elected Donald Trump not once but twice. And now the question is, are we going to hold the right people accountable? Trump's condition, whatever it is, is getting much, much worse.

Yesterday, Donald Trump gave a speech to military generals and admirals. The substance was bad enough. We're going to look at that in a moment. But Donald Trump's physical appearance is raising even more red flags. What is wrong with him? What is wrong with Donald Trump? At the speech, not only were Donald Trump's eyes almost completely swollen shut, not only was he slurring, not only did he seem disoriented and out of energy, but Donald Trump's eyes

were pointing in different directions at various moments. This is a condition called strabismus when the eyes aren't aligned properly. Now, in addition to Trump's eyes going cuckoo at different points in time. He was also just slurring his way through this entire thing. Take a look and you will again notice Trump's eyes pointing in opposite direction at various moments of this deranged speech. I tell you, it's something we're seriously considering. There were powers. There were big powers. They were just about as mean and scary as you could be. And so we'll look at that. one of the biggest cases that we won was the decision of the united states supreme court to allow us to proceed on the word merit merit so those two words are right up there so this

and as you can see trump's eyes particularly his right eye it's essentially close is i would say the opposite of you ask for a definition the opposite of political correctness we went through political correct where you had to have people we went through political correct where so we have a building list of symptoms we now are noticing the strabismus the eyes pointing in different directions we have a growing list of symptoms for supposedly the healthiest president ever and interestingly the condition most likely to encompass all the symptoms that we see with our own eyes takes us back to where the speculation began i'm going to get to that in a moment. me explain. We've got a 79-year-old obese man with known chronic venous insufficiency, swollen ankles,

unexplained bruising on his hands. We add to that more and more slurred speech, swollen eyes and not symmetrically swollen. We have the strabismus. The most likely direction here, and we're left to speculate because this White House just won't tell us, the most likely direction you would look here would be neurological or vascular. So we're back to where the speculation really began, stroke or TIA, these transient ischemic attacks. They're sort of like mini strokes. You might consider a cranial nerve palsy, myasthenia gravis, but stroke or TIA would

be where the symptoms would first have you look. Now, as we go down in terms of probability, I guess you would say, you would consider some kind of blood-related cause a bleeding or a clotting disorder, potentially, amyloidosis, liver disease. And then you would go, well, could it be cardiac or pulmonary? Could it be right-sided heart failure? Could it be chronic venous insufficiency, but it's getting significantly more serious? Less likely, could it be superior Venakava syndrome? And again, we're just going down the list because they won't tell us.

You would then consider is there an infection here? Is there an inflammatory cause? Could it be orbital cellulitis that's causing Trump's right eye in particular to swell almost shut and point in a different direction? Could it be a periorbital infection? And again, these things are getting less and less likely as I go. Could it be due to a medication would also be considered? But understand that they're not really being upfront about what medications he's even on.

They say he's not really on much at all. So understand that this is potentially very serious. When you see, I spoke to an ER doc about this, who told me when you see strabismus and slurred speech in an elderly patient, you need to look at the possibility of stroke. You need an urgent neurologic evaluation. And then when you look at the unexplained bruising, they've explained it by saying he's shaking hands, but Trump's left hand has a bruise. He only shakes hands with his right hand.

It doesn't make any sense. You would say, is there a hematologic? disease. We have no transparency from this administration. We have no idea what is going on, but something seems to be very, very wrong. Leave me a comment. What do you believe is going on here? Let's be honest. When it is hot outside the way it's been bad underwear makes it really much worse. Our sponsor Sheath underwear has completely rethought how men's underwear should function in the heat. Sheath's boxer briefs are designed with a dual pouch system keeping everything in place, separate, ventilated. This means less sweat, less sticking, less of that awkward

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Use the code Pacman for 20% off. The link is in the description. Is this the lowest that the Trump administration has ever gone? They flew generals in from around the world at your expense so that Trump could rant to them about gold paper, waging war on American cities, talking about how Obama used to come down the stairs of Air Force One and all sorts of other nonsense. Is this fiscally conservative? Is this a good use of taxpayer money?

I don't want my money used in this way. We are going to look at some of the most disgusting moments of this. And it does appear to be having consequences, but not the consequences that Donald Trump would want. Generals and admirals, some seen visibly face palming during the speech are reported. disgusted with what Donald Trump said and did, not to mention that all of this came after Pete Hegseth ranted about no more fat people in the military. We'll get to that a little bit later as well.

