The David Pakman Show - 10/8/25: The week from hell, allies panic, governors revolt

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Democrat Mindy O’Neall defeats incumbent Republican Mayor David Pruhs in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Pruhs concedes with grace instead of conspiracy theories -- Illinois Governor JB Pritzker accuses Donald Trump of suffering from dementia while condemning his decision to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland -- Attorney General Pam Bondi erupts in a combative Senate hearing, dodging questions about Trump and Epstein while lashing out at Democratic senators -- Trump openly suggests rewarding loyal federal workers and punishing others, effectively proposing an unconstitutional spoils system on national television -- Trump baffles Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a press conference with rambling, incoherent remarks about airports, AOC, and a Canada–US “merger” -- Stephen Miller accidentally admits on CNN that Trump has “plenary authority,” exposing the administration’s authoritarian mindset before the network cuts him off -- Stephen Miller doubles down on extremist rhetoric and racist remarks while dismissing accusations of incitement -- Trump calls for the jailing of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker, echoing the rhetoric of 20th-century dictators targeting dissenters -- Former MAGA-friendly podcasters like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Adin Ross rapidly distance themselves from Donald Trump as their audiences turn against his presidency -- On the Bonus Show: Mike Johnson warns furloughed workers may not get back pay, the White House says it'll use tariff revenue to pay for food assistance, the Treasury defends minting a Trump coin, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 📄 UPDF: Try this revolutionary new PDF tool totally free at https://davidpakman.com/updf ⚠️ 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 -- 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) Intro (00:43) Democrat defeats Republican Mayor in Alaska (05:33) Governor Pritzker calls out Trump’s dementia (16:00) Pam Bondi clashes with Democrats in Senate hearing (26:02) Trump suggests rewarding loyal workers, punishing others (29:22) Trump confuses Canadian PM with bizarre press remarks (37:15) Stephen Miller admits Trump has “plenary authority” (42:38) Miller doubles down on extremist rhetoric (49:26) Trump calls for jailing Chicago Mayor and IL Governor (54:25) Former MAGA podcasters distance themselves from Trump  

Donald Trump's week from hell just got worse. His aides are melting down on live TV. Governors are blaming dementia for his troop deployments. And even MAGA podcast bros like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn are suddenly sprinting away from Trump. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi loses it when questioned by senators, farmers are turning on the administration and Republican mayors are get this, conceding elections without claiming voter fraud. Isn't that refreshing? The cracks are showing everywhere. Let's get into it.

Well, I have some sort of nice news to start with for a change. A Republican was brutally kicked to the curb by a Democrat in one of their Alaska strongholds. And that's good news already. But the big shock is that the loser, David Pruse, did not claim vote. fraud. He did not blame Antifa or Antifa. He didn't file a lawsuit. He just conceded the race. Can you imagine?

So this takes us to Fairbanks, Alaska, where Democrat, Mindy O'Neill defeated the incumbent Republican mayor, David Pruse. And this flips a conservative, a seat that Republicans have held for nearly a decade. Now, O'Neill got 54% of the vote. got just under 46% of the vote. The Republican didn't pretend it was close. He just conceded he didn't whine. He didn't start talking about this was the biggest fraud until they did massive dumps.

I was winning. And the conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines didn't even come up. Just the race is over. The voters have spoken. I wish Mindy the best. And that's really the shock here. As shocking as it is to see Democrats take. a city that they haven't had for a really long time.

The real shock is a Republican simply accepted defeat and said someone else gets to now hold this office. I lost plain and simple. And there was almost like a palpable nostalgia where, you know, I still remember John McCain's concession speech in 2008. It was a fine speech where he said we've had a race. The voters have chosen my opponent. Barack Obama. Hold on. Do I have my Obama? They chose Barack Obama. And I want the country

to do well. And therefore, I want the president to do well. And there were sort of, it nostalgia is the best way I can say it. A respectful measured concession rooted in something that used to be called dignity. And I think it's respectable to say, hey, we would be better off if that's still the way that it was today. Now, Prue said he was proud to serve for as long as he did. He said, Turnout was part of why he lost. He congratulated his opponent and now he's moving on. Now you were not going to get yourself a paid contributor gig on Fox News with that attitude. You know, in today's Republican Party of 2025, if you just say, I lost, that's it.

The voters selected somebody else. You're not going to be seen as fighting the fight that MAGA wants you to fight because the modern Republican Party has turned denial into really a requirement and a personality trade in some sense. And so the idea that you can just lose because more people wanted your opponent to win and more people voted for your opponent, it's not compatible with the Republican brand of the 2020s because they've built not only a media ecosystem around the premise that they never lose. They also have someone at the top of their party in Donald Trump who never, I mean, Trump still hasn't acknowledged losing the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary.

as they call her Hillary Clinton, even though he won that race electorally, he still believes that he actually won the popular vote, even though he didn't. So, you know, someone like Pruse concedes, no screaming fraud, it's not just rare. It's almost rebellious in the Republican party. Meanwhile, O'Neill ran on, you know, boring things, that quaint stuff like, I'm going to listen to the voters. I'm going to make housing affordable. I want to build community trust in public safety, including police.

