The David Pakman Show - 10/17/25: $1 million per person Trump fundraiser as Rogan turns on Trump

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Sunny Hostin confronts Cheryl Hines on The View, calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dangerously unqualified to lead HHS as the audience reacts skeptically -- Donald Trump hosts a $1 million-per-person Mar-a-Lago dinner through his super PAC to fund MAGA loyalists, while Florida passes a law protecting his estate -- Trump supporters complain they never received the pricey “Trump watches” they ordered, exposing yet another grift using Trump’s name for profit -- Joe Rogan criticizes Trump’s hypocrisy on criminal justice reform, acknowledging the left’s stance after previously endorsing him before the election -- Trump lashes out at Time magazine for an unflattering cover photo, ranting late at night about the image online -- Sean Duffy falsely claims massive No Kings protests are funded by George Soros, while grassroots crowds show genuine anger that MAGA media refuses to believe -- Some Trump voters begin expressing regret online as they face economic and social fallout from his policies but still remain loyal to him -- Eric Trump falsely accuses Jack Smith of planting evidence on his dad months before Smith was even appointed -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: John Bolton gets indicted as part of Trump’s revenge tour, highlights from the New York City mayoral debate, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a FREE $76 GIFT when you sign up at https://drinkag1.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🤢 Reliefband: Use code PAKMAN for 20% OFF and free shipping at https://reliefband.com 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.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 (01:03) Cheryl Hines defends RFK Jr.’s qualifications (10:00) Trump hosts $1M-per-person Mar-a-Lago fundraiser (12:58) Complaints over missing expensive Trump watches (18:53) Joe Rogan critiques Trump’s hypocrisy on justice (25:02) Trump lashes out at Time magazine cover (31:09) Sean Duffy falsely blames Soros for protests (37:52) Some Trump voters express regret online (43:01) Eric Trump makes false accusation (48:50) Friday Feedback segment    

Donald Trump is hosting a million dollar per person dinner at Mar-a-Lago. It's not for charity. It's not for policy. It's to buy himself a new Congress. And meanwhile, the same man of the people crowd that he built his empire on is realizing that their Trump watches that they bought were never even shipped to them. It's really the Trump economy in miniature. Give the rich access and poor get conned.

And the twist maybe we did see coming, Joe Rogan, one of Trump's biggest defenders, is turning on him. We're going to get into that and why it matters. All that plus Donald Trump's meltdown over a bald time magazine cover. The view went after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s right to her face. And Maga World's got a new conspiracy theory about the protests. They're terrified. All of that and more today.

Cheryl Hines is an actress maybe most known for playing Larry David's wife in the show Curb Your Enthusiasm. She is married to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services under Donald Trump. She appeared on the view. It did not go particularly well. Now I'm going to tell you, I do not respect what Cheryl Hines has done. done since her husband became, uh, the political flashpoint that he has become.

I've had a little bit of sort of overlap in some social circles with RFK and Cheryl Heinz from years ago, which I'll talk about in a moment. And the bottom line is I don't, I don't really believe this crap at all. I think she's essentially playing a character here. But regardless, she tries to defend the indefensible when Sonny Hosten and others on the view confront her. Here's a little bit of how that way. Do these companies for health reasons because they were causing health problems.

But the problem, respectfully, is that your husband is the least qualified department of health and human services head that we've had in history. I think that's a very dangerous, dangerous. Why is he less qualified than an economist? I think that he is less qualified. He has been his career studying toxins, studying people. health, fighting for one guy who was using Roundup for his job. It has also spread a lot of misinformation, a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion, and I think it's just a very dangerous thing.

I say it with the utmost respect. Some of it's good and some of it's not. That's the point. Listen, we all have different views here. And when you say, you know, misinformation, disinformation, we could go back to COVID when he's connecting circumcision. May I finish? Please.

When people, Fauci, people were saying when you get the vaccine, you cannot transmit COVID. It will stop COVID. And that was disinformation, misinformation. We were also still learning about it. It was a novel virus. We've never encountered before. Yeah. You know, the other thing, this is a talking point.

We'll get back to this in a second. This is a talking point they use, which is we were lied that the vaccine prevents the spread of COVID. The clinical study data from that first vaccine did show that it prevented the spread of COVID. And that seemed to be borne out in the data based on the variant that was circulating then in the first vaccine. Over time, as the variants continued to change and the vaccines lagged for arguably, not necessarily further and further behind, but lagged behind, the vaccine was affected.

effective at preventing serious illness and death, but not transmission. But to say that that was misinformation at the time, circumstances ultimately changed. But in any case, this is, I really don't know whether I buy this from Cheryl Hines. And the reason I mentioned that is some of you know, we're sort of connected to Mike Pap Antonio and Ring of Fire. And sometimes I and other progressive media people would go out to meetings in Vegas. that Mike Pap Antonio would organize. They were legal conferences and Sam Cedar regularly broadcast from there. And anyway, so at the time, Mike Pap Antonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were relatively close.

