The David Pakman Show - 3/21/25: Tesla facing disaster as GOP town halls torched

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

-- On the Show: -- David explores the difference between symbolic and operational politics and the inherent hypocrisies we all live with -- Tesla recalls 46,000 Cybertrucks because they are falling apart in the latest blow to Elon Musk -- Mark Levin makes it clear during a Fox News interview that Trump supporters simply do not care about law and order -- How to build real, robust opposition to the Trump administration -- Republican voters absolutely crush Republican Congressman Mike Flood at a town hall -- Consumed with revenge, Donald Trump simply cannot stop -- Another Republican town hall goes wrong, this time for Congressman Chuck Edwards -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Newsmax's misleading Trump third term segment, More Trump market downturn excuses, and much more... 🍽️ CookUnity: Get 50% OFF your 1st week with code PAKMAN at https://cookunity.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman ☕ Beam’s Dream hot cocoa: Use code PAKMAN for 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/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 -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- 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

Let's start today with something a little bit uncomfortable. I'll start. I'll go first. Okay. I'm a hypocrite. It's true. Statistically, if you listen to this podcast, if you watch my clips on YouTube, you are a hypocrite as well.

And what I'm talking about is the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do. And I don't mean in a vague sort of like society is hypocritical kind of way. I mean, you, me, probably everybody watching. We are hypocrites in that we have contradictions in our politics. And if we pretend that we don't, we're lying to ourselves. Ezra Klein recently made a very interesting point in an interview that he did about the differences between what he calls symbolic politics and operational politics. And once you see it, it's really hard to unsee. It's the difference between saying everyone's welcome here and actually making room for everyone. And Ezra Klein gives a really good

example. You know, those lawn signs that say in this house, we believe science is real, but, but, but, but everyone is welcome here is sort of the point. And when you see such a sign posted in a neighborhood that is strictly zoned for single family homes with sky high prices, where very few people can actually afford to live there, you realize that there is an inconsistency here. There is a hypocrisy. And on the surface, you have a sign that's a symbol of inclusivity and then reality sets in. Not everybody really is welcome systemically unless you rethink zoning laws and invest in infrastructure, grow the housing supply, which is hard to do when you're zoned single family and make some difficult compromises to actually welcome everybody in. I'll give you a couple of examples from my own life. I've always supported inclusive housing,

housing policy, more affordable housing, less restrictive zoning, mixed use, all of it. When I previously lived in a place where for a while I had this great empty double lot of trees and it got turned into affordable condos, I was incredibly annoyed. Now I didn't act to stop it, but as the construction dragged on for 18 months, at one point they needed to run an electrical wire through my backyard. Every morning at 7am they started hammering. I felt angry because I would much rather have in an immediate sense, the double lot of nice, quiet trees. The trees didn't make any noise at 7 a.m. The birds did, but the trees didn't. I would rather have that. Now, rationally, I knew that

this project was exactly the kind of project I believe in. Emotionally, I was just some guy frustrated that my backyard was getting messed up and my sleep was getting messed up. So that's a contradiction. Or I'll give you another one. Climate change. I fully believe we need to take action. And I also fly frequently. Sometimes I fly for work when I could probably get away with a zoom meeting because I think it's better to meet in person for certain things. Sometimes I fly for vacation. I don't love the contradiction, but it's there. And the truth is that these contradictions really are everywhere. People who say, I want strong public schools. And then there's a proposal to say, let's make them strong by increasing your property taxes. And you go,

oh no, I don't want my property taxes going up or people who say they support unions, but then they get annoyed when a strike makes their life inconvenient. And they say they support unions, but then they get annoyed when a strike makes their life inconvenient and they say they shouldn't be allowed to do that, or at least not here. Or, and this is a big one, people who scream about democracy and then they get mad when an election doesn't go their way. The point here is this is how real politics works. We all live with contradictions. It's okay. But the key is don't let symbolism replace policy. So I might get annoyed about the construction, but I didn't do anything about it.

And I still support housing reform. Maybe I fly too much, but I want a green new deal. And if that makes flying more expensive, I'll have to deal with it and figure out, is it still worth flying? Uh, I don't, by the way, I don't really care if politicians have money as long as they're voting for the right tax policy. And so for example, JB Pritzker is a billionaire. So is Trump. I'd rather JB Pritzker, even though he's a billionaire over Trump, because I think JB

Pritzker is tax policy makes more sense, but I'll give you an even better example or maybe more complicated one. Um, Bernie Sanders, every election cycle, the right goes after him. He's a millionaire. Who's this guy pretending to be a man that men of the people he's a bill, a mil, not a billionaire. He's a millionaire with three houses. And my response has always been, who cares if Bernie is fighting for working class people and he's promoting and voting for policies that help people afford housing and health care?