And she won. So on the one hand, you've got at the national level, Trump calling to, by the way, jail governors and mayors, we'll talk about that. You've got ICE agents ripping through protests in Chicago. You see that a Republican in Alaska is able to model what it means to be an adult. And it turns out that the real brutal defeat isn't just losing the race. It's that they've lost their party that can't simply say, we lost. That's all that happened here.

When the bar is so low, basic decency kind of starts to feel revolutionary. And it's weird, but this mayoral race in Fairbanks might be, it's weird to say it. This might be one of the healthiest things that American democracy. has seen all year. He lost and he's moving on. Not everybody's reacting this way. We'll get to that a little bit later. Trump dementia has now gone mainstream. Yet another governor and a senator now are pointedly saying Trump is doing things because he is suffering from dementia. First, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker. He gave an interview to the Chicago Tribune. He is saying it very clearly he clearly is in the I don't care anymore I'm going to say what I really think

phase he said quote this is a man who's suffering dementia this is a man who has something stuck in his head he can't get it out of his head he doesn't read he doesn't know anything that's up to date it's just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities and then unfortunately he has the power of the military the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that's what he is doing. What J.B. Pritzker is arguing here is that, like some who suffer from dementia, Trump has become irrationally and singularly fixated on cities and deploying troops there, and that it is dementia that explains why Trump is just sending troops everywhere, no matter what courts

say, no matter what judges say, even when states object and mayors, governors, or both say, we don't want it. Now, according to the Tribune, troops from Texas are already assembling at a base in Illinois. Three hundred Illinois National Guard members ordered to serve at least 60 days. And we have to take a step back and recognize the unusual circumstances in which we now find ourselves. Dementia is now being regularly blamed for the erratic and lawless behavior of a president. It's not normal. It's not a conspiracy theory somewhere in the corners of the internet. It has gone completely mainstream.

Now remember when J.B. Pritzker said the following a just last week. Let me start by saying it appears that Donald Trump, not only his dementia set in, but he's copying tactics of Vladimir Putin, sending troops into cities, thinking that that's some sort of proving ground for war or that indeed, there's. There's some sort of internal war going on in the United States. So Pritzker has been clear. He believes dementia is to blame here. Of course, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently dropped a dementia bomb on Donald Trump publicly

saying this guy's in cognitive decline and tweeting out that people with dementia will often repeat the same false things over and over and over again. And now even our friend Senator Ruben Gallego from Arizona is saying exactly the the same thing. If you are a swing Republican in a swing district in an off year election, why are you falling on this sword for this guy who's clearly checked out and needs to be probably put into some type of treatment program for whatever dementia he has? For Johnson, who comes from one of the safest districts in the country who's covering for pedophiles, and for John Thune, who is in there for six years and he is not worried about

members of Congress. But you have all these members of Congress that are diving themselves on the Yeah. So you've now got, that's from our friends over at Midas Touch, by the way. You've got multiple governors, not French commentators, not anonymous insiders, not commenters whose username is a random word and eight numbers on Reddit. You've got governors and a senator attributing Donald Trump's military and legal overreach to dementia. And this is unfortunately eerily familiar when Ronald Reagan was president. I was like only 55 years old at that point. When Ronald Reagan was president, people started to notice that he was slipping. There were misbriefings. There was confusion. There were strange lapses in memory. And later we learned, oh yeah, he was suffering from Alzheimer's at the time.

And now historians are left to argue about or debate. How early did that start with Reagan? How long had it been going on and how long was it being covered up? Now, the differences back then, It was a different media environment. We didn't have social media. We didn't have, I don't know that we had any 24 hour cable news networks. And so a lot of it could be kept hidden. I mean, think back even further to when FDR was in a wheelchair. And even that was successfully hidden for a long time.

With Trump, it's all public. It's all happening in the public eye. We see the slurred words. We see the inability to recognize people. the looping stories, Trump's eyes pointing in different directions the other day and sometimes his eyes are completely swollen shut. His strange stance where he sort of hinges forward at the waist and swings, which is sometimes a sign of frontotemporal dementia.

Reagan's decline was pretty successfully covered up, at least as far as the public facing side of it. Trump's decline is being live streamed. And what's terrifying is that the people around Trump must. know that something is wrong. They instead of stopping him are enabling him. Now, the only thing we can say about the people around Trump is this now, now we're hypothesizing. Now we're left to conjecture and speculation. My favorite places to be, of course, no, we're left to conjecture and speculation because of the lack of transparency. Over the last month and a half, really a month,

actually. We have had two very long unexplained absences from the public eye for Donald Trump. Periods of days. In one case, I think it was four days in one case it was closer to six. Something Trump rarely did during his first term, never, I would even say, unexplained absences during which his only communication is either via text message or social media post. And because of the lack of transparency, because of what we do see in public, we are left to speculate that the one thing the staff around him are doing when they see that he is having