But here is Trump not reacting well to the fact that the room is quiet. And he is saying, I know you military people often don't clap, but you can clap here. I've never walked into a room so silent before this is very, don't laugh. laugh. Don't laugh. Don't live. You know, I just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But I've never walked into a room. A little bit of awkward laughter. But the real thing to laugh awkwardly about, but actually, we probably shouldn't be laughing at all, is how much

did this cost taxpayers? How much does it cost to bring in admirals and generals and have them sit and listen to Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump? Now, Trump pulled some of the ugliest rhetoric. If you go and you look at history of when authoritarian talk about the enemy within, within our borders there is an enemy. It is ugly. And Trump says we are being invaded from inside. It's like a foreign enemy, but it's a domestic enemy. This is disgusting authoritarian pablum. That's what it is. Only in recent decades, the politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways.

because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don't have uniforms. Now, as we already discussed, Trump is slurring badly. His eyes are pointing in different directions. His right eye is almost completely swollen shut. He's gripping the lectern like his life depends on it. But the substance of what he's saying is arguably even scarier. We have enemies inside the country. They're not wearing uniforms. It could be anybody. It could be the person that you see when you first get to your kid's school. It could be somebody bagging your groceries at the grocery store. It could be your dentist. It could be the gas station attendant. If you live in a country where they, I'm sorry, in a state where they force

you to have other people pump your gas. Anyway, this is dangerous, divisive toxic stuff. This is turning up the temperature, not turning it down. And Donald Trump also focusing on the media, claiming that CNN just turned their camera off. Of course, this video is from CNN, as you can see, the camera was very much on. CNN when we came back, fake news, CNN, oh, their camera just went off. You know, their camera, every time I mentioned, they turn the camera up because it's never good. They said, this is a problem. But I don't blame them.

You better off keeping it all. Trump's visual hallucinations getting notably worse. And then if you are a member of the military and you signed up. Is this what you thought you were signing up for? Trump talking about a quick reaction force of the military to quell what Trump calls civil disturbances, meaning protesters exercising their First Amendment right. And Trump says the people in this room are going to be out there quelling that. We haven't even started yet last month.

By the way, I know the audio is getting worse and worse. This was from the Pentagon feed. I don't know if Antifa or maybe Black Lives Matter got into the audio system, but the audio problems are straight from the source. I did an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is disurbance. It's going to be a big thing for the people in this room because a big thing.

It's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control. Once you get involved at all, they all joke. They say, oh, this is not good. Not exactly the picture of male virility. Donald Trump speaking very softly, speaking very slowly, slurring and disoriented. But what he's saying is undeniably dark and dystopian and terrifying. And if Americans allow this, we risk waking up in a real dictatorship.

We're in an authoritarian leaning. administration right now. But the risk is waking up in a bona fide dictatorship. Trump dumping more of the language of dictators saying San Francisco and Chicago and New York and Los Angeles, we're going to straighten them out. How many of you have seen the film, The Man in the High Castle, I'm sorry, the series or read the book, reminiscent. What they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York. York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places. And we're going to straighten them out one by one.

And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can't let these more of the language of dictators. We are at war with our own cities, our own cities and Trump talking about, oh, you know, the inner cities. This is how Trump and other Republicans refer to black and brown people when they can't just say it.

They go, the inner city is part of the problem. Fire department. I always put the fire department in because they're great. They're great. And I got 95% of their vote too that helps. When you get 95% of the vote, you always have to mention them. But they're great. And they're brave in our inner cities, which we're going to be talking about because it's a

big part of war now. It's a big part of war. But the firemen go up in ladders and you have people shooting at them while they're up in lattice. I don't even know if anybody heard that, but and I said, don't talk about it much, but I think you have to. A firemen are incredible. They're up in one of these ladders.

It goes way up to the sky, rescuing people and you have animals. Rascuing people, you've got animals. Remember when Kamala Harris said, Trump will send the military after you. He will send the military after Americans. And some people laughed and didn't believe it. And some people said, how dare you suggest that Trump would do that? You've fallen for the woke mind virus. You've got Trump derangement syndrome.

And it's not that he might do it. He's done it. He's just saying now he's going to do it even more. Now, then it got totally wacky. And at this point, the disorientation was difficult to ignore. Trump started talking to the generals about gold paper, gold paper. Beautiful paper. The gorgeous paper.

I said, they're all a little more gold on it. deserve it can be i want the a paper not the d paper we used to sign a piece of garbage i said this man's going to be a general right yet i don't want to use this i want to use the big beautiful firm paper i want to use the real gold writing that's right trump is not going to sign the promotion of any member of the military on flaccid paper we are only going to do it with thick hard firm paper God, what is wrong with this guy? And finally, Donald Trump as usual, showing us some of his greatest insecurities. One is that Barack Obama is not only a far better speaker than Trump, Barack Obama is not only much smarter and knowledgeable than Trump, but Barack Obama is also in much better shape

and was able to easily get up and downstairs. This is about Trump's deepest insecurities. Legacy. We don't want that. It's walk nice and easy. You're not having you don't have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don't pop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would pop down those stairs. I've never said, da-da-da-da-da-da-pop-pa-pup. Do-do-do-do-do.