That's really what matters. And as I've mentioned before, Bernie's in his eighties. He's been making six figures for what, 30, 40 years. If you make six figures for 30, 40 years and by the time you're 80, you're not a millionaire on paper. You're really bad with money. I probably don't want you making any decisions for the country. Uh, the point is I need politicians to vote the right way to push the right policies. The symbolic purity isn't super useful if it doesn't translate into action because I care

about results. And the real sort of challenge here is making sure that when push comes to shove, our actions, especially the ones that can affect our communities, match up with what we claim to believe. So it's not really about the everyone is welcome here lawn sign, but as Ezra Klein astutely pointed out, it definitely is something that can get us thinking about what policies do we and don't we support explicitly by what we vote for, but also implicitly by our consumer choices, where we choose to live and how we relate to our communities. Food for thought. Let me know what you think.

Elon Musk's Tesla Cybertruck is falling apart literally. And now they are recalling 46,000 trucks because the panels are flying off on the highway. Elon Musk is now a very senior advisor to Donald Trump. He's got the keys to everything. And of course, nothing screams shrink the government like putting a guy in charge who can't even keep his own trucks panels from flying off on the highway. So what's going on is Tesla's recalling 46,000 cyber trucks. There's a stainless steel trim panel. It's just blowing off and becoming a road hazard all across the country on highways. This is not like a one off mistake. Tesla accounted for more than one out of five recalls in the first three quarters of last year of all of the different manufacturers.

More than one out of five recalls was Tesla. You can't fix flying panels with an over the air software update and Tesla's failures aside just for a moment, which we talked about yesterday in our segment about his Tesla going to die. There is an irony in Elon Musk's fanboys worshiping him as a free market genius while ignoring that Tesla wouldn't exist without government help. The same guy who constantly complains about unions and media and regulatory oversight seems very happy to cozy up to Donald Trump for political influence because for Elon Musk, this really isn't about ideology. It's about power and Tesla's problems really don't stop at cyber trucks shedding parts

like it's a demolition Derby. This is a company that's been built, uh, in terms of its reputation on, we are smarter than the competition. We're more innovative. We're better yet. They can't seem to make a truck that stays in one piece. I encourage people to check out whistling diesels, uh, cyber truck sort of review where he just like takes it apart with his bare hands. It's really wild to see. And meanwhile, we know that Tesla workers have spoken out about poor working conditions and anti-union actions and all of it. And so now Tesla ends up in this kind of weird slow motion free fall that Elon Musk's biggest fans refuse to acknowledge. We talked about major Tesla shareholders, including board members, starting to dump stock

faster than Trump multi flushes his toilet just a couple of weeks ago. And the used Tesla market is cratering. If you're interested in that, there's this Jersey car dealer, George Saliba, who posts content and negotiations on Tic Tac and other places. Check out how much trouble he's having unloading the cyber trucks that he's bought. Check out the pathetically declined values of Tesla vehicles in general, and you'll see what's going on. And of course, when you look at other manufacturers, you see Ford and GM and Chinese automakers like BYD, they are making electric cars that don't have recalls every other month and aren't flying into bits as you drive down the highway. The real issue for Tesla isn't just the recalls. It's the magic. The Genesee has started to wear off. The investors aren't as hypnotized by Elon Musk's Twitter meltdowns anymore. Consumers are realizing,

damn, we've got a bunch of options here. And while Tesla still dominates the space for now, it is dominating by a smaller and smaller margin. Sales are declining and it's looking more and more like the rock band trying to stay relevant as the industry has moved on. I don't know if the thing will exist in anything approximating its current form, uh, even five years from now. Uh, one of the things that we are quickly realizing is that Trump supporters do not care about law and order. The second that the law applies to Republicans in a way that they don't like, suddenly it's the courts are an oligarchy. Judges are illegitimate and the entire justice system is corrupt and must be ignored.

Now, case in point, we go to Mark Levin, Mark Levin. I think he has like a Sunday show on Fox news. He was interviewed by Martha McCallum and he is now openly arguing that trial court judges like the ones who said Trump's deportations to El Salvador are not legal, that those trial court judges shouldn't even exist because they aren't explicitly written into the constitution. And he, that those trial court judges shouldn't even exist because they aren't explicitly written into the constitution. And he says that those judges are interfering. Take a listen to this. When these judges are conducting themselves this way, when they're interfering with an

election, when they're grabbing, seizing power in front of our eyes, we're all smart. We see it from the executive branch, a president of the United States. He's elected nationally. They're created by Congress. They're not even in the Constitution. They're using a power judicial review that's not even in the Constitution that was created by the Supreme Court in 1803. They should at least have some level of deference to the president of the United States. Isn't he completely insufferable? Now, there's a couple of things here that are very much worthy of discussion. First of all, there's the principle we support law and order until you say ignore the judges. But there's another principle that they selectively use. On one hand, they say if something isn't banned by

the Constitution, it's allowed when it comes to the second amendment, when it comes to firearms, even though reasonable people can say, Hey, you know, when the second amendment was written, the, the framers of that amendment couldn't possibly have understood the weaponry and the overwhelming power that we would have today with weapons. But they like to say, you know what, if it's not banned by the second amendment, then it's legal shoulder mounted RPG automatic fire weapon. What doesn't matter if it's not explicitly banned, then it's legal in this case, even though the constitution and Bill of Rights don't say you can't have layers of the judiciary, none of it is banned.