an episode of sorts is just keeping him out of the public eye. When governors start invoking dementia to explain federal troop deployments, we can no longer pretend that this is a partisan spin on a niche story. It's a national security issue. It has gone completely mainstream. And I have to say it, good for Senator Gallego, good for Governor Newsom, and good for Pritzker, for being willing to even say this publicly, because there are a lot of people that are crushing them for saying this, mostly Republicans. And I believe that we are only starting to get the tip of the story, the tip of the iceberg, the first lines of the story, the tip of the story, I don't know. We're going to have more and broader coverage of this on

our audio podcast. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple Podcasts. It's completely free. It's an hour or more a day. I would love for you to subscribe to that podcast. We're going to take a quick break and be back right after this. You know, it's not that the system is broken. The system is rigged. And if you are drowning in debt, that is how they want it. The big banks profit when you're desperate. Creditors win when you lose. But you don't have to play their game. Our sponsor PDS debt helps you simply take back control, whether it's a custom plan built for your financial situation or off the shelf plans, credit cards, collections, personal loans, medical bills, they will help you stop the bleeding and financially move forward. No minimum credit score required. You fill out a

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The David Pakman show is, of course, an audience-funded program. We're an independent progressive media program, and the number one funding source for this show is just people like you, people who listen to the podcast, watch a YouTube clip, check us out on Snapchat. We are on Snapchat. A lot of people don't know that. You can read about membership. And of course, I would love to welcome you as a member at join packman.com. And I want to say a huge thank you to Haley Allen and Brian Skullthorpe are two newest members at join packman.com. Acting more like a criminal defendant than the attorney general, Pam Bondi delivered one of the most sickening and divisive performances that I have ever seen from an attorney general at a

Senate hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. We're going to go through a whole bunch of this. First and foremost, Bondi asked directly, is there audio recording, video recording of Trump's deportations are Tom Homan taking $50,000 as a bribe? And she goes, oh, you've got to talk to cash potential. about that. You realize that? I do want to go back to Homan. You know, there's a tape, right, with Mr. Homan? I mean, first of all, is there a tape that has audio and video of the transfer of the 50,000? You would have to talk to Director Patel about that. No, I'm talking to you. I don't know the

answer, Senator. You do know the answer to that. Don't call me a liar. I didn't call you a liar. You just said I know the answer. I said, I don't know the answer. You have to talk to. Okay. Let me tell what I always the move is turn the tables if you can and attack the person asking the question. A journalist asks a question MAGA doesn't like. How dare you? Uh, we saw Caroline Levitt do it yesterday. A senator asks a question you don't like in this case, Senator Welch. How I don't call me a liar. Well, we think you're a liar. We don't even need to call you a liar. Dick Durbin. brought up the Epstein files.

This got really good and said, we have now learned that you were told to flag when Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files for the White House. Who told you to do that? She goes, I'm not going to talk about that. Going back to the Epstein files, according to another whistleblower who made a protected disclosure to my office, you pushed the FBI to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records on an arbitrarily short deadline in March, and the FBI was directed to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump. Nothing came of that review until July when DOJ and FBI released

an unsigned memo stating, quote, there's no incriminating client list. Why was the July 7th memo unsigned? The July 7th memo came from the FBI and the Department of Justice Director Patel answered those questions very clear. And, you know, Senator Durbin, I find it very interesting. that you refused, repeated Republican request to release the Epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024. You fought that. Did you take money from Reed Hoffman campaign donations? Who was a huge Epstein friend? Why did you fight for years? Why did you fight to not disclose the flight logs? She's got no. If you're thinking she sounds discombobulated, she had attack notes prepared for each Democratic senator, but she lacks the articulate ability to recite

this stuff. And so she just sounds discombobulated. Senator Darwin? I can tell you, I did not refuse one of the senators who wished to produce those logs. And I asked her to put it in writing and she never did. Yeah, I think Senator Blackburn would quarrel with you on that. I will quarrel with you as to read somebody that you mentioned I never heard of. Reid Hoffman.

So who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump? To flag records for President Trump? To flag any records, which included his name. She's so, oh, she is just the worst. I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator. Eventually, you're going to have to answer for your conduct in this. You won't do it today, but eventually you will. Eventually, you will answer, Pam Bondi.

says Dick Durbin. Then we get to Senator Blumenthal. And again, Pam Bondi with the outrage. She's just outraged. Anyone would have the audacity to challenge her integrity or honesty, which of course, anyone who's ever paid attention to Pam Bondi would say the first thing we need to do is examine her integrity and her honesty. That took place. Which merger you've listed involving American Express GBT? I understand that Brian Ballard, long-time backer and head of the law firm where you work, was instrumental in lobbying the Justice Department to drop that lawsuit.

It was dismissed. So it's not subject to a court review. What conversation did you have with Mr. Ballard? Senator Blumenthal, I cannot believe that you would have. me of impropriety when you lied about your military service. I am not asking you. I am not asking you. I am not accusing you a U.S.

senator. You lie. How dare you? I'm a career prosecutor. Don't you ever challenge my integrity? Don't you ever? So you see the game, right guys? She became prepared with notes to attack each senator.