I don't know if they were like working together on projects, uh, cases or exactly what it was. So Bobby Kennedy would be there often once he came to dinner with us. In fact, I told the story of how he ate a baked potato, a russet baked potato with a hand and dipped it into like a French fried dipped it into ranch. And I'd never seen anyone eat a baked potato with their hand. It was unusual. And sometimes Cheryl would be there. And my understanding of her politics were that they were completely antithetical to everything Trump and to everything about the modern views of Bobby Kennedy Jr. I don't even really know that I buy that she believes this crap.

Maybe she has completely changed her mind. And by the way, I'm not saying it's better or worse. It's arguably worse. If she just changed her mind, we could go, hey, you were convinced by some bad ideas. That's sad. If she hasn't changed her mind but is doing this for the same. sake of not creating a problem for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That's arguably worse. If she's going out there and saying things that she doesn't believe, the crowd in the studio audience did not

seem to be buying the stuff she was saying. We listen to parents who say, my child got the vaccine and changed and stopped hitting markers. Oh, my God. Stopped developing the way they were developing. Can we listen to people when they say that instead of saying, I have no. I agree with that, but you want to listen to scientists, right. And Cheryl, if I'd ask you, and you were lovely for being here. As you know, I'm pregnant. You're a mom. You've had children. She's pregnant? I just wanted an opportunity to talk about it.

So your husband, when he announced basically that he believed he found some causal links between autism and Tylenol, it created a lot of panic in women who were being told by their OBGYNs who look at them that Tylenol, if necessary, to treat pain during pregnancy is safe. What would you say, and I know you're not a medical professional, but to women who now feel anxious and nervous because their doctors telling them one thing, but the top public health professionals telling them something very different. Not a professional. Well, they said, consult your doctor before taking it.

That was the, that's what they were saying. You can tell this is not a good. good idea. She is just not good at this. And the audience isn't buying it. And that holds. So I agree. Listen, I've been pregnant. I understand it's stressful being pregnant. I found because you're so concerned with everything. I didn't drink caffeine when I was pregnant. So to say, hey, you know, consult your doctor before you take this. I agree with that. And I think that's okay for mom's to hear. Cheryl? Yeah. Go ahead. Now. All right. All right.

I am, this is not your fight, really, to be fighting. This is your husband's fight. Thank you for acknowledging that, but go ahead. But I just want to say, you know he's not a doctor and he's not a professional. Yes. And oftentimes when he's talking, oftentimes when he's speaking, he is speaking not with the best information that we can get. Because, you know, yeah, we could do a lot better with health stuff.

And there's a lot of stuff he can do. And some of the things he's suggested take it out of the hands of my doctor and me and my OBGYN and me. And I wonder, does it give you pause and are you able to say, you know, that might not actually be so? Because I've got my experience and I've lived with this. and I'm still here. So are you able to have those conversations with her? I am able to have those conversations. And just to be clear, 90% of secretaries of HHS have not been doctors.

But they've had a science background. Yeah. No, to be honest. One of Obama's secretaries of HHS was an economist. But most. Anyway, you know, I, I don't know whether to feel. bad at her or bad for her to be angry because on the one hand you can tell she's been given the bullet points she's been told remind them most secretaries have not been doctors this is what

you're going to be asked about she's struggling to remember the talking point you can see the gears grinding and she's struggling because she doesn't really have any business doing this is the thing i would probably respect her more if she took the approach that she took during covid like for For example, when RFK was talking about how bad the vaccines are, and she was requiring everyone who came to their holiday party to be vaccinated for her to say, my husband has a job. And if you've ever met him, you know that he is stubborn and difficult to convince of anything. And I do not speak for his job. I do speak for what happens in our house. And I can assure you that what's happening in our house is different or what, you know, something along

these lines. I actually think the mistake is even trying to defend it because at the end of the day, it's indefensible. Does she really believe this stuff? Is she doing it for the sake of her home life? I don't know. But I don't really respect what she's trying to do. A Donald Trump is hosting a $1 million per person fundraiser at Mara Lago. One million dollars per person for a candlelight dinner organized by his super PAC MAGA, Inc. This is not a campaign fundraiser. He can't run again legally. The money is going to be funneled into next year's midterm elections. And the translation here is this is not about policy. This is about power. Trump is building a war chest to try to reshape Congress with loyalists who will do what he says. And what better place to do that than Mar-a-Lago.

The gilded palace now surrounded by tighter than ever security, and we even have, interestingly, we have laws being passed in Florida. Everybody's in Trump's pocket. House Bill 1447 makes trespassing on law enforcement secured sites like Mara Lago, a felony. Okay. It's the site of this incredibly gaudy, gilded event. Here's the poster. You are invited to a candlelight dinner, feature. considering Donald Trump today, one million dollars per person, not a joke.

So we've got the man of the people charging a million dollars for dinner. We've got the guy who says he's going to fight for you actually fighting for the establishment rather than against it by saying the people who can donate a million bucks get to come here and influence how this is all going to go. And you've got a so-called populist raising money, not for struggling Americans, but for billionaires trying to buy the next Congress while his supporters are skipping meals to pay rent and getting scammed for the watches they ordered, but are never going to get. I'll get to that in a second.