In this case, Levin's argument is if it's not explicitly in the Constitution, then it's not allowed. How convenient. But then there's the next Republican standard. If the courts rule against us, the courts are the problem. If the prosecutors bring charges against us, it's a witch hunt. If juries convict us, it's a conspiracy. They don't really care about law and order.

And Levin actually goes so far as to start saying that this is an oligarchy of judges is becoming a shame. The American people are losing faith in the judiciary. We can't have a judicial oligarchy of unelected judges at the trial court level who aren't even in the Constitution telling the president what to do on human resources, on the border, on deporting criminal illegal aliens. I mean, wait till we get to non criminal illegal aliens. This is really not about some constitutional theory. This is one thing. Trump's movement doesn't believe in democracy. They don't believe in the rule of law or any system that holds them accountable.

They'll pay lip service to it to create the veneer that they supported or respected, but they don't actually support it. The courts were just fine when they were being used to dismantle voting rights. When courts said, hey, you know what? We don't need all of these protections of the Voting Rights Act. At that point, the courts were great. When there was a decision made to overturn Roe v. Wade, the courts were great. When it was a decision to gut labor protections, the courts were great. But when the same courts said, oh, we're also going to apply the rule of law to Donald Trump. Now they're an oligarchy. And this is authoritarianism one on one. The law is only legitimate when it serves our interests. And if we don't take that threat seriously, we're in for a very dark future,

my friends. And this is the core of the MAGA Republican Party. There are no principles. It is only power. We will scream our heads off about the Constitution until the Constitution tells us something we don't like. We will claim to back law and order until one of us gets indicted. We will rant about activist judges on the one hand while packing the court with activist judges. On the other hand, at every layer of the judiciary, the moment their supposed values become inconvenient, they are thrown in the toilet. Whoops. I just accidentally hit my, uh, my, my keyboard here. They are thrown in the toilet without a second thought. There was a point where Republicans were the party of fiscal

responsibility as they saw it. OK, then Trump came in and exploded the deficit with tax cuts for billionaires. And that doesn't matter anymore. By the way, George W. Bush did the same thing. There was a moment when they were all about states rights and then red states started banning abortion pills nationally. And all of a sudden, that's not the case. They spent decades calling Democrats anti-police, but then all of a sudden the FBI is corrupt and the DC police was bad on January 6th. And the DOJ is a deep state operation that needs to be done away with their entire worldview boils down to if you start with the tree sap and boil it down to the maple syrup, right? What it boils down to is the rules apply to other people, but not to them. And this is why I have increasingly been telling members

of the house and Senate who join us, you can't negotiate in good faith with these people. There is no governing philosophy beyond consolidate as much power as we can and punish our enemies. When they say that they believe in something, they believe in it until it gets in their way. So the moment that the law and the courts and even the constitution itself become inconvenient, they are ready to burn it down. And if that doesn't scare people into action, I really don't know what will. And this is really what is at stake here. Now, I want to kind of warn folks on this subject. Uh, I recently recorded an interview with Tom Bilyeu on impact theory, talking about my book. And one of the things that Tom pointed out, and it's relatively astute is that if you watch me on this show, I am expressing a certain level of alarm about what is

going on in the book. I couch it in a less, uh, um, angry way. And in my interview with Tom, yet again, I talk about these issues in a different way. And so one of the things that Tom asks during this interview is, am I as concerned about this stuff as I say I am on this show or am I as concerned about it as I say in the book, or am I as concerned about it as I appear to be when I talk about it with someone like a Trump supporter, which Tom bill you is. And the answer I gave him is it depends on the environment and the audience that I'm talking to. And what I mean by that is if we are talking to hardcore Trump supporters coming in and going, folks, this is a constitutional crisis.

They are not even operating with the same set of facts. I'm not going to get anywhere. So instead what I did with Tom is I said, Tom, are you concerned about Trump ignoring court orders? Let's just start there. Don't even let's not even talk about constitution. Just are you concerned? And he said, yes, I am on this show speaking to folks who I know already understand to

a degree the danger. Of course, I'm going to use different language because I'm understanding who it is that I'm talking to. So as a sort of like preview, I did this interview with Tom Bilyeu with him. I'm going in and saying, can I get three, four or five little concessions from him to maybe get him to rethink? But I do believe that this is a crisis and it is potentially going in a very, very dark direction. I used to spend way too much of my day thinking about planning meals, what to make, how long it'll actually take to make it, whether it will be something I like. Since I started using cook unity, I have cut the stress out. Our sponsor

cook unity delivers restaurant quality meals to my door. It just saves me time and energy and I can spend time doing other things. No cooking or cleanup required. One of my favorites so far has been chef Vanessa's Haitian vegetable stew, great flavors, squash and Japanese eggplant, cabbage, spinach, all simmered with Haitian a pea, which is an incredible urban garlic paste that's served over Jasmine rice with black beans and coconut milk with a side of sweet fried plantains. One of the best Haitian meals I've had. And I love knowing that I'm supporting talented chefs making great food. Cook unity's rotating menu means I'm always finding new favorites and it keeps things exciting since