He'd go down the stairs. Wouldn't hold on. I said, it's great. I don't want to do it. I guess I could do it. But eventually bad things are going to happen. And it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president.

No, he was lousher. A 72-hour psych hold and full evaluation, a much more appropriate place for this sort of speech than after having flown in generals and admirals from around the world on your dollar to listen to this stuff. But you know what? The military might be making us proud. The word on the street is that generals are turning on Trump. Donald Trump appears to be losing the top military brass over his unhinged and disastrous

speech. If you thought Trump's rallies were bad, wait until you hear what the reaction from the military brass was when Pete Hegseth tried to play defense secretary, war secretary, and then Trump came in and delivered a delusional. slurring and swollen disjointed speech we are learning that the generals didn't like it one general said it was a quote total waste of money another said it quote could have been an email these are four star generals and when they are openly mocking the secretary of defense and the president of the united states you know you've got a disaster on your hands and there are major uh political

implications here. The big show was Pete Hexseth lecturing generals about warrior ethos, grooming standards, and no fat people, please. He, of course, along with Trump has renamed the Department of Defense, the Department of War. He ranted about toxic leadership. He said to ensure peace, we must prepare for war. And then Trump came in. And Trump ranted about gold paper, thick, firm, hard paper that Trump is titillated by. Trump slurred his way to oblivion. And insiders say that the military brass didn't like it. Not only are there reports that Pete Hegseth has gone completely manic since the assassination of Charlie Kirk just obsessed with his own security and lashing out and all of it. He's the guy Trump trusts the military to. And the generals seem to have seen it for

what it was. I'm wondering, I'm thinking out loud, could it be, could it be that as much of a waste of taxpayer money as this fiasco was, that it was actually useful in that it was now undeniable when the general see Hegseth and Trump in the full glory of their incompetence that they go, these guys don't. I report to these guys. These are my commanders. But the part that a lot of people are missing is that there was zero leadership here. And the members of the military who were there noticed it. Trump bragging about being friends with Putin, complaining about the auto pen, the machine that signs letters. Imagine being flown in from the Pacific or the Middle East for an important high level briefing. This is going to set the stage and direction for

the next three years and three months that are left. And then you insult the generals by rams. ambling at them in this way. And so the reports are that the generals were disgusted and they resented being used as props by Donald Trump. Now, let me tell you why this matters so much. In every authoritarian system, there's a really important question. Does the dictator have the military on their side or is the military against them? If the brass of the military is on your side, you can get away with almost anything. If the brass is laughing at you behind your back, If they don't respect you, if they believe you're wasting their time by flying them halfway around the world to rant about gold paper and have haggsets say no fat people, you are weak.

And what can really take down dictators and authoritarians is when they do not have the military behind them. So it's actually as cartoonish as this was, as much of a waste of taxpayer money as it was, as pathetic as the entire thing was, it is critically important that it doesn't. seem that Trump and Hegseth have the military brass behind them. And that actually should make us feel safer. The Department of War thing is pathetic. Hegseth keeps saying it like it's a magic spell. The Department of War is if you repeated enough, you're going to be strong. Trump did the same thing. He kept insisting. He's respected. We're respected. I won 20-20.

I'm really tough. But saying you're tough over and over again to people like the top brass of our military suggest to them that you're actually insecure, which Trump is. is. It suggests to them that you were weak, which Trump is. And then Hegseth with this whole no fat people thing, yet Trump is, you know, claims to be six, three, two, two 35 or whatever. Trump's obese. We've all seen it. That I don't think is inspiring much respect from the military either. So the whole idea here was let's get everybody together. Let's project strength. They showed weakness and And they parade around their insecurities in front of the military brass. And the military brass, I don't believe, fell for it.

So if the question was, does Trump have the military in his pocket or doesn't he? It seems as though whatever's going on in the lower ranks, I don't know. But the top brass did not seem impressed with this for once, finally, finally, that actually makes me feel a little bit safer if it is indeed what is going on. Make sure you're getting the full daily audio podcast. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple Podcasts. This is just one part of that full hour show.