This is really the essence of Trumpism in 2025. performative populism for the cameras while governing for the elite behind the closed doors of a million dollar per person fundraiser. And by the way, it seems that the food that you get for the million dollars is not great. Some people have taken pictures of the mass prepared food at Mar-a-Lago. So when we hear Donald Trump talk about drain the swamp, remember who's sitting at the million-dollar per person tables, lobbyists, mega donors, billionaires, the corporate class, the managerial class that Trump and the vague Ramoswamy and the whole lot of them spoke out against.

And meanwhile, you've got working class voters cheering him on. They're not at the dinner. They're waiting for their watches to be sent to them by Trump. And they're not going to get them. Let's talk about that next. of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters are now furious. You might be saying, of course they are. They're furious about a new thing, okay?

Which is they bought what they thought were collectible Trump watches, watches that sold for anywhere between $499 and $3,000. And customers are now saying a lot of these watches never arrived. Refund requests were ignored. There's no customer service. You look on trust pilot as of the moment when I looked. 57% of reviews are one star reviews. And the complaints are all the same.

Long delays, fake tracking updates, emails that go nowhere. One guy wrote, oh, my daughter's bought me a watch for my 80th birthday. Five months later, I haven't gotten it. Others said it took me weeks to realize I had been scammed. People overseas, buyers from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland said we didn't get the watch. By the way, if you're in Sweden and you're buying a Trump watch, I want to talk to you. Something must be really wrong. the ads say the watches are Swiss made. The company traces back to a Wyoming shopping center.

Now it's possible the watches are Swiss made. I don't know. But this is the latest line in a long series of Trump gifts that are scams or that fail or that are no good. Trump stakes, Trump University, Trump vodka, Trump NFDs. And it's the same formula. Hype up the product, overcharge, under deliver, and then disappear. Now here's the trick that Trump always uses. It's not technically run by Trump. It's one of these licensing deals. Trump's the salesman. Trump's the pitch man.

He's the guy asking for money. And for a bunch of Trump followers, that's enough. That's cool. The Trump's talking about it. I'm going to buy it even if I can't afford it. And oftentimes the product is not really the physical thing. It's the pitch. It's the fact that Donald Trump is promising it.

It might be a golden tower, a fake university or whatever. And the signature move with all of these schemes is Trump licenses his name. He doesn't run the business. And that's how when it falls apart, he keeps his hands clean. He'll lend his name to stakes, vodka, condos, or overpriced watches. And then when there's a production problem, a customer service problem, a refund problem, a shipping problem, he just goes, oh, I'm not really running this thing. And so he can sometimes collect the check up front, take credit if it goes well, deny responsibility

when it collapses and think about the last 24 hours. On the one hand, we learned Trump's doing a million dollar per person fundraiser at Marlago. On the other hand, he's scamming people with $500 watches and his supporters just keep buying it. Will they ever realize the grift and the grift includes the watches, but it also includes the presidency itself. The debt system in this country is a trap. Credit cards, collections, medical bills.

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is the primary funding source for the show. I invite you to sign up at join packman.com. You can also become a substack premium subscriber at substack.davidpack.com. The substack subscription includes bonus and subscriber only written content. The website membership includes the daily bonus show, commercial free audio and video streams, and much more. sign up at join packman.com, sign up at substack. david packman.com. Joe Rogan's turn against Donald Trump's deportation fiasco is getting more severe and more pronounced. And I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I think it's great. I think it's great for Rogan

to say this is not good. Rogan speaks to a very important piece of the electorate, which is among others, young men who voted Republican in 2024 in greater percentage than in any recent election. So if Joe Rogan is ready to go and say, this is not good, that's a great thing, and we should welcome it. On the other hand, I struggle with the fact that Trump said he was going to do what Rogan now has a problem with. And he turned a blind eye to that and endorsed Donald Trump on the evening of the election, on the eve of the election. And, what Trump is doing with the deportation is exactly what he promised to do. I don't know why you would be surprised unless you were not paying attention or didn't want to acknowledge it. In any case,

here's Rogan's latest commentary about the deportation. Let's just talk about the immigration thing. The way it looks is horrific. When you're just arresting people in front of their kids and just normal, regular people that have been here for 20 years, that everybody who has a heart can't get along with that. No. Everybody who has a heart sees that and go, that can't be right. They can't be right. They can't be the only way to do this. Right. Because you have to think, look, yeah, we have to have a border. Yes, it should have been secure. Yes, they should make sure you know who everybody is before they get in. Yeah. But when people have been here for 20 years, like, come on. Come on. That's crazy. Yeah. Let's find a way. If they've been productive members of society for 20 years, no criminal record,

They worked the entire time. They paid taxes. Find them a pathway to citizenship. Find a way. You know who has this exact idea as their policy prescription? It's Democrats. There are many criticisms to make of Democrats. I make many of them on this show all the time.

It just so happens that what Rogan wants is what Democrats want to do for people who are not criminals. We are not talking about individuals who have committed a violent crime here in the United States. We're talking about people who on the one hand, maybe were brought here as minors. That's one category. On the other hand, I've been here for years or decades working, have committed no crime, but are undocumented. Let's find a path to permanent legal status. That is what Democrats want.