everything is made by real chefs with local seasonal ingredients. I know I'm always finding new favorites and it keeps things exciting since everything is made by real chefs with local seasonal ingredients. I know I'm getting high quality food that tastes incredible while being super convenient. Reset your routine with fresh chef prepared meals. Go to cook unity.com slash Pacman or enter code Pacman for 50% off your first week. That's cook unity.com slash Pacman enter code Pacman for 50% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise, election denier, Carrie Lake to lead voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report Thank you. sponsor ground news doesn't tell you what to think. They show you each news outlets, biases, credibility, financial incentives. So you know, who's benefiting from the spin they put on each

story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want. So you can stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Trump is shaping our future in ways that will last decades. And if we're not paying attention, we will allow history to repeat itself. So stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right in front of us, the trust and transparency in the media. Ground news is giving my audience 50% off the same vantage plan that I use. Go to ground dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. inexpensive, but you can use the coupon code not again to save 50% off of the cost of a membership. It all happens at join pacman.com. You'll get the bonus show, which Alex Jones hates. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. You'll get the entire show commercial free in audio or video form.

You can put it in your podcast app, you want to do it and many other great member benefits. Read about it at join pacman dot com. Sign up at join pacman dot com. All right. We are down to four days until my book comes out. And what we've been doing this week is using subject matter from the book to talk about what's going on in the real world. This is not content from the book. It's principles from the book applied today. And one of the things

that I want to talk about is how to build real opposition to Donald Trump. Earlier this week, we did a segment about what would it take for Americans to really be out in the streets. And now I want to talk about opposition. For years, the Democratic Party has been running campaigns as if they're competing sort of in a debate club while the Republican Party is waging total war. And maybe it's a brutal truth. The truth is that Republicans have been winning that war. And despite pushing unpopular policy, they continue to win. And so we should be asking, why do they continue to win despite pushing unpopular policy? And the answer is because it's not about policy at all. Republicans have mastered the art of distraction. They don't

run on fixing health care or improving wages or making life better for voters. They manufacture outrage, drag shows, gas stoves, pronouns, anything to keep voters angry at an imaginary threat while they loot the system. This is a deliberate strategy. It's a necessary strategy for them because they don't really have a governing vision. They have a commitment to maintaining power. That's all they have. And for a very long time, Democrats have been trying to counter with white papers and fact checks, and it's just not going to cut it. So here are the steps as I see them. Number one, call out the scam loudly and relentlessly. Every Democrat running against a Republican should be hammering the very simple message. They are offering you nothing. There is no Republican health care plan. There is no jobs program. There is no solution for expensive rent. They don't even pretend to care about you. They

are distracting you with culture wars. That's step one. Step two, the message discipline has to be dealt with. The left must stay on message. The meandering about bipartisanship or technocratic solutions. Voters don't need a five point policy brief. They need simple, clear takeaways. Republicans are using government to enrich themselves while they lie to you about why your life isn't getting better. That's why you're angry at imaginary Marxists. That's why you're angry at supposed immigrants taking your job. Okay. That's step two. Step three, go after their

weakest spots. The Republican brand is built on strength and dominance. They attack immigrants, they attack LGBT people, they attack woke corporations. It's all about projecting an image of power. But the truth is we've talked about is Trump and the modern Republican party are weak and corrupt. Trump himself is the epitome of the beta male they claim to hate. They are the elites that they pretend to be fighting against the country club, whatever's we should be exposing that at every turn. They yell about cancel culture, but Trump wants to ban books and criminalize speech and impeach judges who make decisions

he doesn't like. They say that they are tough on crime, but they defend insurrectionists, pardon insurrectionists, defend and pardon corporate criminals. They claim to be against the elites, but their whole economic agenda is cut taxes for billionaires, cut taxes for corporations. So that is step three, step four. And this one's tough. You got to get out of the bubble and you've got to talk to voters where they are because a lot of left wing activism is online. Republicans are in churches and gun shows and on college campuses and at small businesses.

Democrats need to be everywhere. Local events, community centers, schools, workplaces. The right's biggest advantage is they talk to voters in places where people aren't necessarily politically aligned already. This includes from a media ecosystem standpoint, nonpolitical shows, right? Nelk Boys and all of these hangout shows. We talked about it before. And step five is stop playing defense. Make them defend their failures. Democrats have been on defense for a very long time.