We'll take a quick break. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason, no probable cause needed, all while Republicans try to twist things so that you think this is all great for America. This should be the biggest story in the US right now, but it's almost impossible to keep up with the millions of moves that Trump is making every single day. That's why ground news exists. Ground news is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin before it takes

control of our opinions. Ground news is the smarter, more reliable way to stay informed when MAGA is banking. on us getting distracted. I'm partnering up with Ground News to give you 40% off the same vantage plan that I use. So you'll pay only five bucks a month for all of their premium features. Just go to ground.news slash Pacman or use the code Pacman in the app when you sign up. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. Hey, you guys have to see this. Governor Gavin Newsom just dropped an obesity bomb on Donald Trump. And it goes to one of Trump's greatest insecurities. Some of you like this. Some of you don't like it. I want to talk about it. Everything

about Donald Trump points to his physical appearance as one of the main areas of insecurity. He really wants to be liked. He wants to be seen as smart, all of that stuff. But the physical stuff is important. Trump's clothing is carefully selected to hide his obesity. He wears these massive suits. He dyes his hair so it doesn't look gray. He puts on makeup all over. his body on his face. He looks like a clown, but he also uses it to hide his unexplained hand bruises. He uses lifts in his shoes to appear taller. He lies about his height. He lies about his weight. And Gavin Newsom did something that has upset some people, which is Newsome went right at Donald Trump for his obesity. Now, I believe that this is fine. In fact, I tweeted almost the same

thing about Trump. This is not making fun of obesity. This is making fun of Trump's hypocrisy and how easily triggered he is. Trump is extremely trigly. Here's what happened. Pete Hegseth said during this deranged speech yesterday, it's not a good look for our country to have fat people in the military. Here's how he said it. And by the way, I know the audio is a disaster. This is, this is the audio the Pentagon set up with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon

and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad and it's not who we are. So whether you're an airborne ranger or a chairborn ranger, a brand new private or a four-star general, you need to meet the heightened weight standards and pass a PT test. And as the chairman said, yes, there is no PT test. But today at my direction, every member of the joint force at every rank is required to take a

PT test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year. Well, listen, Gavin Newsom pointed out, Trump doesn't meet that standard. Newsom pointing out that Donald Trump needs to go. I guess the commander in chief needs to go by Pete Hegseth's own standard. standard. He included a picture of Trump and a McDonald's certainly looking portly to say the least. Now, there are about five different layers to this that are important. I don't make fun of people for characteristics that they can't control. You know, I'll attack you for having a terrible sense of style, but not for having diabetes or being tall or short or whatever. Now, weight becomes

controversial in this context. Is weight something people control? I don't even want to debate it because it's not actually what this is about, you know, suffice it to say, sometimes weight can be related to choosing an unhealthy lifestyle. Sometimes it's genetic. Sometimes it's a medical condition. Sometimes it's an accident. It's a combination. It's not actually the issue here. The issue isn't making fun of Trump for his weight. It's attacking Trump and his administration for their hypocrisy and reminding everybody that Donald Trump has spent decades insulting everyone. Sometimes you've got to take it too, if that's the game that you want to play. Now, I had put out a similar message yesterday on Twitter substack blue sky and threads where I said, quote, can someone explain Hegseth's obsession with no fat people yet he seems completely unperturbed that he works for an obese president?

I believe that this is a completely appropriate angle of attack on Donald Trump. The issue is the hypocrisy. The issue is the willingness to insult everybody for everything calling Rosie O'Donnell, what was it, a fat pig back in whatever year that was and not letting up since. And I think that if you're going to dish it, you've got to be able to take it. But there's another story here. And the story is that Trump simply is not what he claims to be. And Trump is not what he claims to value. And Trump is not what his supporters claim to value.

He says he's a good businessman, but the truth is he'd be richer if he just invested his inheritance in the S&P 500. He says he's a good sports guy, but he regularly cheats at golf. He says he's respected around the world, but he's really ridiculed and made fun of. He says he's six three and he's not. He says he weighs 229 and he clearly doesn't. So I believe that this is a perfectly reasonable line of attack given that the hypocrisy of Trump's own administration's position on fat members of the military is what's being brought

up here. And Trump is the commander in chief of the military at the end of the day. Tell me if you disagree, leave a comment. I want to hear from you. Anti-Trump protests are exploding. And October 18th could be the biggest one yet. I think this is awesome. Organizers say that there's over 2,100 separate demonstrations planned across all 50 states. There are There's more than the millions who hit the streets in June, hopefully planning to protest. There was the first No King's Day of Action. This is another No King's Day of Action, October 18th. Now, here's the important aspect to this.