And by the way, Rogan goes, we of course are allowed to have a border and enforce it. That's what Democrats say. That's what I've been saying. We, I have not heard anybody in the mainstream. I know that there are some people on the fringes who go, oh, even the concept of borders is not allowed and it's disgusting and country. That's the fringe, okay? The overwhelming majority of the left from the left all the way to the center left says,

countries get to have borders. get to enforce immigration, countries get to deport people, but what we're talking about here is what makes sense. And mass deportations of people who are just here working don't make any sense. They're inhumane. It's heartless. Rogan is outlining the Democratic Party's position on this issue. But he endorsed Donald Trump. And he endorsed Donald Trump despite Trump saying this was the plan and this is always what they were going to do. You can do this thing that you want to do, which is keep terrorists and cartel members from getting across the border with drugs to kill 100,000 people a year.

Okay. But also, have a fucking heart. Because if you don't, you're not going to get anybody on your side. If you're doing this stuff publicly, throwing women to the ground, handcuffing people, just for existing on the wrong side of the dirt. Yeah. Not a criminal. Not the only crime they ever committed was coming over here as a kid.

Yeah. They probably didn't even know what the fuck was going on. Yeah. Yeah, man. You know, a lot of kids got snuck across when they were already born in Mexico. And they've grown up their entire life in America. They can't even speak Spanish. Eminently reasonable.

Eminently reasonable. This is my view on the issue. But the problem is that Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. He was asked, what about women and children? And Trump goes, well, you know, it's complicated because we'll get negative coverage if we do the women and children. But, you know, we're going to do it. And they're doing it. What about the people here working?

No, they're going to go. And so the problem I have is not that Rogan is now just is saying this. Revising your opinions based on fact is it. Would that should all be celebrated? But the only way to not have realized that this was the plan is if you either weren't listening to Trump or you didn't believe him. You said even though he's saying it, I don't think he's really going to do it. Rogan, we've talked about others, Theo Vaughn.

Andrew Schultz, many of them are going with the, this isn't what I voted for thing, except it is. Except it is. So I think what we need to do is find some kind of balance. We're on the one hand, we don't shun people who are coming around to what's correct, right? Good for Rogan. Not only is he acknowledging this is bad. He's acknowledging it publicly.

Great. On the other hand is this really shouldn't be coming as a surprise. And what do we do about that? And Rogan does represent a lot of MAGA voters in this sense, which is, I don't know, I was told the tariffs were going to solve everything. And then now they're going, I voted for this guy, but the tariffs are crushing us. Prices are up. My job is unstable.

My business is shrinking. And so we, it's interesting to see that Rogan is sort of experiencing that same buyer's remorse to a degree. But it would have been nice to recognize from the beginning that this was exactly. what is coming. Donald Trump has melted down over the picture that Time Magazine selected for its cover. A Time magazine put out an issue called His triumph, and it is about Donald Trump's involvement in this deal involving Israel and Gaza. Now, there is deep analysis here to be done about the degree to which Donald Trump's involvement in this deal involving Israel and Gaza. Now, there is deep analysis here to be done

about the degree to which Donald Trump is getting credit from Time magazine and praise from Time magazine for his involvement in that deal. The reality is that this is basically the same deal that could have been done under Biden. But Trump and Republicans worked to prevent it because they didn't want Biden getting the credit. They wanted Trump getting the credit. There are real questions as to whether this is durable. And there's a there's a deep policy analysis. And I don't even know that this is an issue or an article that time should have put out. But what Donald Trump is really triggered by is the picture that was selected. It is true that in this picture Donald Trump's hair looks barely there. It is true that in this picture, Donald Trump's neck

looks not dissimilar from female genitalia. That is true. And that is what is triggering Donald Trump. Donald Trump took the truth social and said, quote, Time magazine wrote, a relatively good story about me. But the picture may be the worst of all time. They disappeared my hair and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird. I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture and

deserves to be called out. What are they doing and why? Now you could make the case that the angle makes true. Trump look big, power, big, big, not in the obesity sense, just, just, you know, in charge, powerful at the helm in command or something like that. I don't know. You could make the argument that the seemingly sky background behind him makes him look almost godly, but Trump doesn't like it.

And what I've been saying all along as far as the deal goes is Trump does deserve some credit for the fact that the deal was done under his watch. it was the buck stops with the president. Trump also deserves blame for working in 2024 to block the deal because he thought it would help Biden in his then reelection campaign against Donald Trump, later Kamala Harris. Trump wanted it for himself. That's despicable. Is it good for the people who suffered from the continuation of the war because Donald Trump worked to prevent the deal from being done in 2024? As far as the picture goes, it's just a reminder of the level of self-obsession, egot mania, and vanity at the end of the day that Donald Trump experiences.

Is it a good picture? I don't know. Is there any picture of Trump? That's a good picture. But it's a reminder that Trump goes, the story was like kind of okay. But the real problem is the picture that they picked. This is emblematic and representative of everything in how Donald Trump governs. Trump wants to be liked.