But of course, she is not there to ask questions. She is there to answer questions. She was then asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Senator Sheldon White House direct questions about what the FBI has about Trump with half-naked young women. Are there pictures of Trump with half-naked young women? We might call them underage girls. Again, she refuses to answer. She attacks Senator White House. Let me ask you something else. There's been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half-naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those

search of Jeffrey Epstein's safe or premises or otherwise. Have you seen any such thing? You know, Senator White House, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to remember it was a yes or no question. Has she seen those pictures of Trump with underage women, underage girls or not? Slander, President Trump, left and right. When you're the one who was taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidence, I believe, I could be wrong, correct me, Reid Hoffman, who was with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions and the senator sitting right next to you tried to block the flight logs from being released. So she doesn't answer this one either.

And I'm hearing that the answer is yes. I mean, if you're asked, have you seen pictures of Trump with half naked females in connection with Jeffrey Epstein and you attack the person asking the question, it certainly sounds to me like a yes. Now, it then got really unhinged when Senator Adam Schiff took a turn. This is just wild, wild stuff. You were asked whether you were firing career professionals, career prosecutors just because they worked on January 6th question, January 6 investigations. You refused to answer that question. You were asked by my California colleague whether you believe government officials like immigration officials have to abide by court orders. You wouldn't even

answer that question. This is supposed to be an oversight here. Oversight. These, these, excuse me, you can attack me after my time is over. Oh, we've attacked all of us, including President Trump for your entire career. And I know you've got plenty of canned attacks. We've heard them all day to day. Can't attacks on you? This is supposed to be, excuse me, regular order, Madam Chair, I'm trying to speak. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing of the Justice Department. And it comes in the way of an indictment called for by the president of one of his enemies. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing and it comes in the wake of revelations that a top administration official took $50,000 in a bag and this department made that investigation

go away. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing when dozens of prosecutors have been fired simply because they worked on cases investigating the former president. This is and now the current president. Fires in California, do you care about that senatorship? Of course, the fires in California have nothing to do with this hearing. Excuse me. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious

answers to serious questions about- Are the riots in LA serious? About the cover-up of corruption, about the prosecutor- Listen, to be totally frank, I don't even think it should be allowed for witnesses to do this sort of thing. It, you know, if you're in a court of law and an attorney is asking a witness questions and the witness starts to insist on asking the attorney questions, the judge would step in and say, you're here to provide testimony.

You're here to answer questions, not ask questions. And I believe that what Pam Bondi was allowed to do is not even appropriate. I think it's completely not what these hearings are for. And I would like to see that enforced. The most important takeaway here, we see Pam Bondi, and to us, she looks moronic, unethical, and dishonest. She's clearly avoiding answering questions that she knows the answers to, just like a truly triggered imbecile.

But MAGA sees this as strength. Maga sees that she comes prepared with attack lines for each Democratic senator. They go, she's so strong. She is attempting to perform for an audience of one, and that is Donald Trump. And she did it to her credit. We all see this for what it is, but it doesn't matter if MAGA sees this as strength. And I believe that they do. Donald Trump announced yesterday that he will be committing more crimes if he can get away

with it. He did this on live television during a press conference with the, not really a press conference, sort of like a press conversation in the Oval Office with the Canadian Minister, Prime Minister Mark Carney. A reporter asked a question. Is the White House in favor of furloughed federal workers getting back pay once the government shutdown ends or not? Are you going to pay the people that are now not getting paid?

And Trump says it depends who and makes it clear that what he wants to do is give back pay to the Trump loyalist federal workers and maybe not to the ones that are not so loyal. This is against the law. Mr. President, is it the White House's position that furloughed workers should be paid for their back pay? I would say it depends on who we're talking about. I can tell you this. The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy,

but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way. Okay? Thank you. That is a threat. That is another attempt to punish people who didn't vote for him.

And it is against the law. The Trump is openly saying, I, there are more crimes I've identified that I would like to commit. Paying only federal workers deemed loyal to the president would violate the first and fifth amendments by punishing. It's the government punishing political beliefs and denying equal treatment. It would violate the civil service reform act and the hatch. Act would say you, which say you can't discriminate on a political basis in federal employment.

We've got laws on the books about this stuff. And it would likely violate criminal law against use of public funds and abuse of power. We, if Donald Trump is allowed to get away with what he just said, not only is it criminal, not only does it violate the Constitution, not only does it violate the Civil Service Reform Act and the Hatch Act. It would bring back this corrupt spoils system, which we abolished in the 1800s. It was clearly unconstitutional. It would now be clearly prosecutable.

And Trump is not doing this in the dark recesses of some bunker. He's saying this stuff in the Oval Office. He is proudly and defiantly declaring with Mark Carney sitting there next to him, looking at him like what that hell is going on here. that there are criminal things he would like to do. And I hate to say it, I'm afraid he'll get away with it because he's gotten away with so much and we are going to have to watch that very closely. I have a number of friends currently furloughed, not getting paid.