History shows us that numbers alone don't guarantee success. If we go back to like the height of the Vietnam War protests, you had demonstrations with half a million people in why. Washington, D.C., but it was still a tiny fraction of the country. We now have 330, 340 million people living in the United States. Even 5 or 6 million people turning out is huge, but it's also 1.5 to 2% of the population. And what political scientists will tell you is that to really topple a regime or force major change, you usually need sustained engagement from like, 3 to 6% of the whole population. Now, that's a lot of people. But it's also not completely

unrealistic. If October 18th doesn't surpass the June numbers, I fear it's going to be seen more as symbolic rather than decisive and influential. And if there is really an appetite for change here, we got to get those numbers up. And we need October 18th to be even bigger. Now, Now, this ties into a second problem. The style of these protests, if the next no Kings Day looks like the last one, which is, and I don't say this negatively, more carnival than anything else, I don't know that Trump's necessarily going to sweat it. And I think it's great that the protests were positive and they weren't violent because

I'm against violence. That's all good stuff. But one of the things about protests that influence change is that they may. make people uncomfortable. They have to in some way suspend business as usual, impact the status quo. Now, to me, that doesn't mean riots. It doesn't mean property crime. It doesn't mean any of that.

But it does have to in some way be disruptive. This is what history tells us. And so the question is, given the geography of the United States, a very big country with some large areas that are relatively sparsely populated, with people in circumstances where many people can't afford to really take time off from work to protest. You have all these different things. What is it that could happen that will create leverage by interfering with business as usual? Blocking a freeway in your own backyard and just making your own neighbors angry at you. I don't think that that's really an effective method. I've talked about that before. The people

that we're really trying to protest here, you know, Republicans in Congress, Republican and governors, Trump's allies, they're not even in a lot of these places. They're in red districts. They're in rural strongholds. They're behind gates and private security. And many of them are in Washington, D.C. And so because the United States doesn't necessarily have like a central seat of power. We have D.C. But there's not a central seat of power. Like, for example, Paris and France, that's like the one place. We've got D.C., New York, L.A., Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta. It's almost like a cloud-based government in the United States. It's decentralized in a way.

It's harder to concentrate pressure. This is just a reality. So that gets to the question of outcomes. What is the goal here? With Black Lives Matter in 2020, it was constant presence in the streets to force mayors and police departments to respond. There were clear policy debates around funding and accountability and training that came out of it. The anti-Trump protest that is not only broad in its goals, but decentralized

risks as awesome as I think it is. It risks not having a coherent ask. Is this about ice rates? Is it about defending democracy? Is it about shutting down military deployments to cities? And I wonder, and this is just me thinking out loud, does it make sense that it have some kind of specific focus. And I know, well, it's no Kings, it's anti-authoritarian. Cool. I'm wondering how can it be bigger? How can it be more sustained?

How can it have a clear message? What could it be that really tips this administration into a further collapse? The administration is wobbling right now. The deportation blitz has backfired and the deployment of troops into cities is just increasingly desperate. judges are saying you can't do a lot of this stuff. So number one, we need turnout to surpass that of the June no Kings Day. It can't look like just another day in the park with a couple megaphones or whatever. But then the big picture is what is the ask here? I am very excited

for this. I'll be participating myself. I want to get at least that 3%, which would be like nine and a half, 10 million people out there. It's a stretch goal, but it's doable. But we need to figure out how to make this as effective as possible. And I hope that the organizers do. What if I told you that Donald Trump is a really unpopular president? Would that come as a surprise to you? I think if you pay attention to independent media, you would go, David, no, that's not a surprise. But if you paid attention to cable news and legacy and corporate media, you might be surprised to hear that Donald Trump is historically unpopular. The data says Trump is weak, failing and deeply, deeply unpopular.

We have new polls from the Associated Press, Gallup, Quinnipiac, Reuters and the Economist. They all say the same thing. There's good news and bad news and they're the same. It just depends on who you are. Trump's approval is in the toilet. You don't like Trump, that's good. If you like Trump or you are Trump, then that's bad. Trump is in the 30s on economy and trade on immigration, which was going to be his signature

issue. He's underwater. Polling averages, brutal. This is not a popular president. Now think about Trump's biggest political moments lately. The failed Jimmy Kimmel ouster. Total embarrassment. The indictment stunt against James Comey.