He wants to be seen as strong. He wants to be seen as attractive. The details of the deal, yeah, yeah, yeah, people will figure it out. Steve Whitkoff or Jared Kushner or whoever, they're going to figure it out. But the picture, that's what I really care about. And by the way, what is going on with Donald Trump's neck? I haven't gotten a straight answer. Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists.

He's threatened deportation as political punishment. He's expanded executive authority in ways we have not seen in modern history. These are real changes that are happening right now. And what's even more alarming is that a lot of the media is either glossing over the worst of it or they're reframing it. So it all sounds a little more palatable. And that is why I use ground news. This is a news comparison tool.

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the only one independently verified by Deloitte. Get 60% off an annual plan when you visit incogny.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. MAGA and Trump and this administration are absolutely terrified that you might protest tomorrow at what are expected to be massive, just absolutely huge protest. It's the second no king's protests and they are so terrified and so scared. The last thing that they want to see is that people are coalescing and uniting against this administration. The last thing they want to see is that that they are now starting the who's paying these

people? Is it on Tifa? Is it some shadowy funding source? And one of the people who's doing this. is Donald Trump's transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, who never heard a, came across or heard of a conspiracy theory he didn't like. He comes in and he says to Maria Bartaroma, we need to figure out who's funding these protesters. And there's actually something extremely deep here, not that his analysis is deep.

It's not. It's shallow and ridiculous. But there's a deeper topic here about one of the fundamental differences between the left and the right today. See if you can pick up on what it is, but we'll talk about it in a moment. But again, the No Kings protest, Maria, really frustrating. I mean, this is part of Antifa paid protesters. It begs the question who's funny in it. But yeah, Democrats want to wait for a big rally of a No King's protest. When the bottom line is, who's running the show in the Senate? Chuck Schumer's not running the show. The No King's protesters or organizers

are running the show. Is AOC threat in a primary against Chuck? is she running the show now you might be saying what the f is this guy talking about he's not making any sense he's jumping from one thing to another you're right duffy's not very good at this i i i don't present this as a great example of a political rhetoric i want to focus in on this idea that the the protesters are paid and we need to figure out who's funding it and it might be antifa do you understand how idiotic and imbecilic the economics of paying protesters in such a situation would be. I mean, really just like think about it.

If we go back and let's be accurate, how many protesters total at no Kings Day on the first one? I don't remember what the number was. Four to six million protesters nationwide. If you think about we just each protester was only paid 20 bucks, right? would mean 80 to 120 million dollars just to get protesters out there. People took days off of work, traveled, stood in heat. This was at the first No Kings protest. Obviously, it'll be cooler tomorrow. All for 20 bucks. They probably wouldn't do that for 20 bucks. So were they paid

a hundred bucks? Well, now we're talking about insanely more money. The economics of it don't make sense. The economics of these massive protests at scale with protesters that have been paid don't make any sense. No one's funding it. People genuinely are that disgusted with the administration. Now, this gets to sort of the critical difference between how the right and left approach this issue. The reason that MAGA and Trump and Sean Duffy can't imagine. that these are just genuinely outraged people who went out to protest on No Kings Day 1 and are going to be going out tomorrow on No Kings Day 2. Their movements aren't really as organic as that as they believe them to be.

Now, I'm not saying the MAGA protesters are paid or whatever, but the point is that the movement in total is a stage propped up movement by the people who really benefit from Trumpism. the billionaires and the corporations who encourage and entice the people that are down in the rank and file to activate for their movement, even though their movement is terrible for them. We're going to hear in a moment how a lot of these right wingerers go, I voted for Trump, but this is terrible for me. Prices are up. I can't afford this.

I can't afford that. The point here is the idea to them that normal people might just organize out of principle rather than cult loyalty or because it's good for rich people is so foreign to them that they go the protesters must be paid but of course they're not you look at these crowds you don't see hedge fund managers or big money political donors you see mostly working people and students and parents sure there are some celebrities that have joined the protest because they believe in the message not because they have a financial benefit to it but this is the sort of conflict where normal people organize out of principle and they go, that's so foreign to us, they must

be getting paid. Now, there's another aspect to this that I think is important. Authoritarians always say that the protests are fake. Putin says it, Erdogan, I could go on. It's the same playbook. If it looks like anybody is expressing public displeasure with the leader, they must be getting paid or in some way it must be subterfuge. It's George Soros or the CIA or FBI have goaded them to go or whatever. Because if they admit that there's real dissent, it means people are fed up

and fed up with them and authoritarian never want to do that. Finally, the media story here. Fox News, where this appeared, also is relevant. Fox has trained its viewers to see every protest as a sci-op. If it looks like people are angry at Trump, it must be fake. If it looks like there was a protest against Trump, it must have been staged because if Fox News admits that it's real, they have to admit we are continuing to support a really unpopular presidency. So I hope to see you out there tomorrow. I know many of you are. If you haven't told me yet, if you're going out to the protest tomorrow. Info at david packman.com. Let me know where you're going and where you will be. Trump voters are slowly realizing Trump is absolutely terrible for them. I want to look at

four tweets that were featured. Uh, take a take it. Let's just check these out and then discuss. Cindy Kay says, I'm one of the biggest conservatives and Trump fan there is, but prices are out of control. husband and I used to be what we thought was upper middle class. And now with insurance premiums, groceries and property taxes, we're struggling. Not Trump's fault that started under Biden. We need help. Cindy, while she's still very hesitant to blame Trump. And while she's still very hesitant to say, Trump promised X and we're not getting X. She is acknowledging it's a disaster out there for her. J. Matthew says, I'm a Trump voter and I just don't care about Nobel Prize or the cover of Time magazine. Fix our economy. Lower gas and food prices. You are a two-time president. It's enough.

