The David Pakman Show - 121225 Crowds Vanishing And Prices Rising As Trump Has Terrible Week

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump delivers a low-energy rally in a small Pennsylvania casino ballroom as the crowd sits unresponsive -- Polling shows nearly half of Americans struggling to afford groceries and a majority blaming Donald Trump for worsening prices tied to his tariffs and pro-billionaire policies -- American farmers openly blame Donald Trump for economic harm caused by his trade policies and warn that bailouts will arrive too late to save farms in foreclosure -- News hosts laugh at Donald Trump for giving himself an "A+++++" on the economy as data shows rising prices and voters overwhelmingly say conditions are getting worse -- Donald Trump's rushed ICE expansion fills the agency with recruits who fail literacy tests, background checks, and fitness standards -- Glenn Beck debuts an AI George Washington that sounds exactly like Glenn Beck and raises questions about his judgment -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Right-wing media influencers turn on each other over conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's death, accusations of being gay, and much more... 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman 🤢 Reliefband: Get 20% off + free shipping with code PAKMAN at https://reliefband.com 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $35 off Carver Mat frames at https://auraframes.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you $126 in FREE gifts at https://drinkag1.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 (02:00) Low-energy Trump casino rally (08:24) Voters blame Trump for prices (19:09) Farmers hit by Trump trade (26:13) Trump mocked on economy grade (32:25) ICE expansion fails standards (39:43) Glenn Beck AI Washington (45:58) Friday Feedback segment  

The return of the MAGA rally did not exactly go well. The point earlier this week was for Trump to go to Pennsylvania and sort of do a reset on people's worries about affordability. It crashed and burned like one of Trump's casino businesses, very little energy, no sign that the old magic is still there. And even Fox News wouldn't show the wide shot to really show how bad the entire thing was. But the crowd problem is not the only one that this administration is faced. New polling shows nearly half of Americans are struggling to afford food and blaming Trump for that.

They're not blaming Biden. They're not blaming Congress. They're blaming Donald Trump. And this is a major political problem. The revolt doesn't stop there because farmers, one of the most loyal Republican constituencies, are now on camera saying Trump has wrecked our entire industry. They say the bailout is merely a band-aid that it is too little too late. are farms already in foreclosure and they are done pretending everything is fine.

We will then look at the moment that every network broke into laughter over, which was when Trump said the economy is an a plus plus plus plus plus. Even Fox News hosts couldn't keep a straight face. And we will talk about the crisis inside of ice reportedly recruits to ice who can barely read or write. And one guy who weighs nearly 500 pounds. and was declared unfit by doctors to do anything and ICE is looking at maybe hiring the guy. Finally, Glenn Beck resurfaces with his cursed AI George Washington.

It is pathetic and humiliating. Plus, we will have your comments, your emails, your messages and all of it today. I want to start today with signs of an authoritarian being weakened. which can actually make the more dangerous rather than less. You know, earlier this week, we covered Donald Trump's major economic speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. And this was sort of the return of the MAGA rally. And it was billed as the comeback.

Trump's team was saying there's going to be fire. There's going to be dominance. It's going to reboot everything heading into 2026 and the midterms and reassure Americans. Trump understands their pain. He hears about the affordability crisis. He's ready and he knows what to do. And we got a complete and total collapse. Trump's rally was, again, as I said in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, it looked like a tiny, tiny crowd.

And even that crowd seemed very unsure why they were there. As within moments of the rally starting, instead of saying, I hear your pain, we're working on it. We're going to try to deal with affordability. Trump said it's an affordability hoax. We brought prices down. Everything's cheaper now, which is not only untrue, but it's obviously untrue to the people in the crowd. And we saw like a balloon with a hole in it.

The energy just leaked out and Trump talked for, I guess it was about an hour. There was very little roar and response from the crowd. You know, you had people on stage behind Trump who were going through the motions of acting like they loved all of it and maybe they did. But this was not a crowd that was convinced by what Donner. Trump was telling them. I don't even think the crowd felt as though they were part of something big. They increasingly seem to think, damn, this guy doesn't know what we are suffering through

right now. Now again, the speech was billed as being about affordability. Bills are going unpaid. Groceries are expensive. Rent is expensive. And Trump just shows up and undercuts the messages and says everything's fine and then pivots to claiming the economy used to be a disaster. And it's Biden's fault and he contradicted himself so many times that there was almost no time for the

audience to even react. And you can't really talk about affordability when you can't remember whether you're supposed to say certain things cost more or less right now. And none of it was really landing. Now the media is playing a role in trying to keep the MAGA rally alive. Now you may recall and some of you wrote to me about this and I think it's astute of the people who, who they're not so much calling me out on it, but they're just kind of saying like, what is the reason that David, you used to cover Trump's rallies and you no longer do. You don't cover them live anymore.