Total embarrassment. Legal experts say there's no case here. Even among Republicans, these cracks are obvious. And for some reason, the media and even Democrats are still to a degree talking about Trump as if he's strong. Now, I get it. Among the cult members, among hardcore MAGA, Trump is strong. The problem is that he's weak among everybody else. Democrats, disgusted. Independence, increasingly moving away. Skeptical Republicans don't like the guy. And so what we have to kind of hope for here is that what we are seeing in the poll numbers reflect some kind of national

reckoning. Maybe more MAGA people are going to start pulling down. the banners or the flags or whatever they have and are going to finally face the business of making things right with the rest of us after they have cheerleaded one of the most destructive forces in American politics in a very long time. The only issue with that is that for the hard right, reckoning doesn't really mean reflection. Sometimes it means, oh, we've got to do more to bring force down upon our political enemies. And so the fear would be the ideal scenario. I'll lay out the ideal scenario and the scenario I'm more afraid of. The ideal scenario would be that the magas would look around.

They would say, Trump promised me anything and he gave me nothing. I'm doing worse than ever. We've got negative job growth going on, inflation, all these different things. He screwed up everything he said he was going to do. No peace deal in Russia, Ukraine, none of it. I'm going to go out there and say, hey, I made a mistake. That's like this beautiful pie in the sky idea. We know based on sociology, psychology, cult dynamics, and just partisanship that as equally likely would be that people say, man, everything's going wrong and the pressure's getting really big on Trump. I've got to go out there and target my political enemies.

We need a civil war. We need more violence. I hope that that doesn't happen. I hope that that doesn't happen. But I worry that it might. Now, the problem in general, when countries get to the point where. the U.S. is now, is that there's really no easy ethical fix for this. I've said before, when you have rapid sociocultural change in a country, it's usually happening in ways that are extremely

authoritarian. If you look at the cultural revolution of China, for example, rapid changes in public sentiment and perspective, but it came at the end of an iron fist or the barrel of a gun or whatever you want to call it. And so we kind of also have to recognize, even if we are starting to see some kind of sea change. The only way for it to really happen quickly is by imposing authoritarianism on the country, which we are against. I'm an anti-authoritarian. So you've got to win the fight in the open. It's got to be persuasion. It's got to be politics. You can't take an authoritarian shortcut, even if you say that the ends would justify the means. I would argue the means aren't justified. Now, the irony is that the state's screaming the loudest about supposed tyranny when it's a Democrat in

office are the ones most dependent on federal dollars. You know, Kentucky gets $3.50 for every dollar. It sends into Washington. Louisiana's got a 19% poverty rate and nearly one in five residences on food stamps and you go down the list, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Alabama. And so the question also becomes when it comes to polling and the sort of geography of the United States, where is the point at which those red states will say, where We're getting extra screwed because I always want to be super upfront, you know, my friends

in California and Washington and Connecticut and Massachusetts and New York and Illinois and Maryland. They see what's happening nationally and are terrified by it. And to a degree, some of the things Trump does do affect blue states too. There's no doubt about it. But a lot of the people that are most disgusted with what's going on are sort of insulated from it by being in blue states with stronger social safety. That's better infrastructure, better education, better access to health care.

And so at what point do the people really getting screwed by Trump finally say, hey, that's enough. There's no more of this. So the polls prove that Trump is weak. He's failing. He's clinging to a movement that is getting smaller and also getting more radical and more dangerous. Corporate media, not doing a great job at explaining the dynamics of what's going on.

When will we just start treating Trump as the failed president that he has already become? and that he is someone supported by an increasingly desperate and cultish minority. That needs to be the focus, I believe, combined with the no king's protests and more of that sort of activism, because I think there's an opportunity here. Now, we're going to keep pushing. I hope you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. We're going to keep doing what we can, not just to build this show, but to really build a pro-democracy movement along with others in our cohort.

I want you to be a part of it. The bigger we are, the weaker they become. So make sure you've liked the video. Share it. Hit that subscribe button. One of the best upgrades I've ever made to the meals I make at home is wild grain. Wild grain lets me have high quality baked goods ready at home whenever I want them. Wild grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. You can customize your box online. If you're gluten-free, they've got it. It all goes in your freezer. You put it right in the oven, 25 minutes. minutes or less, no need to thaw, no need to prep, no need to clean up. They've got some great limited time fall items, pumpkin, cinnamon biscuits. My favorite apple cider donuts, I grew up with these in New England. They've been a hit in my kitchen.

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when you subscribe at wildgrain.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. animals sometimes violently lash out. And that's a really appropriate analogy for what we're about to look at. Donald Trump is now blatantly threatening the health care of Americans saying that during shutdowns like the one we're in right now, you can just start cutting, cutting, cutting. You can cut people's benefits. You can do things medically.

Now I don't want to read too much into the looks on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s face and Dr. Oz's face here, but even they seem disgusted with Donald Trump coming out here. And it's not even implicitly. It's explicitly threatening Americans. Tell you, we have $17 trillion being invested. So the last person that wants to shut down is us now. With that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people.

out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. And you all know, you all know Russell vote. He's become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way. So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown because because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people out. We don't want to do that, but we don't want fraud, waste, and abuse. And, you know, we're cutting that. It's important, oh, this is so bad. I don't even know where to start.