Peace deals are great. But fix home before you help your neighbors common sense. He's right. He's right. And Donald Trump parading around the world saying, I solve this conflict and I solve that conflict. Solving conflicts is great. A bunch of them Trump is simply lying about like the one between Albania and Aberbaijan, which was really Armenia and Azerbaijan. It's all crazy. Great to do foreign policy. Great to solve conflicts.

But what about the people that voted for Trump here? And they can't afford an unexpected $400 expense. They can't afford groceries. their job is imperiled. All right. Here's another one. The same. Groceries are still way expensive. Why is no one talking about it? Bread is $5. I guess they mean flour is $7. What the hell? Electricity's way up. Not kidding. I love Trump, but do something. I don't think Dems would help it ever. So this person is sort of like, I'm not saying vote for Democrats. Democrats wouldn't solve this, even though Democrats at least have actually presented some plausible paths to deal with pricing.

They are not in power and we've had all of our criticisms of Democrats, but at least there's a framework for what we would do. But another person acknowledging this is really not good. And then finally, Patty says, I'm Republican since birth. Urgent. President Trump focuses on gas, groceries, and electricity. We are hurting. These things are not cheaper. His voters need help. Understand a couple important aspects to this. Number one, they are accurately pointing out all of these problems, but still they are declaring

their loyalty to Donald Trump. It's a cult of sorts. Number two, a lot of this is going in the Marjorie Taylor Green direction. On Tuesday, we talked about how Marjorie Taylor Green. is now saying, hey, Republicans aren't dealing with prices, Republicans aren't dealing with people who are going to lose health care or can't afford their premiums. This is a little bit of that wing that is rising up. Now, if what you're wondering is, are these people going to vote for Democrats in 2026?

The answer is decidedly, hell no. They're even saying in their tweets, in these nasty tweets that they're putting out, they're saying still with Trump, still a Republican, lifelong. Republican, love Republicans, but this is a problem. The task for us in the media ecosystem, but more importantly, the task for Democrats, if they want to start winning elections, is you have to connect what these people are experiencing to who they vote for. And one of the things I've talked about before is when I meet people that go, ah, politics,

don't care about it. I'll usually say, oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, politics, pedant. authentic, boring. Okay. What do you care about? And I'll go, well, I care about the fact that college has gotten so expensive. And when my 10 year old is 18, I don't know how I'm going to be able to afford sending

them to college. Well, that's a political issue. It's up to Democrats to explain to people, whatever you care about, local government, climate, cost of living. It's all connected to the people that are representing us. And so similarly, Democrats need to go to these people and say, hey, you've identified the problem. That's half the battle. You've identified Trump's not solving the problem, but you're not ready to vote for Democrats at this

point. Let's talk about that because we do have a plan. Now, in order for that to work, they actually have to have a plan. Do they? Well, they have ideas. Is it a plan that is going to appear credible and implementable? Well, that's something Democrats are going to have to figure out. We have another one of these, unless time travel is possible, you're a liar situation. Eric Trump went on Fox News, not known as the smart one, not known as the smart one. He goes on Fox News and he says or alleges that special prosecutor Jack Smith planted

the Manila folders in Trump's house that the FBI raid subsequently found. There's a little problem with that hypothesis, and I'll explain it to you in a moment. Different than that when they raided Mar-a-Lago, I talk a lot about that in the book, because I was the guy that got the call from our teams. Obviously, I run the Trump organization. I got a call. The FBI is at the front gates of Mar-a-Lago. They have a search warrant, sir, and I go, why would they have a search warrant?

What are they trying to search at Mar-Lago? I don't know, but they're demanding that you instantly turn off every security camera. Obviously, Mar-Lago is a commercial property, right? They're demanding you turn off your security cameras right now. And then, you know, sure enough, we find out that Jack Smith is planting manila folders on the office of my father, taking these, you know, glamorous photo shoots where he has them all fanned out like a turkey, you know. There's a little problem with that. The problem and it's like a, the, the problem is small. It's almost as small as Trump's hands. Jack Smith was hired months after the search warrant was served at Mar-a-Lago. Eric Trump goes, oh, we figured out, Jack Smith planted the evidence they had against my dad. The only problem is the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was in August of 2022.

The Manila folders were found in August of 2022. And Jack Smith was not appointed special prosecutor until November. It was three and a half months later. So either Eric is lying or he's confused again or he has knowledge of a time travel device with with which Jack Smith, I guess, was teleporting back to three months before he even got the job to plant folders at Mar-a-Lago. You know, every time that these guys open their mouths, they remind us they don't even have the basic timelines of events straight in their heads.