Not a single one of them is a Trump supporting tool. And this is now on our radar. He would like to commit some more crimes. More crimes, please. Let's see if he's able to get away with it. Mark Carney, by the way, the Canadian prime minister was visibly, visibly stunned during his conversation in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and the press. Donald Trump just answering question after question after question in a disgusting, a disgusting reminder that money doesn't buy class. If Trump embodies anything, the primary value or idea that Trump embodies is that some

people, no matter how much money they obtain, you can't buy class. Trump asked, are you concerned about the delays at airports? And he starts talking about a black woman's IQ. One of his favorite topics. If you are up against the difficult question, figure out if there is a black woman you can say is stupid. And that's exactly what Trump did. Mr. Are you concerned about the delays at airports and how do you see the shutdown?

Oh, sure. I mean, it's, they're all Democrat delays. There are delays at the airport. That's standard. And again, this is something that we've, every day we put forth a bill. It's just a continuation. It's a very simple thing to sign and very simple to do. And I really think that these are people that I think they have nothing to lose. They have a party that's out of control. They have no leader. Nobody knows who the leader is. I look at people with very low. IQs like a crockett, this woman, Crockett. I never met her, but she's a low IQ individual. I look at AOC talking about how if they want to negotiate, they can come to my office. She's not in that position to do that. And who the hell is she to say that? You know, this is not a show where I just go racism. Everything is racism. And in fact, I really try to be careful. There's a lot of times that some might say this is racism. And it's not. It's something else.

It's a political situation or it's a personal situation but not based on race or whatever. Why is it that Trump has asked a question about airports and suddenly he's attacking two non-white women, two non-white Democrats and saying that one of them has a low IQ? What, why, why is that? Is there any other explanation at this point in time? Donald Trump then asked, why isn't there a deal with Canada? You know, everybody's throwing bouquet. at each other. You're saying how great Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister is. Everybody's getting

along. We love Canada. We love the U.S. Everything's great. So why no deal right now? Interesting question. Let's take a listen to what Trump said. Because they deal with lots of leaders all over the world. He is a world class leader. He's a man that knows what he wants. And I'm not surprised to see that he won the election and won it substantially. And I would think he's more popular now. He's a good He does a great job, but he's a tough negotiator. So the one's holding things up. If he's a great man and you want to do a deal with Canada, why aren't you? Because I want to be a great man too.

And everybody's laughing, but what's the joke? It's completely incoherent. And remember that it's all fun in games in the Oval Office, but we were told that everybody was just going to be desperate. desperate to make a deal with Donald Trump. And we've got essentially no deals. Trump then saying soon the people of Canada will love us, but they already do also. Mr. President, what is Canada giving you in return? You say Mr. Carney is going to be leaving Washington. How do it's Canada? What you'll find out. But I think the people of Canada, they will love

us again. Most of them still do. But if you say only 25, I assume that. I assume a lot of them. I think they love us. You know, the truth is that nearly two. thirds of Canadians. And this is sad. This is not something to brag about this. It's, it's terrible. Nearly two thirds of Canadians have an unfavorable opinion of the United States. 39% of that total 64 have a very unfavorable opinion of the United States. It's not going well with Canada. That's for sure. Trump sort of weirdly weaves in this whole the United States and Canada joining and Canada becoming a U.S. state. And Carney is quick to say that's not at all what I'm talking. about.

Azerbaijan, Armenia, disabling Iran is a force of terror. And now, and I'm running out of time, but this is many respects, the most important. What you created of Canada and the United States, I'm not like that wasn't where I was going. I was, no, but I just can't let it go. Trump cannot let go that maybe Canadians just don't want to be part of the United States. Maybe, maybe they just don't want to do that. The topic of cars came up, highly relevant.

to the tariff situation, and as usual, Trump making a fool out of himself. You would have a better shot at getting an answer from a kitchen whisk than you do from Donald Trump. Canadians are refusing to go to the U.S. The numbers are down like 23% in the first seven months of the year. What do you say to Canadians? They don't want to go to the U.S. now because of your 50 first. They talk because of the trade war, the tariffs.

Yeah. Well, I understand it. Look, I understand that. And Americans don't want to buy cars that are made in Canada. You know, I mean, we have the same conflict. So there isn't, it's, it's something that will get worked out. Yeah. You know, the only problem with this is that the Chevy Silverado and the Chevy Equinox are

made in Canada. The Honda Civic and the Honda CRV are made in Canada. Chrysler Pacifica and the Grand Caravan and the Dodge Charger and the Ford Mustang GTD and a whole bunch of other cars. They're made in Canada. And originally during Trump's first term, part of that replacement deal to NAFTA, the USMCA, part of it was let's do joint building of cars, US, Canada, Mexico and not punish Americans for that.

Now Trump's going, we are going to punish those with tariffs and also nobody wants these cars anyway, but actually they do. And actually manufacturers organize themselves in accordance with Donald Trump stated trade policy goals of his first term under USMCA, which said, no, we're going to work with some of the parts will be from these three countries. The assembly will be in these three countries. And that's cool. That's encouraged. Now it's not. He's punishing the very people that did what he wanted them to do. And this is the theme with Trump. You do what he wants you to do, but then the winds change. And now he punishes you and you are always the problem. 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 feature. 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. All right. This should be the biggest news story in the country. This was not a gaff.

This was not a glitch. Stephen Miller, one of Trump's closest aides, calmly declared on national television, CNN, that Donald Trump has plenary authority. And he realized what he had said. He went silent and froze. They went to a break. And when they came back, he gave the answer again with no mention of plenary authority. Now, most people don't necessarily know what this means.