I should mention it's sort of like the law doesn't matter anymore, so I hesitate to start with this, but Trump can't legally do anything with the shutdown going on that he couldn't do without the shutdown going on. Now he can try to do things for sure. It's possible that the Supreme Court would actually okay it, but they would have anyhow, probably. But the whole point here is. Donald Trump's claim that you can do more things during a shutdown is not supported by law, but I don't know how much the law matters anymore.

But one of the really important narratives that's developed here is the idea that Democrats are trying to keep their own health care subsidies, like elected Democrats. But the truth is that elected Democrats in the House and Senate make too much money to get those subsidies. So I don't know where Trump is getting that. Trump was actually asked about this by a reporter. Here's the answer to what he said. Time for that.

They're not eligible for the health care subsidies that Democrats are demanding. So can you clarify, what are you talking about when you say Democrats want to protect their health care? So when an illegal person comes in, a person who came into our country illegally, therefore, breaking the law. And look, we all have big hearts. I have a bigger heart than you do. They're all breaking the law. and they're coming into our country and we just as a country cannot afford to take care of millions of people who are broken the law coming in we want them to come into our country but we want them to come

in legally now we have and i think i actually misunderstood the video the first time i saw it so there's two sides to this there's elected democrats wanting to keep subsidies which some republicans have said they're trying to keep them for for themselves they earn too much money to qualify trump is at least responding here with regard to undocumented immigrants and of course undocumented that immigrants don't get Obamacare health care subsidies. But then Trump just goes into one of these xenophobic, jingoistic type of rants, and it doesn't even really matter what the truth is here. We can't afford this.

We can't afford that. Well, we're not paying for any of those things. And thank goodness a reporter at least tried to call it out. But Trump doesn't care. He's threatening. He's going to take away. He's going to be the authoritarian. He dreams dreams of being.

Now finally, a member of the White House press pool, tell me if you think this is a reporter, asks Trump. Has Nancy Pelosi lost her mind? While Nancy Pelosi is ignoring what you're doing for the Americans people, she's going after your administration for cutting taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens last night. Nancy Pelosi, she went on NBC last night, dropped a bunch of that bombs, told Republicans to go F themselves. Has she lost her mind? We have done an unbelievable job medically. Just this, if you did nothing else, we've done a lot like the insulin. But just this, nobody can ever catch this. This is the biggest price reduction

times, maybe 10 times, 15 times than has ever been given before. And this is going to have a huge impact. You know, as I said, Obamacare is not a good thing. It's been bad. And I'd like to make it better. I told them I spoke to a lot of people, a lot of Democrats recently. I said, why do we change it? We can make Obamacare much better. We could come up with a new system that would be much better less expensive for the people and better this is maybe the biggest breakthrough because you know when you're talking about the prescription drugs that's a big that's a big part of it so we're going to look this is prescription but uh we're going to be looking at that we we could come up and and through this whole thing you know because i don't know we'll probably have a shutdown

because one of the things they want to do is they want to give uh incredible medicare catac the Cadillac Medicare to illegal immigrants. Yeah. Of course, as we know, that is not true. They do not qualify. But really tough questions being asked here. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. coughed at one point. Trump seemed very worried that he might catch something from him. Insulin was, people weren't taking it, I would imagine. They couldn't take it. God bless you, Bobby. I hope I didn't catch COVID just there. Maybe Trump knows something about Bobby that we don't know. I don't know.

The mathematical incoherence was rife throughout this entire presentation. Donald Trump again promising 1,000% declines in prices. He says there's never been anything like it. And I agree because it is not mathematically possible. And similar kind of numbers, but we're going to show you some 1,000% drops in prices. There has never been anything like this in the history of medicine. And it's an honor. And Albert, I want to thank you. And I want to thank everybody behind me because you are a great team. We have a great team. Everybody says you have a great cabinet. It's a great team. So thank you,

Bobby. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. And I agree. We will not be seeing anything like what we've seen before because there's no way to have a thousand percent decline in the price of something. Absolutely last thing, Trump can't get away from any event. without talking about trans people in sports. He's just obsessed with it. He's got a hammer and everything to him looks like a nail. We have a big fight over that. We have a fight over open borders. They still want open borders. We're having a fight over men and women's sports. If you believe it, you would have thought they would have learned that it's not a good issue. And we have a fight in transgender, as you know, transgender for everybody. And that when you

talk medically, that's a lot of money too. That's a lot of those operations. are those operations are bad. So those things are also being discussed right. I mean, can you imagine we're actually talking about open borders? So we now have a great border. Anyway, you know, Trump rammed through an executive order banning trans women from women's teams. We all said it doesn't really seem he has the authority to do that. This is actually administered at the state level and it's administered by athletic institutions, athletic regulatory bodies. But if Trump believed his executive order solved the problem, why is he still talking about it as a problem?