They don't even know the sequence of their own scandals. They mash together buzzwords, raid, witch hunt, Jack Smith, Deep State, Manila folders. And they hope that their audience will go, yep, conspiracy. And sadly, a lot of their audience does go for that. I think it's important to clarify. I think the vast majority of those in this country who are engaging with the political system, I don't think they're stupid. I don't think they're stupid.

I think they end up with incentives that encourage them to say, I'm going to go with it, even though it doesn't really make sense. And you could argue that that's just as bad or worse and I would be right there with you. But this is what happens when you live in a media bubble where you were just fed this stuff and you go, me not thinking critically about this is important for my political identity. And then if you're Eric Trump, you're used to living in a media bubble where nobody ever challenges you. You can invent events that are not possible, couldn't have happened.

And the host, Mark Levin, just nods along like all of this makes sense. They lie as easily as they breathe and they mostly get away with it. Nausea is one of those things that can derail your day. Could be on a plane, could be in a car. For me, it was on a boat not that long ago. Could even be from anxiety or migraines. Our sponsor relief band makes a wearable FDA cleared wristband designed to help relieve and prevent nausea.

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nothing at all about wine. Head to nakedwines.com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman as the code and password to get six bottles for only 399. Shipping included. The link is in the description. All right. Let's get into Friday feedback. You can always email the show info at david packman.com. We also will feature comments and responses from any of our social media platforms, TikTok, Spotify, Facebook. Who knows? We get right into it today with Ellen, who says as a Canadian, it seems amazing that a country can have a complete government shutdown in Canada and some other countries. If a budget cannot be passed, a non-confidence situation develops and the government is deemed to have failed.

It is then necessary to call an election because of the potential ramifications of this action. The political parties are more inclined to arrive at a compromise. That's right. You know, if there were more repercussions to our lawmakers for a government shutdown, I can assure you you would never have a government shutdown again. And we've spoken about this in the context that the government shutdown becomes a political football of who is going to get blamed.

Now, one view, and I don't think it's a crazy view, depending on who's in control, is that when the president's party controls the House and Senate, the president is ultimately who is to blame. If the president is a Republican, as is Trump, and the House is controlled by Republicans, and the Senate is controlled by Republicans, and the president goes to them and says, it'll be bad for me, it'll be bad for us if there's a shutdown, there will be no shutdown. And so even Trump's prior claims that the buck stops with the president, probably accurate, the issue is that that is not always the way it goes. And even right now, Republicans are arguing, oh, this shutdown is a, it's a Democrat shutdown.

Because there is political maneuvering from which they can benefit when it comes to who ultimately gets the blame, you don't see the same incentives that you would see in the Canadian system for these elected officials to go government shutdown. No way. bad for us. If they all lost their salaries, it might make a difference. You do have to remember most senators are pretty wealthy. There's a lot of members of the House who have, you know, who don't have a lot of money and maintaining their salaries might have more of an impact on members of the House. But for the most part, senators could afford to be without pay for probably months,

if not longer. So I don't even know that that would really be an incentive. But if their power were threatened in a permanent and durable way from a government shutdown, you would very quickly see no more government shutdowns, that's for sure. Speaking of the recent incident in which Christie Nome, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was blocked from using the bathroom at a local municipal building, Blackbird singing in the night wrote on YouTube, Christy is getting a taste of what homeless people and trans people deal with on a daily basis, almost the exact point that I've been making. We have a situation in this country where too many people are denied just basic things, food

in one of the richest countries in the world and in history, shelter, access to bathrooms. And so I didn't take pleasure in Christine own being denied access to a bathroom. I wish her reaction had been instead of attack this leftist or that. leftist or the Democrats or whatever, which has nothing to do with it. I wish instead she had had one of these realizations, hey, you know, all the criminalization of homelessness that we're doing, which in part includes denying homeless people access to clean facilities, clean sanitation and bathrooms. Maybe that's not so good. Maybe we should really make sure everybody has just the basics to achieve some minimum level of dignity. That is not the modern Republican Party.

They don't care about that. The rare praise in the email today. Tim Carr writes, love the show. I've learned a lot. But more importantly, I'm learning how to analyze and think better. Thank you, David. Tim, thank you so much. You know, we get a lot of negativity in the email and in messages.

And it is great every once in a while, every once in a while. every once in a while to see something positive. If I am making, I don't want to tell you what to think. I will tell you what I think and how I came to believe that. And ultimately, it is up to you to hopefully learn how to think for yourself. Similarly, Meg Lamora wrote in. You're the first and only political show I've ever watched. I listen every day. You have really given me so much knowledge about politics. Thank you for keeping me informed. So listen to this. This is what distinguishes me and what distinguishes, I believe, the left from the, from the hardcore MAGA right in a lot of key ways. I love what Meg is saying. I'm flattered and humbled that Meg

is saying I'm the first political show that she has ever watched. However, I don't claim to be the ultimate source of truth. I don't believe I should be anyone's sole source of political opinion. I love Meg that you love the show and I encourage you. Seek other opinions. Check, fact check what I say against what others say and decide for yourself because I don't claim to be the ultimate source of truth. Trump says only I can fix it or whatever phrase that he uses. I say I'm going to do the best I can to defend my views and you should fact check me and hold me accountable. Hector wrote in and said, David, sir, your audience is smart enough to see and understand the propaganda. How do we convince the idiots who don't listen to your show?