What this means is unlimited, unchecked power. This is the kind of power a king would have. This is the kind of power a dictator, would have. a president in a democracy. Let's check out the clip and then we will talk about it. Oregon legal insurrection. Does the administration still plan to abide by that ruling? Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the

president has plenary authority has Stephen. Stephen? Stephen? Stephen? Hey, Stephen, can you hear me? I, it seemed, Stephen, I apologize. It seems like we're having a technical organ legal ins- We're having a technical issue, but there was no technical issue.

That was not a freeze because of a bad connection. He was still blinking. We could hear him. Everybody could hear everybody. The more likely scenario is either Stephen Miller realized by himself or there was someone off camera or somewhere near there going, no, no, no, no, no. You just said the quiet part out loud. This was not a loud unhinged rant from Stephen Miller.

He did those during this interview. We'll get to those later. This was something that he didn't stumble across that phrase plenary authority. This is something he believes and he means. And the problem is that that phrase, maybe it's supposed to be rolled out later. Maybe it's for when Trump decides to push some new boundary or wants to deploy regular armed forces against citizens even beyond the limited capacity in which he's done it so far or against a court order.

And CNN appears to have helped to bury it. Instead of challenging Miller on this wildly unconstitutional claim, they cut to a break, claimed a technical issue, came back with a do-over, Miller didn't mention plenary authority, and the host didn't mention, hey, before you said plenary authority, plenary authority. I don't know if CNN is protecting Stephen Miller outright. I don't know if it was a moment of the host forgot. I don't know. But Stephen Miller really gave the game away because it exposes what this administration really believes. Trump's power should be out. absolute. We suspected that's what they believed. We know that that's what Donald Trump wants.

And the legacy in corporate media has sort of quietly helped to cover it all up. You don't end up with a full-fledged authoritarian state with tanks in the streets on day one. It starts with stuff like this. And aid says, oh, the president has plenary power. And everybody just kind of shrugs and CNN gives him a redo and he doesn't mention it. And that's it. This is the language. that authoritarian leaders have used to justify total control. In 1933, Hitler pushed through the so-called Enabling Act, which said, oh, he needs full power to restore order. And what that meant was that any decision, decree, or law flows directly from him, unchecked

by courts, unchecked by the parliament. And that idea is that one person, usually one man, overrides every other institution. And the parallels are really scary. I mean, we don't talk about Hitler often on this program. But what we are talking about is using existing mechanisms like emergency powers and national security laws to dismantle democracy from the inside out. And that's what makes Stephen Miller's statement so dangerous. When plenary authority comes out of the mouth of someone that works for the president, it is a test balloon.

This is an insight into what they're thinking about. And it's the same playbook that we've talked about. You normalize the language of dictatorship. You get the media to kind of shrug or maybe we don't really know what that means. And by the time people realize what's happening, you've hollowed out the rule of law from the inside out. make sure that people see this. Everyone you know should understand what just happened. Make sure you like this video. Make sure to share this video because once plenary authority becomes accepted language, it is way too late. The shriveled and diminished Trump advisor

Stephen Miller said a lot of things yesterday. He said some of them to CNN. He said some of them to the press pool cameras outside of the White House. He was asked about how he called a judge's ruling a legal insurrection when it comes to the deployment of troops. And Stephen Miller goes, that's factually accurate. You called a legal ruling legal insurrection. Are you recommending the president take action against judges? No.

It's simply a factually accurate statement that when a judge assumes for him or herself, the the powers that have been relegated or delegated by the Constitution to the President, that that is a form of a legal insurrection. And we have seen... It's supposed to carry the legal weight, so are you recommended to... No, we have seen over the last nine months a ongoing legal insurrection in which district court judges, as a class in many cases, have issued, which why they've been overturned so much, have issued rulings that are flagrantly unlawful and unconstitutional, and it

is an insurrection against the laws and constitutional. of the United States. And we need to have district courts in this country that see themselves as being under the laws and constitution and not being able to take for themselves powers that are reserved solely for the president. One more question. Think about that. Think about that. January 6th, 2021, definitely not an insurrection. According to Stephen Miller, judges making decisions that Trump likes, definitely not an insurrection. Judges making decisions that Trump doesn't like, that's an insurrection. It's an insurrection against the law. This is the classic modern authoritarian Republican idea. You say inflammatory and wacky things.

When you're confronted with them, you act shocked that anyone would accuse you of anything that is not totally on the up and up. What? No, it's, of course, it's an insurrection by the judges. What do you mean? me. I didn't say the wrong thing. The judge's decisions were simply wrong. This got even worse back to the CNN interview when he started arguing Stephen Miller did that black people in Chicago love ice on the streets and deployed military. They just love all of it. He says that you're attempting to inflame tensions and create a war zone. He also says that you are profiling, that you're targeting black and brown people, even those who turn out to be here legally, what's your response?