And that's right. That is not only is it harder to live stream in the evenings when you've got two kids, but that that's that's not really the main reason. I don't believe that these rallies represent a growing movement of sociocultural significance in the United States. Back when I used to cover the Trump rallies. It really was a shock to see the level of engagement and devotion to these hairbrained and disgusting ideas that Trump was espousing for a lot of that time he was running, etc. Trump's not running for anything anymore. And it feels sort of like the band that has a singer that lost their voice and they replaced every other band member, but they're still going out and touring and it just kind of sucks. And that is the sense I have.

have right now about what is going on with Donald Trump. Trump telling people, you don't really need that much stuff in a country that is as hypercapitalist as the United States. I mean, listen, maybe he's right, but it wasn't a critique about consumer culture. It was just basically telling people you're not going to be able to afford as much stuff. And then so that gets us to the media part of it. Corporate media is mostly still sanewashing the Trump rallies. You know, you, you turn on the panel analyzing Trump statements.

And you come away thinking, oh, it sounds like Trump was sharper and he was more focused than presidential or whatever. But it's just Trump yelling about immigrants and Somalis and prices are low and Biden sucks. And once Trump wandered away from the economy during the speech, it completely fell apart. He mocked battery factories, even though that's an important economic thing in Pennsylvania. He got confused about the Federal Reserve. He got confused about who he's nominated. It's just all drifting into this disjointed and confused thing. And of course, mentioning Ilhan Omar marrying her brother also was part of it.

So the hype isn't translating. Something is happening here where the crowds are shrinking. They're less engaged. The venues are smaller. Supporters look mostly bored. It's not a movement dying overnight, but it is a fading movement. Now, when I spoke to conservative Ramesh Panuru earlier this week, he indicated that he thinks J.D. Vance is just obviously going to be the person who's nominated in 2028 by Republicans.

My view is it's not so obvious to me, especially because the Republican nominee, no nominee has ever been the person that seemed obvious three years before. Now, this could be the first time that that happens with J.D. Vance. I don't know. But I am sort of skeptical about it. But there's a question as to what is going to, if anything, keep the MAGA voters involved, the people who got involved in politics only because of Trump. A lot of them are getting bored of Trump. Does J.D. Vance even interest them in continuing to be voters? Who would? So a lot of the crowd is moving on. The rally format is certainly not showing strength. It's showing decline. And even Trump has declined. His vocabulary. I won't do the full.

list because we you probably know it by heart at this point, but Trump's vocabulary has declined. physically he's slower. He's doing only 12 to fives and some days not even that. He's expecting the same amount of applause and enthusiasm as before, but he's showing up and telling people, I fixed everything and everything's fine. It's not working. And not only is Trump now visibly tired, the act has gotten very tired. And this gets us to new polling about the price of food. it is very, very bad for Donald Trump. There is a new poll that shows something stunning. Nearly half of Americans say they can't afford groceries.

Half of Americans say they are struggling to afford food. And 55% blame Donald Trump for it right now in December of 2025. They don't blame Biden. They don't blame Congress. They don't blame socialists or communists. or communists or anarchists. This is a study from Politico's public first data. They blame Trump 55% of them. Now, remember the promise against which we are evaluating this. Trump promised groceries will get cheaper. Cheaper means the price goes down, not up. And he guaranteed it. He ran on it. He said food prices

are going to come down very fast. And they didn't. In some places, they went up a lot. In some places, they went up a little. And my view is we should hold Trump to his own promises. We should evaluate the job he is doing on the basis of what he promised to do. He said he would do something and he hasn't done it. He said prices would come down and prices have gone up. Half the country is struggling to buy food and more than half blames Donald Trump. Now, there's deeper, more impactful data here as well. Nearly half of Americans say, I can't afford health care. Okay. 27% skipped a doctor's visit because it was too much money. 23% didn't fill a prescription because they didn't have the money. That is a country in crisis. Put it all together and get a picture of what's going on. The people

who are doing well are doing very well. There's no doubt about that. But we have 40% of Americans unable to afford an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing. We have half the country struggling to afford groceries. We have almost half the country struggling to afford health care. We more than half the country who either skipped a doctor's visit or filling a prescription because they didn't have the money. And you've got people rationing food, rationing medicine. Elon Musk wants to be the first trillionaire. And Trump's policies are helping Elon Musk become the first trillionaire much more than they're helping the average person afford food or a prescription. And so for all the talk about draining the swamp that has now become kind of background noise,

