The David Pakman Show - 7/21/25: White House admits Trump health issue, Epstein meltdown, Amanda Knox joins the show

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Amanda Knox, exoneree, journalist, author, and podcaster, joins David to discuss spending nearly four years in an Italian prison for a murder she didn’t commit -- The White House finally admits Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, but continues issuing contradictory, implausible explanations for his visible health issues -- Stacey Williams alleges Trump groped her in 1993 while Epstein watched, describing the two men as close allies “up to no good” -- DNI Tulsi Gabbard pushes a discredited conspiracy theory accusing Obama of treason, signaling Trump’s desperation to rewrite history and shift blame -- Trump shared an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested, escalating his authoritarian fantasies and fueling baseless coup claims -- Trump is weaponizing lawsuits and settlements to silence media critics, culminating in the abrupt cancellation of Colbert’s show after criticizing him -- Trump’s base is fracturing over his Epstein ties, and he’s deflecting with racist nostalgia—demanding the Washington Commanders change back to the "Redskins" -- Trump unleashed a late-night barrage of erratic Truth Social posts, revealing a president under severe emotional and political strain -- On the Bonus Show: CEO resigns over kiss cam scandal, Newsom threatens to redraw districts like Texas, Jim Jordan may get deposed over sex abuse scandal, and much more... ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🪙 InvestingPro: Get 50% off + extra 15% off your subscription at https://davidpakman.com/invest 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.com/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a FREE $76 GIFT when you sign up at https://drinkag1.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 -- 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

Welcome, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend. We did have really a significant milestone recently in the Donald Trump White House health medical transparency saga, for lack of a better term, which is that finally Donald Trump's team is admitting that he has a health problem. They're not doing it because they wanted to. They're not doing it because they respect and value transparency. I mean, it's ridiculous to even suggest that they're doing it because they had no choice

because so many shows now realized, wait a second, bruised hands, which you later cover with makeup, swollen ankles, the strange gait that's G.A.I.T. Something's going on. And they realized we've got to come up with something. So the upside is we've obviously been correct all along that this guy's having health problems that they're not disclosing, but they're still lying. And I'm going to explain it. It started with the hands, these puffy bruised, almost purple looking bruises. And then later, the thick coat of makeup clinging to the skin, almost like a bad cover story, we might say. And then the ankles swollen photos everywhere. And for months, they've been stalling.

They've been dodging. They've been laughing it off and then kind of like, you know, any lie that goes stale, it collapsed. And so they are now admitting it. Donald Trump has a health problem. They didn't previously disclose the claim is that it's chronic venous insufficiency. One of the three possibilities I outlined as most likely last week, not an altogether uncommon condition, they say, especially for a guy Trump's age.

Blood is not returning fast enough from the legs. They say it's a benign issue. Nothing to see here. Another totally normal ailment for an obese 79 year old who is governing the country. The problem is this explanation isn't really landing and it's not landing because it wasn't really supposed to explain. It was supposed to distract. And there's a whole other half of the story.

The hand bruises they are saying at the White House aren't related to the swollen ankles. The hand bruises are from shaking too many hands. And I guess aspirin that Trump is taking daily as a blood thinner. The problem is, I don't think this is believable. I've spoken to a couple of doctors not on the show about it. We're going to try to get a doctor that's going to come on the show and go on the record on this. Number one, is it even remotely plausible that Trump's hands are bruised from shaking hands with other people?

Doesn't really make sense. But then more importantly, that it would happen because Trump is on daily aspirin as a blood thinner. Daily aspirin is no longer being prescribed for people in their 70s just for kicks unless they've already had a heart attack. But we're told that that's what Donald Trump is on. What's more likely that they've hidden a heart attack or that they're lying about him being on aspirin or that he's on a protocol being on aspirin without having had a heart attack

at 70 plus. That isn't actually what's typically recommended right now. I don't know the answer, but the point is it's all sounding a little bit weird. Now, the most important context I can provide you for this is that being opaque about Trump's health isn't new. Put aside for a moment the overtly propagandistic medical reports. Put that aside for a second. Think back to when Donald Trump caught covid back during his first term. They said he was fine. Very light symptoms. He's an extraordinarily good health, but we're going to send him over to Walter Reed in a

helicopter just because it's the president. It's routine. We've got to be safe. This is the most important person, most powerful person in the world, arguably. But then we learned, then we learned doctors were worried he's deteriorating so quickly with the covid. If we don't send him to Walter Reed now, while he's able to walk under his own strength, he may end up having to be taken there on a stretcher.