Well, first of all, the black people in Chicago are thrilled that we're getting the illegal aliens out of the communities who are stealing their housing jobs and resources. It turns out, unfortunately, unfortunately, that documented and undocumented immigrants aren't really stealing houses, jobs, and resources, certainly on some basic supply and demand level, People looking for housing has an upward effect on prices. It's modest, but it's it's it's real. But with regard to jobs and resources, we know that the presence of documented and undocumented immigrants is extraordinarily economically stimulative.

No matter what the color of your skin is, whether you're white, brown, black, or any color, you if you are presented with the the real data on this would recognize the presence of immigrants documented and undocumented. This is not a defense of undocumented immigration, mind you. Of course, countries have a right to enforce immigration law, but let's not lie. The presence of both documented and undocumented immigrants is demand side stimulus. It creates more economic output, generates more demand, is good for local businesses, is good for local economies, it's good for the American economy.

Now you can say they should all be doing it legally, not illegally. Fine, countries have every right to enforce immigration law. But the idea that by sending these masked goons and militarized troops through the streets to round people up, some of them who are documented, some are undocumented, even American citizens getting wrapped up in the entire thing and entangled, you're going to improve the economy, not borne out by the facts. Finally, the dehumanization of talking about putting down, putting down, listen to this. is to make it impossible for ICE to carry out ICE enforcement.

When in our history have we tolerated unlawful riotous assemblies night after night around FBI buildings or ATF buildings or DEA buildings? This is the textbook definition of domestic terrorism using the actual and imminent threat of violence to keep federal officials from doing their jobs. And unless we send in troops and resources, then we will continue to bleed federal law enforcement resources in these streets. battles. It's absurd. It's unconstitutional. It must be put down. It must be put down. The dehumanizing language is not a bug. They see it as a feature. Maga hears it. See, here's, here's, here's where we lose. We think if we just show them this language, they would be disgusted with it and they would go, oh, we can't support that. But that's where we are wrong. You show them this language. They go, that's great. It sounds strong. It sounds robust. It sounds like we're finally taking

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The link is in the description. Illinois Governor J.B Pritzker says he believes Trump's dementia is why he is deployed. troops all over the country. Donald Trump now says that Governor J.B. Pritzker should be thrown in prison along with Chicago mayor Brendan Johnson. We are getting, you know, we talk about a race to the bottom. We are getting it very, very quickly from this administration. Donald Trump put out a post on Truth Social, which says, quote, Chicago mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers, Governor Pritzker, all. Now, I know that we have been so desensitized by how this administration has operated that

a post from a president suggesting that elected officials be thrown in prison without due process and without having done anything wrong is not that shocking anymore. I understand the hyper normalization and the desensitization that we have all experienced and that hopefully we are fighting against. But this is a red alert moment. We have the president of the United States openly calling for the jailing of elected officials because they won't do what he wants. It's not because they committed crimes.

It's not because they participated in a corrupt or unethical act. It is for political disobedience. And if you look back at the 20th century dictators, this is how it starts. It begins with rhetoric that blurs the line between political disagreement and criminal criminal behavior. Mussolini would call his opponents enemies of the state. Franco labeled mayors and union leaders subversive. Hitler accused local officials of sabotage when they would refuse his orders.

And the goal was always the same. You want to turn your political opponents into criminals so that then you can treat their desire for democracy as lawlessness. You make yourself the source of order and you throw all of them in prison. so they can't get in your way. That is the direction that Donald Trump is going here. This isn't policy. Throw a governor in prison isn't policy. It is a groundwork for anti-democratic repression. The irony, of course, is that the mayors and governors that Trump is attacking are the ones following the law. ICE is a federal agency. Local officials don't protect ICE. That's not even what they're

supposed to be doing. They cooperate under federal rules using their discretion. Now, I don't know if Trump knows that or doesn't know it. You know, for Trump, law and order means law for his enemies and order for himself or maybe it's law and order for his friends and total denial of due process for his enemies. I don't know. I'm sort of saying it in articulately, but this is not what a confident leader posts. This is the post of someone who's completely unraveling and only reinforcing J.B. Pritzker's claim that dementia is at play in motivating Trump's behavior. Just look at this week alone. He's demanded military tribunals for journalists, the death penalty for drug dealers, and now prison for mayors and governors. This is like an authoritarian greatest

hits. And as disastrous as the ranting is, this all pushes the Overton window. The more we get accustomed to a president demanding some of his political opponents be jailed, when he says something that stops just short of that next week, it sounds comparatively less outrageous and we're more likely to look the other way. And so I know I've said it before, these populist sounding sort of authoritarian often will start with, hey, we've got the people versus the corrupt elites. Now, usually they are the corrupt elites, but they'll still say, I'm on the side of the people. We're together against the corrupt elites.

Then they redefine the elite as anybody who disagrees with them politically. And Trump's doing that right now. He's recasting mayors, governors, local police departments that don't want to go out of their way to do immigration work or whatever, which they shouldn't be doing. They are all enemies and we've got to deal with them. So this is an unhinged post, but it's part of a pattern we've seen many times before. You de-legitimize your opponents. You rewrite justice to mean loyalty.