Trump has squeezed America for everything it's worth to enrich himself and the donors that keep him afloat. There is a core of the modern Republican party that supports this policy that Trump has put forward. And they love it. These are the people that own the media outlets. These are the people that own the newspapers and the corporations. They shape the narrative. They bankroll Trump. They fund the thing tanks. And they go, this is working out really great for us. And by the way, way, if you can't afford food, let's find a Democrat to blame or let's find someone else that we can blame while Trump keeps giving us all the goodies. And the thing is that even Trump's voters are not really buying this anymore. Only 36% of Trump's voters believe the tariffs are going to

work out. And the rest of them seem to know what's going on. And Trump for his part, he thinks if he just yells loudly enough about immigration, people will get distracted from the fact that they can't afford food. If you talk about men and women's sports loud enough, people will forget that they skipped filling a prescription because they couldn't afford it. So my sort of final hard truth is that Trump is probably not the end game here. Trump has been a great tool and messenger, a very sloppy front man for an agenda that is built to support ultra wealthy donors. And the ultra wealthy donors are starting to think who's our best bet in 28. Is it JD Vance or is it somebody else? Trump's going to be gone someday. You know that the billionaires will find somebody else.

It'll be someone younger. It'll be someone, I guess, who won't fall asleep in the middle of his own cabinet meeting. And when we look at the affordability crisis, it's not just Trump's incompetence. It's a system. It's a system where people starve while the richest players are draining the country. And Republican policy has never produced affordability. Republican policy produces consolidation and inequality. Consolidate really good for the rich even widens the wealth gap further.

And that means tax cuts for billionaires. That means slashing programs, ordinary people rely on. You're not going to get cheaper groceries when you do that. You will get families struggling to buy groceries the way you have right now. Families struggling to afford doctors bills. What's happening is the predictable and historically replicatable result of Republican policy. They say free market will fix all of it. But the problem is that the people who see the savings from these policies already.

are living in mansions with no mortgage. And so they don't need it. And at the same time, Trump is going, hey, you got to tighten your belt. I don't know that you need $25. Maybe $2 is okay. I don't know that you don't know that you need 30 types of cereal. Maybe two is okay. And if that were an honest critique of consumer culture, I would be right there with them.

But what Trump is doing is saying, you're simply going to have to live with less because my policies are really good for other people, not for me, not for you. So I believe that Americans are seeing it finally. They're blaming most. One of the things that often happens in this country is the party responsible doesn't actually get blamed. When Obama got blamed when Republican governors didn't do the Medicaid expansion after Obamacare, that didn't make any sense.

Common in the United States. The wrong party gets blamed. Obama set it up, said, this is available. Republican governor goes, we don't want it. It's socialism. And then voters go, why didn't I get my health care? It must be because of Obama. No, it was because of your red state governor.

In this case, not everybody, but 55% are saying Trump is the reason that groceries are so expensive. In the meantime, the crackdown on media continues because Trump also doesn't want the message getting out. And Trump doesn't want critical reporting about what's going on. Trump wants everybody to report. Yes, sir. Prices are down. Of course.

Of course. I will remind you, if we get shut down on any platform, the only way I will be able to to get a hold of you is through my newsletter because we owned the data. So especially in these precarious times, I would love it if you got on my substack newsletter. It's the only way I'll be able to keep your contact info if the hammer were to drop. You can find it at substack.davidpack.com. All right. So we all know Alexa listens to us, recommends products based on our conversations.

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And I really appreciate those who have signed up, especially over the last couple of months. You can read about membership. Get the bonus show, the daily commercial free audio and video feeds, all of it by signing up today at join packman.com. American farmers and ranchers are becoming a real problem for Donald Trump. Now we have learned that there is an $11 billion dollar bailout, I guess. There was some conflict even at Trump's cabinet meeting. Is it 11 billion?

Is it 12 billion? It was earlier reported a 7 billion. What's a few billion between friends, right? There is now another bailout of farmers. I say another because there was wondering Donald Trump's first term. And of course, it is a bailout necessitated by Donald Trump's economic policy of blanket tariffs. Even after the announcement of the bailout, a lot of different networks interviewed farmers and representatives of farmers. And the farmers seem to understand exactly what is going on.

Trump caused this problem. And by the way, while we will take the money, I mean, we're getting crushed. We will take money if someone's going to give us money. But giving us a bailout doesn't solve the structural issue that the tariffs create. First example is from News Nation. Time of the year where all our bills are due. And farmers really need the money right now. And that's a very unfortunate thing. And this is Donald Trump's problem. He's the one that caused this. Right now, American factory workers are being laid off. And many of our salesmen who sell farm equipment, sell seed chemicals, they're not making any money right now. And that's being reflected in the economy.