None of it makes any sense. This is the United States under Donald Trump. How about we go back to coal power? Coal dirty, black, sooty, terrible coal. Well, that's exactly what Donald Trump's energy secretary wants to do. He went on Fox News. He tickled Maria Bartaromo with this exciting announcement. We are going to help the coal industry in 2025.

Can you believe that this is where we are right now? Breaking news for us this morning. Tell us. Yes, Maria, we're announcing today expanded programs to help the American coal industry. And we're helping it just because it, for years, it's been under assault. It was out of fashion with the Chardonnay set in San Francisco, Boulder, Colorado, and New York City where I just was at Climate Week, but it's critical to America's industrial might. Not just for electricity, as you mentioned, it's our third largest source of electricity after

natural gas and nuclear, but we also use it. It's the backbone of steel production. It's critical for cement production. Coal just makes the world go round, and they've tried to strangle it, particularly the Biden administration, starting with the Obama administration. But we need the coal industry. We're stopping the strangulation. We're going to provide some funding to upgrade existing coal plants, keep them open, even add some pollution control so they run cleaner and better. But coal's got a long future. As long as the lives of anyone alive today, let's

stop pretending it's going away or stop wishing. Oh, man, it's 2025 and they're trying to subsidize coal. The economics make this completely ridiculous. He's acting like coal is a gold mine, waiting to be rediscovered. It's already more expensive than natural gas and renewables. Utilities aren't shutting down coal plants because of a liberal liberal conspiracy. They're shutting them down because the math doesn't work. It just doesn't make any sense. And we're burning tax dollars now to artificially prop up something that the market is walking

away from. They advocate for the free market. Well, the free market says no more coal. Why do you have to subsidize it? Every serious country in the world. is investing in solar, wind batteries, EV infrastructure. China's crushing us. Europe is doing the same. And in Trump's America, we're going to light tax dollars on fire to prop up a dying industry that we should have started to walk away from a long time ago. Now, you might say, well,

David, it's about jobs. They want to save the jobs that are associated with coal. Coal employment is down to, I believe, under 40,000 people nationwide. More people work at, hold on, let me fact check this. Let me make sure. Arby's has 80,000 employees. Twice as many people are working at Arby's than in the coal industry. And they want to prop it up. This is not about keeping the lights on in people's homes. Natural gas and renewables have taken over. This is strictly ideology. Coal is the symbol for MAGA. It's dirty. It's dangerous. It's outdated. It's propped up by a feeling of nostalgia rather than reality. It's everything that MAGA is. And coal also has a human cost because it's dirty, not just in the abstract sense. We're talking about asthma, emphysema, black lung, higher

hospital bills, all of this stuff. Burning coal is costing so much money. Now, at the end of the day, coal isn't even really energy policy at this point. It's going the way of the dodo. It's like a culture war prop. Do you support coal or don't you? It's kind of like Bud Light versus, you know, whatever. It's like a lifestyle choice at this point. It's a grievance issue. And the idea is we're going to own the libs by subsidizing coal and they'll be sitting there drinking their fancy wine in San Francisco, but we'll be pumping out coal fumes. What's the point? It's just a culture war. So I think we need to call it what it is. Trump's government is. making America less competitive when they subsidize coal. It's making America less efficient.

It is definitely making us less prepared for the future. And they love it. They're just going to laugh about it because the liberals are going to be angry about coal. Pathetic, pathetic stuff. Now, we are getting into very dangerous territory where Donald Trump is posting deep fake videos of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. I'm going to talk about the dangerous door this could open up on today's bonus show. We will also talk about open AI preparing to launch a social app for AI generated videos. And finally, Republicans are doing what we expected. They are delaying the swearing in of Adelita Grahalva. Why? Because she would be the final needed vote for releasing the Epstein files. We knew they would try it. They're still trying it. All of those stories and more

on the bonus show. I was notified that yesterday, the email with the coupon code for our one-day membership special did not go out to everybody due to a technical glitch. So we have extended the deal one more day. If you want that coupon code, if you want to take advantage of that membership discount, just email me. Info at David Pakman.com. Say, David, I miss the code. David, I want the code. And we'll get it out to you by midnight tonight.