And then you say, well, we've got to punish dissent here. We've got to throw these people in prison. It is the playbook of every dictator who ever told himself he's saving the country right before they destroy it. This is the sort of stuff they would say. We're working on getting Governor Pritzker on the show. And of course, I would love to ask him about this. I'm guessing because he's not a dumb guy and neither is the mayor.

I'm guessing that they are coming up with contingency. planning for what happens if Trump does try to pursue us in this way. Hey, this is very interesting. The Manosphere podcasters who spent years flirting with Maga, Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Aidan Ross, Andrew Schultz, they are suddenly trying to pretend they were never really that into Donald Trump. There's a really interesting new piece in Rolling Stone. And what the piece argues is that the guys who have.

helped Trump's campaign in 2024 in terms of bringing it to young men and saying vote, vote for this guy. They are now kind of tripping over themselves to distance themselves from what Donald Trump is actually doing. We're nine, almost nine months into this term. And they're realizing that the guy who promised to do all of that authoritarian stuff meant it. And he's doing the authoritarian stuff.

So you've got people like Aidan Ross who gave Trump a cyber truck and a Rolex during that Lovefest interview that they did. Now he says he really, really wishes he'd never gotten into politics. You've got Theo Vaughn who offered Trump one of the softest interviews he's ever had. He blew up after the Department of Homeland Security included him in a deportation video. And he said, I didn't sign up for this stuff. I've got immigrant family. That is not at all what I meant.

And I don't like that my content was used by Trump in this way. has been calling the immigration raids insane. Andrew Schultz said that he voted for none of this. But this is what happens when you treat politics like another viral guest spot. My friend, the comedian, Angelo Colina, said when talking about Hispanic voters, he does comedy in Spanish to mostly Hispanic audiences. He said, why are we, I'm paraphrasing, why are we shocked that the guy who said he hates us actually hates us and is now doing all of this stuff to us? Who could have seen that coming?

Trump told you what he was going to do. The only surprise here is that people who built their brands on telling it like it is didn't believe Trump. You know, Rogan's all about I tell it like it is, et cetera. The Ovan's about I tell it like it is, et cetera. But Trump told it like it is and he's doing the stuff. And now they go, oh, we didn't guess that he was just telling it like it is. This is the same pad.

Oh, by the way, I want to mention one other show. I don't know how many of you watch or listen to the all in podcast. I don't really, but I follow it enough to sort of see what happens. And I have friends who listen to it. It is basically morphed into a Trump propaganda outlet with like the veneer of being a show about venture capital and capital deployment. And for a while, the all in audience kind of went with it. But if you look at the subreddit now for the all in podcast, it is brutal.

The audience has completely turned against them. Sort of like Dave Rubin's audience turned against him. If you look at the Rogan subreddit, there's a lot of that as well. And the all in hosts are just being crushed for parroting right wing talking points, selling out to power. When even your fan base that made you what you are to begin with as far as podcast success, when they start roasting you as a shill, you start looking for an off ramp and quickly. And it is now spreading beyond the manosphere.

Look at what happened to Nikki Jam. He went on stage with Trump. Trump misgendered him and said, Nikki's super hot. Bring her up here. Turns out it was a guy with a tear drop tattoo under his eye. And Nikki Jam went up there thinking, oh, this is cool. You know, I'm with Trump. It's all great.

Nikki Jam got so destroyed on social media that he ended up saying, I'm done with politics. I'm not going to say any more political stuff. And even apolitical influences are learning that the Trump orbit can burn you if you get a little bit too close. This was never, I don't think when these podcasters got involved on the Trump train, I don't know that it was that ideological. I think it was the idea that we're going to be edgy, we're going to be unfiltered, we're going to be rebellious in that a lot of what they perceived as their cohorts were antagonistic to Trump and we're going to, we're going to hear him out and maybe even say we like the guy. But the thing is Trump now is the establishment. Like

when you support Trump, you're really just supporting the establishment. He's the system. And so they are now backpedaling and I don't think they're doing it out of principle. I think they're doing it out of self preservation. They sense this is my speculation. The Manosphere bros sense that the next phase of the online right is not about worshiping Trump. It's going to be about tearing down those who look weak, hypocritical or corporate. And nothing screams weakness more than backing the strong man right up until.

he starts losing the crowd. And so the Manosphere's tough guy posture, I think was always vibes over values. They talk about discipline and all of that stuff. But once it's inconvenient, they abandon it. And so Trump doesn't need them anymore. Trump got what he wanted. He got reelected. He doesn't need him anymore. The audiences are kind of mutating and moving around and starting to eat creators alive. So the podcast bros are starting to step away from Trump, not because they grew a conscience, I think they see what's coming and they don't want to drown in this wave that is on its way. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment or email me about the Manosphere. Info at David Pakman.com. All right, Maga Mike Johnson is warning that furloughed government employees may

never get back pay. We're going to talk about it on the bonus show. We'll talk about the White House saying it will use tariff revenue to fund food aid for mothers and young children. And the treasury is defending the lawfulness of a $1 Trump coin, even though in principle, you're not allowed to mint coins or bills with living people on them. So what's their justification? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Get instant access by signing up at join packman.com. It is the best David Packman show bonus show in the world and the only.

You can sign up at join packman.com. I'll see you then.