It's time to put the Republicans on defense for what they've done to working class Americans. Stagnant wages. Republicans fight against raising the minimum wage. Health care too expensive. They tried to kill Obamacare and put in a replacement that would have cut health care from 20 to 30 million people. Your rent is through the roof. They side with landlords over tenants every single time. And so step five is instead of letting them set the narrative, we have to force them to answer for the destruction that they've caused when they go men and women's sports. We have no idea what to do. They're setting the agenda. There needs to be a clear response. Hey, you know what? We can talk about that. The truth is almost no one is

trans and out of trans people, a tiny percentage are involved in sports where this is even a concern. Do I hear your concern about your 15 year old daughter and soccer? Sure. Let's talk about that. But understand that they want you obsessed with that so that you ignore what's been happening with wages, how they defer to corporate and wealthy power and all of that other stuff. Are Democrats ready to do this? I don't know. I don't know. But these tactics are

an entire chapter in my book, The Echo Machine. I would love for you to get the book. The book is out in four days. Get it anywhere. Books, audio books and eBooks are sold and some limited signed copies are left at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. The Republican town halls continue to be a real problem for Republicans. Here is video from Congressman Mike Flood's town hall in Columbus, Nebraska. And a woman gets up and says, what you are doing is shameful. Flood gets booed brutally. This is worth watching.

There is a contingent, a contingent of Republican voters that is furious with these people. Hi, I do want to thank you for actually doing a town hall. So thank you for that. The rest of it's probably not going to be so pleasant. So first of all, I do want to say shame. I want to say shame for your comment, your quote that you said. President Zelensky's approach today was disrespectful to President Trump and undermines the goal of bringing peace and that. So shame on that.

A lot of cheering. But, but, second of all, I am the daughter, the niece, the sister of veterans, Korea veteran Iraqi war. I have received the American Legion auxiliary newsletter for quite a long time, for decades. They have stated that we are underfunded and understaffed. Repeatedly stated that. You have said otherwise with Doge.

Who's lying? Them or you? We owe our veterans the best possible care we can afford. I'm going to say it again. It's a promise we made. It's a promise we'll keep. And it is important not just to Republicans. It's important to Democrats.

It's important to independents. Supporting our military and supporting our veterans is something that should unite us as Americans. And I will work as your member of Congress to address that. I do believe that that White House meeting was a disaster. And I believe that President Zelensky should have signed that agreement. Oh, this crowd is not happy with this guy. The other thing I believe is that you read from a press report, and in that same press report, I said four things.

I said, number one, Ukraine should give up no land to Russia. They should return the 20,000 kidnapped kids. We should support NATO, and we should have better relations with Ukraine. That has been my position on Ukraine from the start. Next question. All right. Listen, I at this point have no confidence that the antagonism of Republican elected officials at these events means that any of these magas are going to vote any differently in November of 2026 or November of 2028. We just it's too early. I don't know that. But I don't remember the last time that Republicans were having such a problem with their own constituents in a very long time. I'm sure it's happened. But right now,

in all my time covering American politics, I don't remember another time. And so there is a contingent here that says, why are we all of a sudden Republicans for Putin? That doesn't make any sense to me. Something is happening here. The question of course is, can Democrats turn it into something tangible for victory remains Remains to be seen. Let me know what you think. If you want to change your IP address when watching or downloading large video files, you need a VPN. Most VPNs come with a lot of buffering and waiting when you're dealing with video, but our sponsor, Private Internet Access, will not subject you to that.

PIA is the only VPN fully optimized for lightning fast streaming and downloading 4K content without the buffering. Thank you. instance, PIA lets me see a bunch of great Argentinian soccer I can't normally get in the US. They have servers in 91 countries and with just a single account, you can use PIA on unlimited devices, computer, tablet, phone, TV, game console. If you sign up for PIA today and you don't love it, you can get a full refund anytime in the first 30 days. So try private internet access risk-free and get 83% off, which comes out to just 203 a month plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN.com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. Big companies with poor security get hacked every day and your personal information is being sold on the dark web so criminals can target you. Not something I have to worry about as much since I have aura. Our sponsor aura vigilantly scans the dark web to see if any of your personal information has been

leaked like login credentials or addresses, social security number, or also will alert you in real time. If any criminals use that information fraudulently, for example, to try to open a credit card and to keep you from getting hacked in the first place, aura offers additional safety features like advanced anti-malware and password management for every device you have. And your subscription comes with $5 million in identity theft insurance just in case. Aura even provides parental controls to let kids explore the internet safely with tools to filter harmful sites, manage apps and limit screen time. Thank you so much for joining us today. a.com slash Pacman to try or a free for two weeks. The link is in the podcast notes. Donald Trump is completely consumed with thoughts of vengeance and seeking revenge,

and he cannot stop himself. Donald Trump gave this speech at the justice department, which we talked about earlier this week. And it really wasn't about crime. It certainly wasn't about law and order. It was an hour long tantrum about every single person who ever dared to try to hold him accountable. Mark Elias, Mark Pomerantz, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, James Comey, Norm Eisen. If you so much as crossed Trump legally, he is coming for you. And this is not some kind of theoretical threat. Trump has started to retaliate already. He has stripped security clearances.