The optics of that would be really bad. That was the real reason he went to Walter Reed. And then later, when it was learned that he might have been on oxygen, even though the White House didn't acknowledge it, when doctors were asked, was Trump on oxygen at any point, they said, well, the president hasn't been on oxygen for the last 48 hours. And then when he said, well, before the 48 hours, was he, was he on oxygen? The answers were something like, and I'm paraphrasing here, we really aren't going to go through the play by play of every little movement in his treatment. He is not on oxygen now. He is recovering

well. OK, so we knew what that was. It was deflection. It was all of it. So they lied. Then they deceived. Then they they occulted then and they are doing it now once again. Now maybe swollen ankles don't mean much to you or the hand bruises seem like no big deal. But the thing is that it's never really just about the symptom. It's not just about the hands, just about the ankles, just about the aspirin. It's that they're willing to say out loud things that are very difficult to believe only when pressed and left no other option because they are obviously hiding something. And this is the Trump machine is built to survive on image and not on truth. And when the image starts to crack, all they have left are lies.

Now, chronic venous insufficiency may well explain the leg swelling. It doesn't really explain the hand bruising. And they are admitting only enough to quiet the press. It's not enough to explain what we all see. It's not a medical briefing. It's really a public relations crisis management statement. And so the bruises are real. The swelling is real.

And if they are still lying about this, what else are they hiding? Almost certainly something. And maybe someday we will hear the full story. Jeffrey Epstein's ex, Stacey Williams, has accused Donald Trump of groping her and is making very specific statements about the close relationship between Trump and the now deceased Epstein. Why do we care about this? Because much like with Trump's health, they're also not being transparent about Donald Trump's relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump says he is now suing the Wall Street Journal

over what he says is a fabricated story that he sent Jeffrey Epstein a card where he also made a drawing. Here is Stacey Williams saying that she was groped. Take a listen to this. I'm considered number 27 on Donald Trump's twenty seven sexual assault victim when I was doing Sports Illustrated. That's when he assaulted me. Deborah Epstein walked me into his office to be sexually assaulted by him. That is Stacey Williams.

And Stacey Williams was on CNN with Brianna Keeler this weekend explaining that Trump and Epstein were bros. They were wingmen. They were very close. And of course, we are to believe that they had no relationship that Trump, I guess, maybe met him in the 90s in that party where the couple of times they were on video were the only times we are to believe that they met. OK, listen to this.

And how did Epstein talk about Trump sort of what was what was the quality of those anecdotes and how he described him? Well, I he there was a time when he needed to check in on him because he was unwell and very upset about something that had happened. I remember because he was late to pick me up and he was explaining why he was late. They were just, you know, it was such a long time ago, but it was just part of that. That was his bro, that was his wingman. It was clearly, I'd hear about Guilan and I'd hear about Jeffrey. And I met Guilan in his house.

She would come wafting in and out. The home in New York. So he was clearly just someone that he talked about all the time. And again, you know, I really, I met Jeffrey the second time when we started dating based on the introduction, the reintroduction that happened at the Plaza Hotel at a Christmas party in 1992 that Donald Trump threw. No, they were very, very close. So listen, does it matter how close they were in terms of determining whether Donald Trump was a client in the criminal sense of Jeffrey Epstein?

No, in a sense, it really doesn't. Trump may have been close with Epstein, but for all sorts of different reasons, including just that Trump thought, for example, it doesn't make it's too much risk for me to be a client of this guy. I like them. We, you know, like to evaluate young women together and the whole thing. But I'm not going to be a client of this guy. That's possible.