Well, just this is. So listen, I know that if you look at the comments to this interview, there's a lot of people in the comments saying, who did this guy vote for? And we know that most farmers and ranchers voted for Trump, not all but most. Okay. The question is, does John recognize the mistake? And does John recognize that at the end of the day, Trump is doing what he promised to do? It's not like putting blanket tariffs on everything was something nobody could have predicted

that Trump never mentioned during his. campaign and then all of a sudden he gets elected and he goes, how about tariffs on everything? Trump said this is what I'm going to do. And so there is a sense of, wait a second, guys, farmers, he said he was going to do this. You knew that if he did it, it would be bad and you voted for him anyway. What the hell is going on with that? And that is all true. And also food, farmers and ranchers are so central to day to day American life that if we can say,

Hey, okay, whoever you voted for you now recognize the problem. Let's amplify that. We should still do it. Soybean farmer Caleb Ragland, who's also president of the American soybean association. We've heard from him before. He makes it clear the money is useful as a band-aid. If your arm is cut, you need a band-aid on it. But you also need to think about, can I avoid getting cut in the first place?

Take a listen to what he had to see. Last time we've had you want and we have had the chance. to talk to you pretty regularly throughout this very difficult year. You told us that the government bailouts never make farms profitable. So while you're grateful for this, in terms of the long term, does this fix things? Well, this is a Band-Aid on an open wound. And again, we're thankful that there's something that this will help keep some farms in business. But what we truly need are market-based solutions.

Those are sustainable long-term. Here domestically, we have opportunities for the administration to finalize the renewable volume obligations for biofuels here before the end of the year, the 45Z tax credit. We have numerous opportunities to expand markets worldwide, and we truly need demand, because without demand, we're not able to receive a price that is economically sustainable for our crop. You know, one of the things that's really interesting that I've been thinking about, Caleb Ragland there says, we need demand. We need demand is an accurate rebuttal to so many of these right wing economic ideas.

Tax cuts for the rich are how you help the economy. No, the economy needs demand. Tax cuts for the rich are how businesses decide to expand. No, businesses decide to expand when there is demand. for the product or service. Well, we're going to help the farmers with a bailout just by giving them cash. No, we need demand. It's the dynamics of the market that are going to determine what we need to do, what we can

do, how our businesses are going to succeed or not succeed. And Caleb Ragland is making that extraordinarily clear here. And that's what American soybean farmers won't is opportunities to make a living, to make a profit from the market, not being dependent on the next. program to keep us from bleeding to death. But the situation's serious. I've been farming 21 years now full time, and this is by far the most serious economic situation that I've experienced and my family's experienced. And I think that's the same for many farmers across this country. We're looking at a 1980s-type farm crisis if this trend continues, and we're hoping to turn the tide.

We need opportunity. The American farmer is the best in the world. We simply need a level of playing field, both for our cost of production and making sure that we don't have obstacles that are causing our exports to be hindered. So listen, we are again finding ourselves in this scenario where Donald Trump has set a massive fire. And then he wants to put out a little bit of it and wants everybody to praise him. And in fact, he found a farmer willing to come to the White House and suck up to him earlier this week saying, oh, my kids want to meet you more than Santa Claus or whatever.

We really need economic policy that doesn't cause these problems in the first place. It was predictable because Trump did the same thing during his first term. One more farmer who says not only Caleb Raglan said the bailout is appreciated, but it doesn't solve the problem. We've got to solve the problem. This farmer says even the bailout is coming too late for some who are already in foreclosure. I think it's going to help some farmers. For a lot of farmers, it's going to become too late.

late. We have many farmers are already in a foreclosure proceedings process in this country. And what we do need, and if I was invited to the president's meeting, but I wasn't certainly would have asked the president to issue a complete farm moratorium in this country. American farmers should not be losing their farms at something that was caused primarily by the administration and the former terrorists. You know that phrase, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The phrase that would apply here would be, don't break things that you will later have to fix by your own doing. And that's really what should apply here.

The farmers are being very clear. The problem is the tariff policy. The bailout is a bandaid. It will not actually solve the problem. Remember when Donald Trump told Dasha Burns that his grade on the economy is a plus plus plus plus plus. Just about every network is laughing at Trump over that, even Fox News. Let me remind you what he said to Dasha Burns during her Politico, the the conversation interview of Donald Trump.

Pretty good. But I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home. And I wonder what grade you would give a plus. A plus plus, plus, plus, plus. Well, it's interesting. Pretty good. But I do want to talk about-A plus plus plus plus. Well, what did different networks have to say about it?

Even over on Fox News, a generally friendly network to Donald Trump, Sandra Smith and John Roberts sort of struggled to hold back their laughter about it. Every day, for example, food items that the American public says they just, they just don't like it. Yeah, the ground beef is still up there. But the president didn't even hesitate a second before giving himself in a triple plus rating. I'm John Roberts in Washington. So listen, it's Fox News.