He has started lawsuits. He's firing federal officials. He's banning entire law firms from government work. His administration is actively hunting for ways to punish people who have tried to hold him accountable or even just said, I don't like what this guy's doing. So we have to call this what it is. It's the Trump revenge tour. And I fear that it is only getting started. Remember that Trump's been threatening this for years. He promised to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden. He fantasized about pulling the broadcast licenses of different

media outlets adversarial to him. He swore to weaponize the DOJ against journalists and Democrats and even his own former elected officials who have since realized this was not a good idea. The fantasizing about mass deportations, which he's doing FBI raids like they did to him against his political enemies and using the national guard against protesters. And the terrifying thing is that he now has the actual power again, when he calls prosecutors thugs and he calls judges who ruled against him corrupt. And he says the legal system is rigged when it applies to him. He is now able to do something about that.

And even if it's not ultimately successful in the sense of getting convictions or whatever, just weaponizing a system against people alone can be the punishment in and of itself. He is out there to settle personal scores, the law be damned. So what we have to sort of acknowledge, and this, this is a thing in authoritarian dictatorships. Sometimes the government is no longer a political entity. It is a dictatorial entity. And what we are hearing from Trump at the justice department and elsewhere is his dictatorial wishlist.

It's how he wants to erase justice and replace it with a system where the number one currency is loyalty to Trump. It's terrifying, but just as terrifying is that right now it doesn't seem that anybody's going to be able to stop him. The Republican Party completely has collapsed into obedient silence. The so-called moderates are nowhere to be found. Institutions that were supposed to act as guardrails are either too slow or compromised or afraid to act. The Supreme court is now packed with Trumpy and right wingers. It has shown zero urgency in trying to stand up to Donald Trump's most blatant abuses of power.

And we even see a judiciary. I mean, remember the court issued a direct order. Do not deport these people to El Salvador. Turn the planes around. Trump just said, no, this is truly how authority authoritarianism takes root. It's not so much a sudden coup. Trump trying to steal the 2020 election, an election that he lost. That would be a sudden coup. That would be the, uh, uh, in statement of authoritarianism through a sudden event.

This other approach is the slow erosion of accountability to where there is none, to where leaders become untouchable, opponents become criminalized, and the public is told that justice is whatever Trump says. That is the greatest standard to which, uh, just the concept of justice is applied. And what Donald Trump is proving in real time is that he can wield the justice system as a weapon against his enemies and get away with it. If no one is willing to restrain him now, if he's able to get away with saying, I don't care what the courts say, why would he ever stop?

And this has been the question I've been asking now for a very long time. Now, if there is any countervailing force to this, it would be if people on Trump's side, for lack of a better term, start to speak out. And I'm not talking about people in Trump's cabinet or elected Republicans. I'm talking right now about voters speaking out. And I want to talk about that next. We have yet another Republican town hall destroyed by protesters. You really do like to see this house Republican torched by furious constituents as town hall goes off the rails. F you. This was an event with Congressman Chuck Edwards from North Carolina. His constituents include people in Asheville, North Carolina, who started grilling him over what Trump is up to. Take a listen to this. I'm a veteran, you don't give a fuck about me! You're taking some of the fuck out! You're taking some of the fucking shit out of me!

I can take the fuck out of you! I can take the fuck out of you! You don't get to fuck with you anymore! You don't get to take away our rights! You don't get to take our own shit! Get off of me! You don't get to do this anymore! Fuck you!

Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Seriously, Democrats should just run this as an ad. Furious Republicans escorted out with no substantive discussion of their concerns. So listen, if you are going to fix the institutional rot that has plagued and beleaguered the Republican party to what I believe is rock bottom, at least to date right now. I mean, I think has the Republican party ever been more debased than it is right now? We thought it was in 94 when Gingrich took over, but then George W. Bush became president and we thought that was the bottom. And then we saw the wacky racist and xenophobic opposition to Obama and we thought that was

the bottom. And then we saw Trump's first term and then we saw what Trump did when Joe Biden was president and we said, this must be the bottom. And then here we are today. If we are going to change the status quo, It is going to depend on people that are on the progressive left, the political left, the moderate left saying this has to stop and it has to be done away with in 2026 and certainly in 2028. We've got to connect policy to policy, to our day to day lives and make people understand

how the two go together. But to some degree, and I'm getting so agitated by this that I just punched my microphone and I apologize to those listening with headphones. To some degree. All of these processes can be dramatically accelerated if we do pull in the support of Republicans who start to realize I was sold a bunch of bullshit. I was told the following about what my economic status would be. And instead they're just firing a whole bunch of people and it's doing absolutely

nothing for me or anyone in my communities or anyone I care about. I was told this would be the president of peace. He would oversee more peace than anybody in history. And look at what's going on in Gaza. Look at what's going on in Ukraine. Look at what's going on in Yemen. Look at the threats against Iran and Canada and Denmark and Greenland and you know, the whole thing, Greenland, Denmark, same, same conflict there, Mexico and Panama. I have been sold a whole bunch of stuff that isn't happening, but instead of just blaming a Democrat, which is what a lot of these people have been trained to do, I'm going to hold the party that controls everything accountable. I'm going to hold the party that has the white house and the house and the Senate accountable

because that suits in, that's who's in charge at the end of the day. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, you know, uh, but it is going to take that if we're really going to see some change. We're going to take the quickest of quick breaks, only four days left until the publication of my book, The Echo Machine. I invite you to preorder it. I'm told preorders are going to start shipping tomorrow to a bunch of people. So this thing could be in your hands sooner than you can imagine. And a few signed copies remain at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith.