Well, you know, a lot of the people that don't listen to the show, they're not idiots. Just a lot of people don't consume overtly political content. This is one of the conversations I have so often with others in our space. Brian Tyler Cohen and the guys from Midas Touch and Aaron Parnas and, you know, all the people that are sort of in our cohort right now, Carlos Espina, who I'm going to be seen very soon. Um, we have. have a sort of glass ceiling, which is there is some limit to the number of people that consume political content. A lot of people just don't.

A lot of people who listen to podcasts don't listen to political podcasts. They just listen to, you know, crime or lifestyle or whatever. One of the things that we have to do is we have to start getting into nonpolitical spaces. of my goals for 26 leading up to the midterm elections is to appear on more non-political shows. Will I appear with call her daddy? I'm sure that they are not going to invite me. But I would. The point is we need to be in more non-political spaces. The way Trump was on with the milk boys, the nelk boys, sorry, and did what other podcast, the Theo Vaughn and others, the left needs to do the same. Because no matter.

what we do on our political shows, much of the country doesn't listen to political shows. So we've got to expand. J.D. Duke weighs in on the references from the Trump administration to the amorphous antifa. And J.D. Duke says the fact that Antifa isn't an actual organization, but an idea gives Bondi a blank canvas to round up anyone without evidence. Yeah, I think this is such an important and astute message. We listen to Trump and Bondi and whoever else say this was funded by Antifa. We're declaring Antifa a terrorist organization. We're going to go after the leadership of Antifa. And we go, there really is no organization. They're against fascism. It's extremely loosely and I would argue

poorly organized. It's nonsense. We laugh. But the danger is exactly what J.D. Duke is pointing out, which is if you can say, hey, Antifa's a terrorist organization, we believe this protest was organized under the umbrella of Antifa. You can just start rounding people up. Now, whether that will hold up in court, well, we don't know. But at least in terms of making people's lives and protesters' lives, a living hell and suppressing dissent, it is potentially a very dangerous tool. On the topic of farm bailouts and how farmers are again getting crushed, a user whose name is a bunch of numbers and letters says, farmers voted for this.

He did this the last time, 28 million in a bailout. Now they are complaining. Sorry, not bailout. When will people learn that Trump is a con man who lies as soon as his mouth opens? I think what this person is saying is there shouldn't be a bailout for the farmers. You know, I don't want anyone to suffer. It's just not in my nature to wish suffering on people.

But one of the things we hear from a lot on the right is you can't protect people from everything. We can't have a nanny state government that's here to protect everybody from everything. There's a case to be made that the farmers voted for Trump, not all of them, but most Republican farmers in the Midwest, voted for Trump in 2016, and he screwed them. And he ended up having to bail him out. And then he ran in 2024 on doing more of the same things that screwed the farmers like tariffs. And then a lot of those farmers voted for them again. And so should we really be bailing out those farmers?

I think there's a good case to be made that the answer is no. Now at the same time, not every farmer voted for Trump. And this is sort of like when we say, we've got to punish, you know, we've got to punish Texas because they voted Trump. Yeah, but like 40% of Texas, what? percentage was it actually? 2024 Texas presidential results. For, wow, I was, I understated 42% of Texas voted for Harris.

Do we really want to punish even people who didn't vote for this crap? And so I understand the sentiment. And it's funny because it's Republicans themselves who have said we can't, the government can't protect everybody from everything. But I don't I don't ever want to see people suffer. What do you think? Let me know. Anthony Ward says about the forthcoming UFC fight at the White House.

The UFC fight is corruption, in my opinion, for the reason that this is Trump paying back Dana White for promoting him. All those videos of Trump walking out into a UFC event with Dana helped him win the presidency. I would bet everything that I have that they spoke about an event at the White House way back then. Trump used the White House for negotiating. I hope America and the world boycotts the event, make it a flop as it should be. Yeah, I mean, listen, everything with Trump is transactional.

I would be completely not surprised if this whole Dana White friendship had from its infancy the idea that if he helps Trump get elected in 24, Trump will give him a goody. And the goody is this White House UFC fight on which Dana White stands to make. I don't even, I quite frankly, don't even know what amount of money it would be. But it's obviously millions. Is it tens of millions? Is it hundreds of millions? I don't know.

But I believe that it is clear that like with everything with Trump, it's quid pro quo, its favors, and it is a form of corruption. And listen, we just saw video on Tuesday. of Trump speaking to the Indonesian president in Egypt, and the Indonesian president was apparently talking to Trump about some project, this area is not so safe, we want to find a different area, can I talk to Eric, can I talk to Don Jr. That's everything for Trump. And for Trump, the presidency is a mere vessel towards his personal enrichment and that of his family. Send me your emails. Info at David Pakman.com. Make sure you are getting my daily podcast for free.

it's on Spotify it's on apple podcast it's everywhere we will see you on today's bonus show and i'll be back here on monday