But we can't even honestly get to that question in a way that feels like we're going to get real answers when they aren't even upfront about the nature of the Epstein Trump relationship. And so in order to get to that second question, which is did Trump, you know, use Epstein to bring him underage women to even get to that and feel like we're going to get honest answers, we have to feel like they're being honest about even the relationship. And all we get is, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Like, yeah, I mean, they met a couple times, but this was decades ago and not at the time that Epstein was up to any of this stuff.

So naturally, because they're not being transparent about the nature and closeness and scope of that relationship, we are left to suspect Trump must believe that if the full truth got out, it would be very bad for him. Now, one of the amazing things that surfaced over the weekend that the Trump administration is now doing to try to take attention away from the Epstein fiasco is they are saying Obama needs to be arrested. I know that it sounds crazy, but Tulsi Gabbard in an attempt to rise from the ashes to which she was sent after her intelligence assessment was Iran

is not close to a nuclear weapon, not a convenient assessment for Trump. Tulsi is coming back trying to get into Trump's good graces by saying Obama led a conspiracy against Trump. He must be prosecuted. So we're going to deal with that after the break. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash The David Pakman Show. Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists. He's threatened deportation as political punishment.

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

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And the feature I've been using is called Warren A.I. It's kind of like chat GPT trained on up to the minute market data. So you can ask it what happened to Nvidia yesterday? What might be moving Tesla stock or if I have X to invest, how might I allocate it? And the answers are fast, precise and actually helpful, which is different than a lot of or David Pakman. things I'm putting a lot of time and effort into is we need to grow the progressive independent media ecosystem. We need a thousand ten thousand who knows how many people doing what I do. And so one of the things that we are doing is that in addition to this show, which I'm

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Or so they tell me. You can sign up at Join Pakman dot com. You can also directly support the work on Substack at substack dot David Pakman Dotcom. A panicked Donald Trump is now going the let's arrest Obama direction. Obama. That's right. Donald Trump has trotted out his beleaguered director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Remember that Tulsi was on Trump's shit list. I hate to say it.

After her intelligence assessment on Iran and a nuclear weapon differed from that which Trump wanted to be the truth. It just wasn't. She said Iran's not close to a nuclear weapon. Trump says, I don't care what those he says. I'm bombing Iran. They are close to a nuclear weapon. Trump says, I don't care what those he says. I'm bombing Iran. They are close to a nuclear weapon. Tulsi has been totally relegated to lowest tier in Trump's administration.

But now, like a phoenix rising over the horizon in a truly Kafka moment, Tulsi Gabbard is saying that she has uncovered a treasonous conspiracy by top Obama administration officials to hurt Donald Trump. The report attempts to undermine the longstanding assessment that Russia did favor Trump in 2016, which, of course, it did. Not only do the documents suggest that common sense suggests that as well. This new claim from Tulsi is obviously politically motivated. It's error ridden.

It contradicts previous intelligence reviews. And so we're going to play Tulsi talking to Maria Bartiromo in a much touted exclusive. But remember that we know that Barack Obama tasked intel officials with reviewing materials related to Trump and Russia before he left office. They are mixing up two different things. They are saying Obama ordered it and claiming it was a treasonous conspiracy. What Obama ordered was a review of the intelligence. Did Russia prefer Trump?

And did they act to try to make President Trump a reality rather than President Hillary Clinton? No. Notice that even under Tulsi's watch, intelligence community reports acknowledged Russia is still trying to sow dissent in the West. And this is now we are to believe something to blame Obama for. Take a listen to this. I'll give you my assessment up front.

This is totally fabricated. What was the most damning thing that you learned after looking through all of these declassified documents? most damning thing that you learned after looking through all of these declassified documents? Maria, the implications of this are frankly nothing short of historic. Over a hundred documents that we released on Friday really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already gotten elected.

This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an issue that is so serious it should concern every single American. She is so obviously lying because it has to do with the integrity of our Democratic Republic. What we saw occur here as the documents we released detailed was that we had a sitting president United States and his cabinet and leadership team, quite frankly, who were not happy with the fact that President Trump had won the election, that the American people had chosen Donald J. Trump to be the next president, commander, and chief of the United States. And so they decided that they would do everything possible to try to undermine his ability to do what voters task president Trump to do.

So creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that, that, that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected, contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia neither had neither the intent nor the capability to try to quote unquote hack the United States election for the presidency of the United States. Did you notice what she just did there? Tulsi has really become a lapdog for dishonesty that Trump thinks is good for him. She is conflating two different things and it's disgusting that she's doing it. And I

hate to admit it. I don't even know if I should say this. There's millions of people in this country that are too stupid to know the difference. I'm so sorry, folks. I hope you're not one of those people. She is conflating two different things. Number one, the intelligence community's assessment much earlier in the timeline that Russia doesn't have the ability to hack our election systems. What they're talking about is can Russia go in and say, oh, Hillary won Connecticut? Let's manipulate with technology so that actually Trump won Connecticut. The assessment months before the election was Russia can't do that.

That has nothing to do with whether Putin and Russia had a preference for Trump over Hillary because Trump would be globally ridiculed and would call into question the strength of American democracy, which is good for Putin. That as a completely separate issue is something that the intelligence community determined is the case. And as recently as March, and I mean four months ago under Tulsi Gabbard herself as director of national intelligence, our intelligence community came to the exact same conclusion.

She is conflating to completely different things. Maria Bartiromo just believes all of it. And she goes, are we going to see indictments and prosecutions? Which, by the way, is a critical question. But let's listen to the answer first. Want to get to that right now, because I've heard talk of a criminal referral. Are you referring this in a criminal matter? We are referring all of the documents that we have uncovered to the Department of Justice

and the FBI for a criminal referral. Yeah. And do you believe that we will see prosecutions? I mean, our audience wants to know where this story goes from here. Will we ever see anyone held accountable for this incredible lie on the American people? I will do all that I can and and and we have whistleblowers actually Maria coming forward now after we release these documents because there are people who were around who were

working within the intelligence community at this time who were so disgusted by what happened we're starting to see some of them come out of the woodwork here because they too, like you and I and the American people want to see justice delivered. So we're going to provide everything that we have, everything that we will continue to gather to the Department of Justice for that direct intent and that direct purpose. There must be indictments, those responsible, no matter how powerful they are and were at that time, no matter who was involved in creating this treasonous conspiracy against the American people, they all must be held accountable.

Wow. So do you expect, just to be clear, do you expect indictments and prosecutions? I'm not a lawyer. In my view, we have the evidence to be able to move forward and bring about justice. Yes. To prosecute and indict those responsible. And I want to really put a spotlight on who's responsible because we've talked about the highest levels.

Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Clapper. But we also have to look. Oh boy. You know, they talked about waste, fraud and abuse that was uncovered endlessly, endlessly by Doge. And of course, fraud is a crime and we still have zero indictments. And they say, well, they take time, but we don't even have any reason to believe that there are actual investigations going on. So people committing crimes left and right, but there's just no charges that come of it.

And they are doing the same thing all over again here. Here's the deal. And Jim Himes has got it. Congressman Jim Himes. This is all a distraction. And often I say these people are not calculating and organized enough to go, oh, let's create this to distract from that, which is a distraction from this. In this particular case, it does seem that as the Epstein heat is getting just too hot,

they're going, what can we come up with? And it's this. Here's the test. This is Epstein all over again. Criminal referrals. We're going to prosecute Barack Obama. You know, treasonous and seditious. Here's the thing. And I hope that four or five, six weeks from now, don't take it from this Democrat. Four or five, six weeks from now, let's see if this administration Tulsi Gabbard accusing

a former president of treason. Let's see if they bring charges. They won't, they won't because there's not a judge in the land, not a single judge who will treat this with anything other than laughter that will be heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this country. So the test of this is four or five, six weeks from now is the DOJ bringing charges. And the answer to that is no. Yeah, this is a competition who can create as much distraction as possible from the Epstein situation and the tariff failures.