They're not going to denounce it. But even they are sort of chuckling at the entire thing. Going from Fox News to CNN, here's John Berman reporting on Donald Trump's self-grade of a plus-plus-plus-plus-plus, plus. Some serious grade inflation is going on there, that's for sure. Trump called the economy a plus plus plus plus plus, plus, plus. I think I have all the pluses there. That's not what the American people seem to be saying in recent polls, where nearly 70%

say the economy is getting worse. Just weeks ago, the president said the idea of the idea of the president. affordability, the idea of affordability crisis is a con job. Still, White House advisors know they need to address these concerns. Today, the president is set to speak to supporters in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. Let's get to the White House. CNN's Kevin Liptack is there. Kevin. Yeah, and actually this will be something of a rarity for the president in this term. You have to go all the way back to it. All right, so then they go to previewing Donald Trump's economic speech. An important point made by CNN. Americans aren't falling for this. And I know I've said,

this before and I apologize to those who have heard me say it. We should have taken the lesson. We Trump should have taken the lesson from the Biden era that no matter what economic indicators you have telling people the economy's awesome doesn't work. Now, it just so happens that at this point, the economic indicators have gotten so concerning that Trump has canceled a lot of them. But regardless, the takeaway should be there. The lesson should be there. If you just tell people, everything's great, stop complaining, stop being so dramatic, as he said to Dasha Burns earlier this week, that does not play well with the American people. We then go over to MS now where they are going directly at Trump's claim that inflation is just, it was worse than ever when he became president.

So let's do a quick fact check for a moment. Trump did not inherit the biggest inflation in U.S. history. Inflation has actually picked up under Trump. Prices are up about 3% right now compared to 2.3% inflation when he unveiled his tariffs back in April. Grocery prices are up overall. He keeps highlighting gas prices are down, which is true, but not down nearly as much as he claims. Basil was president. So let's- Every network going right at Trump on the economic stuff. The cherry on top is the stalwart defender of Trump, Laura Ingram, Laura Ingram. She goes, you know, Trump said it's a plus plus plus, but some people don't think so.

Why is that? How could there possibly be a disconnect where not everybody believes what Trump is saying? I love this. the economy in a plus plus plus plus plus plus but you know this i know this the november fox news national survey found that 76 percent of voters still view the economy negatively and that's up from 67 percent who said the same thing in july so you've watched these trends over the years you've seen the ups and downs what explains that in particular well well first of all don't forget that because of Joe Biden, then a typical family buying a typical home would have to spend $1,200 a month

more on. There's your answer. How could it be? Well, it's because of Joe Biden. Because of Joe Biden, you know, groceries went from $400 for the typical family for a month to $525. And we're making an enormous amount of progress. People's purchasing power has gone up by $1,200 already this year.

The livelihoods of millions and tens of millions of Americans are at stake here. And all they can do is go Biden this and Biden that. Biden handed Trump 3% inflation. Inflation's 3%. Prices are going up 3% a year. Trump said they would come down. Those are the facts. And Laura Ingram and Kevin Hassett and the whole lot of them have to try to figure out how

can we spin, spin, spin into oblivion. For once, it is increasingly clear. The American people aren't falling for it. They're not buying it. They know what's going on in their households. And we will see whether it actually hurts Republicans at the ballot box next year. If you are scrambling for a meaningful last minute holiday gift and running out of real ideas, aura frames can save you.

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carrying out these raids and rounding up of people in Home Depot parking lots. Trump's ice is now hiring individuals who can barely read or write and one guy who weighs almost 500 pounds and has been certified not fit to do any kind of work. What on earth is going on here? Trump's ice has put together a hiring push. They've been, I was recently in D.C. There were at bus stops. There were, you know, posters inviting people to apply for ICE.

And it has not only become a national embarrassment. It's become a dangerous embarrassment as well. They want 10,000 new deportation officers on the street and they want them there as quickly as possible. And the result is that they are packing this enforcement force with people who according to internal complaints can barely read or write. They can barely read or write. These are agents who will carry guns.

They will detain civilians. They will make snap legal judgments about individuals that they encounter. They will process immigration cases and determine whether families get to stay together or get torn apart. And based on reports that we are getting, they are failing open book exams because they cannot read the questions at a sufficient level. of them can't even fill out basic paperwork without getting help. And these are reportedly not isolated outliers. This is part of the new normal of ice.

So imagine the imagery of a guy asking for your papers who can barely read your papers. Now, we've talked about functional illiteracy before. We've actually talked about it in the context of Donald Trump. Functional illiteracy means, technically you can read and write, you know, if I show you you, if I show you my book back here, you can read the word echo. But if I hand you the book and say, read these two paragraphs coherently and then explain to me what they say, you kind of can't do it. And so while you can recognize words, you go to the grocery store, you can see whether it says open or closed and understand I go in or I stay out, right? You can understand that.