Do you ever have one of those nights where you just are really struggling to fall asleep? You're lying there. Mind is racing. Next time, give beam dream powder a try. It's quite simply delicious hot cocoa with melatonin. Melatonin is scientifically proven to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer without the side effects you can get with antihistamines or prescription drugs, including next day grogginess. Countless people's nights have been changed for the better after discovering that melatonin comes in this calming, tasty, hot chocolate with zero grams of sugar, only 15 calories. My favorite beam dream flavor is cinnamon cocoa, but it comes in sea salt caramel or caramel.

That's a whole other conversation. Brownie batter, vanilla chai and others. Beam dream is easy to add to your nighttime routine. Mix it into your hot water or milk froth and enjoy before bed. Go to shop beam dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman for 40 percent off. That's shop B.A.M. dot com slash Pacman. Then use code Pacman for 40 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. Data brokers are continually collecting extensive details about your online behavior, address,

phone number, email, financial information, even political views. This sensitive information about you can easily be found on public data search sites by anybody. Could be an ex could be an employer. And these brokers sell the data to other businesses and even government agencies like the FBI and NSA who can buy it in bulk to surveil Americans without a search warrant. Scammers and spammers also get your details from these lists. And that's why you get the text messages on the calls and the emails. But you David Pakman dot com. Incogni keeps you informed every step of the way, and it just saves you countless hours of work that would be nearly impossible to do on your own. I use Incogni and what they've managed to do is remarkable.

Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60 percent off. That's I n c o g n i dotcom slash Pacman for a huge 60% discount. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get into Friday feedback for the week on Friday. We look at emails, messages, responses, direct messages, sometimes Reddit posts, feedback that came in from the audience, you can always email info at David Pakman dot com. But other platforms may also be featured. We start today with the David Pakman show subreddit where user you wax said Democrats are showing exactly why we shouldn't have ever voted for them in the first place. They were never the lesser evil vote. They were never the opposition vote. They were never the anti-Trump vote.

They're always and will always be the sitting on their hands, putting a stick in their own bicycle meme, the make you suffer for not voting harder for them. Push over whoops, a daisy fashion protest out of touch. Nothing burger party. Stop voting for them. They're not the harder for them. Push over whoopsie daisy fashion protest out of touch, nothing burger party. Stop voting for them. They're not the only other option. Don't buy into the two party bullshit. If you vote for them again, you're just telling them again that you approve instead of trying to earn back your vote. They're going to sit and watch you suffer and force you to miss them. This is what a sick manipulative X does. They don't give a single flying F about you only about themselves and their payday. You could just tell Nancy and other pink ladies were just like, Oh my God, this is so fun.

It's just performative acting. Um, listen, it's not been a good couple of weeks for Democrats. There's no question about it. This really goes back to my primary analysis of the democratic party to begin with, which is parties. Both of them exist to justify their own existence. They want to be seen as controlling either access to or, uh, uh, issues that the party takes or they, they want to justify their own existence is the way I've said it before. And one of the things we've seen the last two weeks is that when what you're trying to do is explain why you are so necessary and you're failing on just about everything, your primary goal, which is justifying your own existence, starts to become very difficult. So it's been a very bad couple of weeks for Democrats. We will see if they're able to get out of this and put together some kind of reasonable approach, um, uh, for saying what it is that they actually plan to do and think they will be able to do to stop this authoritarian insanity of Donald Trump. Jasmine wrote to me on Facebook and said, David, don't pretend like you know what's

going on. We've been in a melt up for a while and consumer sediment has been falling ever since June of 2024. Inflation started coming back on the 10 year note as soon as Jerome Powell reduced rates. And since we are so high in the market, it's good to have a healthy pullback. The market is still 2% higher than when Trump was elected. Funny how you forgot last August, how the job market, how the market, because the numbers were inflated with 800,000 jobs that were never really there on top of nearly a third of the jobs being government jobs, which is a negative anyway towards our debt and inflation.