Who can do it? And gosh darn it. Tulsi thinks that she's the one who can do it. But Trump's also trying. Let's talk about that next. If you thought that things couldn't get any more surreal under convicted felon Donald Trump's second term, hold the Diet Coke, because over the weekend, Donald Trump posted a completely unhinged AI generated video on Truth Social that shows Obama getting arrested, thrown

in prison in an orange jumpsuit while YMCA plays in the background. This is not a parody. This is the president of the United States sharing a an A.I. fan fiction of his predecessor getting perp walked. Check this out. I just want to say this again. The president of the United States posted this.

No one, especially the president, is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No body is above the law. No one is above the law. Nobody is above the law. No one is above the law.

No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. Nobody is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law.

No one is above the law, oh son of a bitch. Ha ha ha ha ha! He's above the law. Oh, son of a bitch. So for people who are just listening, the FBI now showed up and they were arresting Obama while Trump smiles. All right. And then now it's Obama in an orange prison prison jumpsuit. So this clip was created by a mega tick tock account. And this is not a one off that Trump did. Trump actually spent the entire weekend posting about this supposed treasonous conspiracy that Tulsi Gabbard was able to discover through some stroke of grace, exactly as the Epstein scandal became a fever pitch enveloping

Donald Trump. We're going to look at Trump's weekend mad madhouse posting spree a little bit later in the show. Now, of course, Democrats say this is nonsense. Intelligence Committee Democrats are saying we would know. And this is completely fabricated garbage. And there are even some mega people there. They're being suppressed.

If you go over to the conservative subreddit, for example, you'll see that very few of these qualms are allowed to fester. But even some mega folks are saying this kind of is feeling like a distraction from the Epstein files, which we know Donald Trump is trying to bury. Trump is a convicted criminal fantasizing about jailing his political enemies. And thanks to his pet Supreme Court, I'm worried that he has been emboldened to really go hard on this. So we've gotten to the part of the story where the felon in charge is fantasizing about jailing

predecessors. And the scary part is that even though there's a few magas going, this feels like a distraction, a bunch of Trump's base is loving this as wacky as this is. It is a serious issue because this is how authoritarian regimes have operated for a long time. You criminalize the opposition and you normalize using state power to get revenge and you desensitize the public with spectacle. Trump's not even pretending to hide it.

He's announcing it with a generated mugshots. And if this were happening in another country, we would be calling it the collapse of a democracy. Here it's Sunday on Trump's Truth Central. Imagine thinking back to 2015 and telling someone, hey, you know, in 10 years, the president is going to be a convicted felon and he will be posting deep fakes of Barack Obama getting arrested in order to distract from the walls closing in on him for his deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And the person who's going to be the lapdog will be director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. If I had gone on the air in 2015 and said that, I think friends and family would have said, David, 72 hour cycle.

But it's Trump's America and it is all happening right now. Maga cancel culture is here despite a decade of MAGA saying it is the left that cancels. Trump has sued ABC over George Stephanopoulos, led to a multimillion dollar settlement. Paramount ended up choosing to settle a lawsuit over the 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris paying 16 million dollars. They said this is a defensive legal move. And now Stephen Kober's anti Trump late show has been canceled and they are retiring the franchise. Now, the claim from MAGA circles is that cancel culture is a left wing thing, but that's very hollow. Their version of silencing dissent is to sue and to settle and to starve the opposition financially. So, first of all, what happened here with Stephen Colbert?

Colbert had called the Paramount settlement with Trump a bribe. And just days later, CBS pulls the plug on Kober. I do think it's important to mention there's a business aspect to this. Reportedly, Stephen Kober's show was losing 40 million dollars a year and he was making like 15 or 16 million dollars a year. So it does make sense that CBS would go. We should do something here. Maybe you negotiate a pay reduction with Kobe or scale back from 200 employees to 100 and produce the same show. Right.

It's like there was a business problem with the Kobe show. But the template that we are seeing is you sue a network over coverage you don't like. You settle with a payout if you can get an apology or a note or some kind of correction. You go with it. You drive pressure through these pending corporate deals like Paramount and the Skydance merger. And then you end up getting your critics either canceled or marginalized. This is the real cancel culture. It's on the right.