You really can't read well enough or write well enough to handle everyday tasks. And this is a growing problem in the United States. Now, a lot of recent data suggests that about 20% of American adults struggle to take basic written information like on a job application or a legal notice or, you know, the medical instructions you get when you're discharged from like a colonoscopy, for example. And 20% of American struggle to read that. Now, you might be saying, well, why is that overrepresented among these ICE applicants? And the reason is, I believe, if you're in the 80% of American adults that doesn't struggle

to read and interpret and synthesize text, you probably already have a job and you're probably not interested in seeing a billboard and going, and maybe I'll apply to be an ICE officer. Now, what is even more concerning is that many people with these poor literacy skills, they are graduating high school. And this is something we've talked about on the bonus show, which is that due to a number of different problems, failing systems, lack of oversight, ability to get through using computers and whatever else, there are people who are barely literate who are graduating high school. And in some cases, making it to college and they can barely read or write. That is a systemic failure as well, because we used to have guardrails that used to prevent some of this. And a lot of those guardrails have now been circumvented. Now, we can also take another angle on this, which is to look at requirements for law enforcement. And there used to be a lot more requirement for a college degree. That has been done away with to a great extent.

There used to be longer training. And now some training in some departments is like six weeks. I think, I don't know for sure, but I think that there are mall police, mall security that get basically the same amount of training or or close to it. And so they are trying to push through what one DHS official said is anybody that has a pulse. Now, the hypocrisy gets worse when you remember that just a couple weeks ago, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, said the military has got to stop hiring fat people. We can't have any more fat people. And meanwhile, we learned that this new ICE recruitment effort sent a 469 pound man to,

the academy after the guy's doctor said, this guy cannot do any physical activity. It sounds like a punchline to some sick joke, but it's just what's going on. This is another area, by the way, the physical standards are in a free fall. The testing for physical standards is essentially an afterthought. And then just as relevantly, the agency has slipped when it comes to background checks as well. And so we've learned about tattoos linked to gangs and white supremacist groups. They are noticed much, much later than they should be. And sometimes they are dealt with and sometimes they are not. So ICE is burning through bodies almost as quickly as it hires them. Hundreds have been removed from training for failing the literacy component for facing the failing the fitness component

or the medical screening or the background check. And you would normally see that and go, wow, we need to overhaul the whole program. We can't be getting so far with so many people and then finding out they're actually not physically fit. They can't read or whatever the case may be. Now, meanwhile, DHS is insisting that the vast majority of new hires are already experienced law enforcement officers. But if that's true, how are so many of them washing out?

There's two possibilities. DHS is lying that so many of the recruits are former law enforcement or it's true that they're former law enforcement, but they're getting a ton of former law enforcement that can't read or write or have white supremacist tattoos or are unable to meet the basic fitness standard. So either way, this is a problem. Now, we were told when Trump came in that we were going to get law and order. This is very much not law and order. This is the militarization of incompetence.

And it's happening in an agency. that unfortunately is already notorious for abuse and overreach. And when the people enforcing federal power don't understand the laws that they're enforcing or potentially can't even read what the law is, the danger is essentially guaranteed. So top level, ice transforming into a force of unchecked unqualified troops, micro level, we got a real problem with literacy in this country. know that I can imagine anything dumber than what right wing provocateur Glenn Beck has been working on. Some of you wrote to me, and I think it came up once on the show before,

that Glenn Beck has been taking a step back from whatever the hell else he was doing to work on an AI George Washington, the first president of the United States, that he could interview. We have gotten a preview of this. This is a this is Glenn Beck. interviewing AI George Washington, this broke my brain because it is so horrible in so many ways. I just want to play it for you and then we will see if we can make heads or tails out of it. George, we have programmed a lot of information and given you a lot of information on what's going on in today's America.

on your writings, the writings of the rest of the founders, what is it that you feel is the biggest problem or where we should start to fix things? If I may, speak plainly. This is AI George Washington. This is the big genius development from Glenn Beck that he's been working on. My countrymen, the danger, the greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction, but in the decay... I may I just interrupt you for a second. Could you just dumb it down just a little bit? Okay. I do have 29

points and they're all referenced to exactly what we said in the past. Just speak in today's language. Okay, okay. I get it. Let me speak to Americans. If I'm honest, America's

biggest problem is in political or economic. It's all moral. You've drifted from the virtues that make liberty possible in the first place, freedom to be free. You have to have discipline. You have to have faith. You have to have character. And if you don't have any of those things, laws, laws can't stop anything. They mean little. Government turns either weak or oppressive. You have grown skeptical of truth. You're reckless with death. It's so nauseating that I have to stop it. You can go and find this for yourself. So,

So this is like an ideological ventriloquism. What Glenn Beck has spent, I don't know how much time trying to do. And it sounds like it was too much and also not enough simultaneously is to try to bolster their own critique of what's happening in the United States today by speaking through like a ventriloquist's dummy, a faux version of a widely revered figure in American history. Now, you might say, why is George Washington widely revered? You had slaves and, okay, that's not really the discussion. But big picture, Washington is pretty widely revered.