This is, this is brain rot. This is hardcore brain rot. First of all, imagine this argument. There's no problem in the stock market because it's still higher than when Trump was elected. Now first of all, that's not true anymore. It just continued to collapse after jet. Jasmine wrote this message, but the whole point of the stock market is that it does

go up and that it does deliver a return to investors. So the argument that the stock market is still higher than it was at any point or the same as it was at any point, it's a very bad argument because you're defeating the purpose of the stock market, which is to deliver capital growth. Uh, if that's where you want to hang your hat on everything being fine, then okay. But it seems like a very low bar. Secondly, this entire thing of, of government jobs being negative, the way they like to argue this as they say, listen, government jobs are paid for by taxpayers. Therefore, any job that is held by a government employee adds to debt and adds to

inflation. And of course, this is when you know nothing about economics. What you're forgetting is that all of those government workers who earn wages go and spend that money everywhere. They go to the local grocery store. They put their kids in school, they travel, they buy a house. And so the idea that the only side of the equation that matters is every government worker is paid with tax money. If they went away, it would reduce our debt, ignores the fact that these are participants in society and every dollar that goes to them is a form of demand side stimulus. Good luck explaining it to people like Jasmine. Gregory wrote in about the book and says, um, uh, let's see what's the,

I would like to order the book, but the link brings me to Amazon. I would like the signed copy. Let me know. I will get it through my local store in Buffalo, but I would love a signed one. Okay. So let me, I want to be super clear because I've gotten so many emails in the last few days. Where do I send the book to be signed? There is only one way to get a signed copy of the echo machine, which is out Tuesday, davidpacman.com slash booksmith. That's the only bookstore selling signed copies. I've signed something like 1300 of them. 1100 are spoken for. Okay. So there's just a few signed copies left. You go to David Packman dot com slash booksmith. Accept no substitute. Accept no substitute. Jason says, what the fuck do you mean? Inflation and job losses starting.

Where were you the last four years? David Hackman is a pansy that pushes Democult indoctrination propaganda. This dude can only report about tonsil stones because he's mad that Democult party and their indoctrinated drones. That seems like a sentence fragment are the buildup of filth that is decaying the greatness of America. You know, Jason, I, I hate to have to give you facts, but we saw record job creation under Biden. You can say you don't care. You can say you don't care. You can say you don't like the jobs. You can say some of them were government jobs.

You can come up with whatever you want. But the job numbers were very good under Biden and inflation came down faster under Biden than in other Western countries post covid. You can say it didn't come down fast enough or things were still expensive. Sure. But you've got to start with reality, Jason, not with this imaginary stuff. I got an email, David, I found an AI video that uses your content. I was suggested a video that ripped your content and superimposed a fake AI face over your voice. I hit report. Okay. This is now becoming a real problem. Six months ago, someone put out a video that was my voice. Tucker Carlson eyes. It sounded like Tucker Carlson, but it was me doing the show and they made it sound like Tucker. So that was an AI rip of my

voice. The new one I saw it is indeed, I'm not even going to promote them so that you, it's actually already been taken down. I think cause we reported it. What they do is it's my background, right? So it's me. It's in this set. They don't change my voice, but there's a different face added by AI. It was like some young blonde looking guy. And we reported it. This is going to be a problem. This is very much going to be a problem as the technology improves so far. It's easily detectable. Plus they made no effort to change my voice, but it, the technology is going to get better and it's going to get very difficult. Mark wrote in and says the guy who was too old in 2016 to be the democratic nominee is currently running circles around Trump, Elon and spineless Democrats.

If only we had listened then talking about Bernie, of course I voted for Bernie in 2016 I think he would have made a great president and he is indeed running circles around Trump. Hard to argue with anything that Mark is saying there. Matter Daddy says social security is not an entitlement. I paid 50 years into that. Yeah, I've talked about this linguistic phenomenon before. When we say social security is an entitlement, what we mean is you're entitled to the money. You did your part, you paid in.

And now since it's your money, you're entitled to get the benefits out. Sometimes entitlement is understood to take on the kind of like you're a spoiled little kid sort of meaning you, you seem so entitled, but you're, you're not entitled to it just for the hell of it. You're entitled to it because you paid in the money. And so I think it's important that when we use that term entitlement, we explain and understand that it's not the spoiled little kid form of entitlement. It's you've earned it is what we mean. PK OB wrote on the subreddit, why does Trump say Democrat party? For years I thought Trump has called it the Democrat party instead of democratic.

I thought it was a random Trumpism, but I heard Charlie Kirk say it in that Gavin Newsom podcast. Yeah, no, this, this has been going on for a while. One of the things that the Republican party realized is if you call it the democratic party, some people will wrongly think you mean small D that the democratic party capital D is the party of democracy and that the Republican Party is not. And of course, many of us would say kind of true, but put that aside for a moment. So what the right has done and they've been doing this for a decade or I think at least maybe is they now say the Democrat Party.

This takes away the linguistic notion that the democratic party is democratic. And it also plays up the part of the word that is rat R a T the Democrat party. So it's a pejorative. They've been using it for about a decade and you're absolutely right to notice that PK because it is a deliberate thing that Charlie Kirk and Trump and all of them do get your emails in info at davidpacman.com. I want to issue a quick plea. People who have pre-ordered my book are going to start getting it this weekend. Please review the book. Please review the book. We have about 9,000 pre-orders. If we can get 1000 reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble quickly, it helps the book so much, so much. You can review it no matter which version of the book

you get. Honestly, I think, I think anyone can review it. It might just not show verified purchase. The reviews are so critical to the book success in weeks two, three, and four. If you start getting the book, if you like it, please do review it. We'll see you on the bonus show and I'll be back next week.