Forget for a moment what they say the left tries to do where the left goes. Oh, you've said something that we find deeply problematic. We don't want people listening to you. OK, this is raw legal weaponization and the elite media companies are bending. That's the terrifying part of it. Now, you can say, well, it's the business model, but it doesn't seem to really just be the business model. Yes, Kober made a lot of money.

Yes, the show lost a lot of money, but other shows before just going, let's cancel right after the host says something about our decision to settle. They would have said, let's renegotiate. Let's trim. Let's cut the budget stuff that sucks, but that happens all the time. But this is a red line that's been drawn and this is MAGA cancel culture. It's these cycles of lawsuits and settlements and executive discipline trying to muzzle the press.

And they aren't just complaining about cancel culture on the left. They are the cancel culture. It is they who are doing it. Now other media figures watch and they go, this seems like a clear wake up call. This is a warning. I spoke to Jake Tapper Tapper about it last week and he goes, it's not happening at CNN, but I could understand that it might be happening in some places.

And now, especially with Paramount under FCC scrutiny because of the merger, anyone's guess what the next collateral damage is going to be. So as a reminder, it is a critically important time to support independent media directly. It doesn't even have to be this show. I would love it if it were. But being directly supported makes you mostly uncancellable. They can still try to sue us. They can still try to deport me or denaturalize me from my citizenship.

But at least we can eliminate a series of layered bosses who can cancel the show. And so as much as I would love to have your support so we can keep growing this show, understand that as an entity, as an ecosystem supporting independent media shows that you value helps to make them uncancellable. What is the next layer or lawsuit in this going to be? It's anyone's guess. But there is no doubt it won't be the last because they're succeeding with this very is They're really built around real world conversations, the things you would actually say when traveling, ordering food, asking for directions, chatting with locals.

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you will get a real time fraud alert. And aura also includes powerful antivirus protection of password manager 24 seven U.S. based support if something ever does go wrong. is and to be speaking with Amanda Knox after spending nearly four years in an Italian prison for a murder she didn't commit. Amanda is now an exoneree, a journalist, an author and also host of the podcast Hard Knocks with Amanda Knox. Her newest book is Free My Search for Meaning. This is so great. I really appreciate you being on today. Yeah, Thank you so much. I'm glad we could bond over the mutual journey that is parenthood for a second there before we came on. So, you know, you've done so many interviews and the documentaries and it feels as though so much of your experience has been asked about. It's been said. And so I'm a little more curious now that there's sort of some more distance from it.

And you've you know, you're obviously not living in Italy anymore and you're doing different things. You're a parent, et cetera. To what degree? Let's maybe start like on the public side. To what degree do you bump into people who have things they want to say to you, maybe not necessarily supportive things or like to what degree is this still like you step out of the house and the experience in Italy is very present.

It's very present. Yeah. And I would say that the vast majority of the time, especially if I encounter someone in person, it's usually a positive experience. There's somebody who has followed the case, who really cared about it back in the day, and suddenly they encounter me and they're like, oh my God, here's this person that I feel like I know. And I feel, you know, a lot of people really got emotionally invested in this story, not just because it's a very emotional story,

but also because the way that the media sort of crafted the narrative, it made it a very compelling story and one that really like drew people in. And so I find very, very often that people, when they encounter me, they have very strong feelings about me and about what happened to me and they want to tell me about it, which is great and which is fine because that's all actually interesting stuff for me at this point in my life to help me process. You're right. There has been a lot of coverage of what happened in this case, or at least certain aspects

of what happened in this case. I would argue that other things about the case were not covered as broadly and that was because they did not fit the clickbait material. Like, you know, just even the fact that the actual person who murdered my roommate is on trial today for sexually assaulting another young woman since getting out of prison, that's not being covered very much out there in the world because it doesn't fit that narrative that was so scandalous and so clickbaity. So to say that there are certain aspects of this case, especially people's intrigue with the accusation of my involvement in this, it's true that it's been covered a lot. I have found though that there's