And so what Glenn Beck has figured out a way to do is to get something that is a stand in for George Washington to tell them, you're right. You're right, Glenn. Your criticism of America is completely correct. And the, the uncanny valley nature of Glenn Beck nodding along as he speaks to AI, George Washington. It is, it is bizarre. And what a coincidence. George Washington happens to have all the same talking points as Glenn Beck. Now, what is the natural next step for this? I don't know. Is it AI Jesus endorsing ending people's food stamp benefits? Is that what it is? Or, you know,

Einstein in AI thanking Glenn Beck for saving the West or something along this lines. And the projection is so, brazen and naked, um, that it, it's almost beyond words. And what they're looking for here through this ventriloquism is moral authority from a founding father. They suspect that their views are not really convincing people in the way that they would like them to. And so what they can do to deal with that is to say, well, look, it's, it's a modern looking George Washington telling me that I am right and that the progressives are wrong or whatever the case may be. What an incredibly stunning waste of time. And I know that, you know, I'll criticize right wing voters on this show sometimes and say, how are they falling for this? How are they falling for that? This seems so stupid

that I can't imagine any of Glenn Beck's followers falling for it. If you disagree with me, if you think they will, let me know. I want to hear from you. During the holiday season and especially when traveling, routines can really fall apart quickly between family gatherings and late nights and being on the move. And it all adds up. And that's why I like to start my mornings with something simple. No matter what the day throws at me, I can start with AG1, which is the daily drink that combines a multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods, and antioxidants in a single scoop.

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For $126 in free gifts, the link is in the description. Let's get into Friday feedback for the week. YouTube comments, Instagram comments, Twitter replies, substack replies, etc. sort of thing. We start with Job K flow who says, do you have a house or a mortgage? Just curious, mortgage rates are down by 50% cents. Oh, Biden, even fuel in California is still hovering just below $5, which is a gruesome thing, not a Trump thing, but my butter is cheaper now than it was a year ago. Oh, boy, that is a lot. First of all, little bit of confusion. Mortgage rates aren't down by 50%. Mortgage rates are down by a little under 50 points. That's 0.5 percentage point. Point,

0.5 percentage points. Um, so that this is like the prototypical thing of I don't think you know what's going on. I don't think you know what you're saying. saying, but you've decided that Trump's great. So like, cool, man. I guess like have fun with your cheaper butter or whatever, but I'm not really seeing a lot of substance there to deal with. Let me, I will say one other thing. Um, it's easy to see stuff like that and just go, oh, they're just so clueless. Who, who, who gives a damn? Who knows? We have to remember that even if you're clueless, you can still vote. And depending on how you vote, that cluelessness is something that can be weaponized. In other words, that person thought mortgage rates were down 50%. They're

really down 50 points. 0.5%. The fact that that person believes that is the proof that for some voters, Trump going, everything's cheaper now. We've saved mortgage rates. We saved groceries. We did all of it. There's people out there who can't tell the difference. And they go, he's reduced mortgage prices 50%. It's like, no, he hasn't. That's highly relevant to how people vote. All right, John Lynch on Facebook comments, the David Tirdman show. Cool, man. Have fun with that. Okay. I really, I appreciate that. Donald Simpson writes on Facebook. So if Biden had this under control, why weren't prices coming down then. Well, let me explain again that prices coming down means inflation is negative. Inflation is less than zero. It is negative. That is extraordinarily rare in modern

Western wealthy economies and it's usually a bad thing. When you start to see price deflation, Almost always it goes hand in hand with a demand collapse where the economy is doing so terribly that people aren't demanding goods and services and therefore you start to see a real decline. The difference that a lot of people don't seem to get is that if the inflation rate comes down from four to three or from three to two and a half, prices still go up. If you're able to, and I, I can't believe that as adults, we are doing this. This is stuff that a lot of people learn in high school or like your first year in college or intuitively, you understand that if you reduce your speed from 60 to 50 miles an hour,

you're still going forward. You've reduced your speed, but you're not going backwards. Similarly, if you reduce inflation, but it's still positive, prices are still going up just not as fast. And so the whole question. of this has to start at what is a desirable level of inflation? And it's between two to three percent. Some say two to two and a half. Some say two and a half to three percent. In a standard basic economy, growth, wage growth, productivity and expansion is based around two to three percent

inflation. If the inflation globally in Western developed countries, was 7, 8, 9 at the peak of COVID. And it came down to 2.5 3 under Biden. And it stayed at 2.5 3 under Donald Trump. Either 2.5 to 3 is okay or it isn't, but it's got to apply to both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So anyway, Donald, good luck kind of figuring it out. All right. James Larson on Instagram says, funny, David, but you said a single thing about Biden's absolutely horrendous health. The best you have is hypocrisy and never sell why being a lefty is so great. Serious question, and I am not trying to be insulting here. Every single one of these angry attack emails that I got today, other than the David Tirdman show, are riddled with missing words, grammatical problems, spelling issues.

And these really do seem to be native English speakers. I mean, this is James Larson. Assuming James Larson is his real name and this is really a picture of them. I mean, I'm sort of generalizing, but this is probably an American-born native English speaker. Why is the writing always a crime against grammar? And I'm not trying to be condescending when I ask that. I really want to know, why can they never string together a coherent sentence? Okay. I think what this person is accusing me of is not talking about Biden's health. And of course,

in some sense, I was one of the first people talking about Biden's health way back in 2020 when I said that this is clearly a notably diminished Joe Biden compared to 2012 and his debate performances in 2012. And I continued to talk about it. I did believe at various points during the 2024 campaign that despite his slowing down, Biden was still the best person for the the job and the most likely to win if given the options that were being considered in the sort of faux Democratic primary and given as an alternative to Donald Trump. After the June 27th debate, I now said, I then said Biden's going to have to drop out. It seems clear.

Some of you agreed. Some of you were angry. But don't try to rewrite history. Criticize me for things I actually did or said. Give me a break. Brett Stafford on Spotify rights. I looked it up and the economy is doing great. If not just fine.

Well, I'm not sure which economic indicator that is. I know about inflation. I know about jobs numbers. I know about the stock market. I know about GDP. I know about average consumer debt. I know about the consumer price index, consumer confidence, trade balance. Which metric is I looked it up and the economy is doing great, if not just fine?

I wish I could say more about this one, but I don't know what Brett really is talking about. So I'm not exactly sure what, what Brett is referencing. But one of the things that seems to always be true is that no matter who is president, you can find people who will argue this is the worst economy in the history of the world. And there are people who will argue this is the best economy in the history of the world. The truth is usually somewhere in between and the trick is figuring out where. Now right now, the economy isn't terrible. There are concerning signs.

If you say what are the areas of concern right now? They are the leaky jobs market where we've actually seen job losses rather than job creation. That's not a good sign. We are seeing the price level not coming down despite Trump and many Americans insisting when Biden was president. We must see a lower price level. We are seeing delinquency above 60 days on car loans go up. That's a bad sign.

one of those less discussed leading indicators where when people start missing payments on their car loan, that can be a sign that trouble is forthcoming. So I don't think this is a disastrous economy right now. It is definitely an economy that is less robust and more shaky than a year ago when Joe Biden was finishing out his presidency. But let's just kind of be honest about it, you know, and then also I think is important to mention be honest about the areas over which president does have influence versus areas over which a president does not have influence. All right. Brent says my 11 year old daughter was listening to them on the last episode trying to explain the

MRI conspiracy. And she's like they're obviously lying. My 11 year old daughter, not a grown adult who can't see the forest for the trees. Good grief. Yeah. I mean, you know, you, you don't have to believe that Trump has Alzheimer's. to recognize that they are not being transparent about what's going on with Trump. And it's not only the fact that he's having the MRIs and they weren't disclosed, but that when

Trump acknowledged that he had an MRI, it took the month to figure out what to say the MRI was for. Any casual observer would clearly recognize that this is not an administration concerned with medical transparency, despite having demanded it endlessly. from president joe biden all right nigel cops says weekly turtlenecks until the morale improves yeah you know um when it's cold i'll sometimes pull out a turnal neck and nine out of 10 emails that i get about turtlenecks or jokes one out of 10 is serious where someone is like david if anybody were to see you wearing that turtleneck it would really hurt the show please don't do that um i really think that turtlenecks are only about the eighth most important

happening on the show. So yes, the turtlenecks will continue until morale improves. F for fight says, dude, you have to stop playing Trump clips. We don't need to actually hear his bullshit. It's unfucking bearable. I'm getting a rash hearing that asshole speak. Just talk about it that will do. No, I disagree. Listen, if I'm covering the president of the United States and instead of playing him saying the things I'm analyzing, I just tell you this is what he said. I don't think I'm doing, I don't think I'm doing my job. We aren't talking about some obscure commentator. We are talking after all about the president of the United States. And it is important to include proof when I'm weighing in on what Trump said that he said it. And although I would

never make up a Trump quote and people who watch this show and listen to this show know that, If every time I am analyzing Trump's words, I simply tell you what he said. I think I'm doing a disservice. I don't think that that makes any sense. I want to hear from you. I mean, let me know. Should I simply be quoting Trump and never playing what he says? I don't think that makes any sense whatsoever.

And I would be like the only show doing it also. I think it would be a bad idea. But I'm open to having my mind change. Let me know. We've got a great bonus show for you today. you can sign up, get yourself a membership at join packman.com.