a difference between talking about the just the gruesome facts of what happened and talking about what does it mean about what happened? What sort of lessons can we learn from this case? What lessons can I learn personally? What lessons can we learn collectively? And, I've really sort of settled also into what personal things can I have I learned from this experience that are not just personal to me, but are actually universal, right? Like the thing that I went through was very extreme and not something that people typically go through in their lives. was very extreme and not something that people typically go through in their lives. However, everyone goes through something in their life that the realities of their lived experience do not live up to their expectations or hopes or dreams, and they are suddenly slammed with some kind of existential crisis that they have to work through. And I know just from seeing other people and almost having been broken myself that that

experience can break you. And I wish as a young person that I had had more tools to help me understand what was happening to me in the moment, to help me get to the place that I am today, which is a person who is settled, who is self aware, who feels like I am a valuable and effective member of society and who is not going to be re victimized again because of how I was victimized in the first place. Sometimes I will read, you know, in preparing for the interview, these ideas of, oh, you know, if everything had been the same, but Amanda had spoken better Italian at the time, the situation never would have gone where it did.

Or if Amanda had been a man, the entire dynamics of the situation would have been different or whatever, right? These like characteristic differences. You having been the person who went through all this and I'm sure has sort of gone over all of the different possibilities many times. Do you think that there is anything to those or other ideas if your age had been different? If you had been a 45 year old woman at the time, then the entire thing would have been different. Does any of that ring true in any way? It rings true in the sense

that what happened was a kind of perfect storm, like for the moment in time that it was, you know, 2007 up all the way to 2015, which is when the actual murder trial was definitively resolved. Yep. Like that period of time, culturally, internationally, there were certain aspects about this case that just checked all of these boxes in the perfectly horrible way that it became the perfect storm that it was. And I also think, you know, if my prosecutor had been a different person, if the...like another, you know, I think a lot of focus has been put on me and what if I were different in some way, what would have happened. But I

also like to turn the lens around and say, well, what if the people who had actual agency and who were, you know, law enforcement professionals, if they had been different. What if... Actually, something that my prosecutor... I don't know if you already know this, probably from having read Free, but I have a relationship now with my prosecutor. We correspond back and forth. It's hard to call it a friendship, but it's certainly a relationship of like mutual understanding and respect at this point. And one thing that even he has acknowledged is that in Italy, there are different levels of police who have different training and different expertise. And had the Carabinieri

been involved in investigating the case instead of the police post. Ali, that also would have completely changed the way that this case was investigated and prosecuted. So, yeah, I'm just saying, you know, I'm I'm from Argentina and it's a very similar thing where there there are cases where you've got your city police, your provincial police, the carabinieri, the equivalent and the trajectory of these things. It sort of takes on a life of its own in a way by virtue of which agency is gets involved

at the beginning. Exactly. Yeah. And what the what the, you know, priorities of that agency are, what the expertise are, or you know, what's the power structure within that? Like all of these like human elements really play a huge role in how justice is served, right? Like I think one of my big lessons about this that I take away is that we have this idea that the institution of justice is this sort of like sacred symbolic mechanism that we can just put

our faith into. But really it's just a bunch of people. It's a bunch of people making decisions that may or may not be within the law technically and and the results are what it is. And so like it's it's less predictable and less reliable than we'd like to think it is. And that's it's it's less predictable and less reliable than we'd like to think it is. And that's, I think, a major lesson for all of us just as like global and even local citizens to really appreciate that the institutions that we are taught to believe in are are human ultimately and therefore fallible in all of these myriad ways. One of the things that you see, for example, if you look on YouTube at videos about false

confessions where they bring together like a defense attorney and an interrogator and they talk about this in the comments, you always see versions of would never happen to me, just would never happen to me. There's no circumstance in which I would find myself or I would say, yeah, maybe I did. Or yes, I did. If it weren't true. And I think like personally, I both understand that feeling. But as someone who's never been in that situation, I also assume there are things that you only

feel when you are in that situation. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, being lied to, sleep deprivation, food denial, all this stuff like what, how, how can you describe the total of what ends up happening in that situation that changes what you're willing to say? Sure. And you know, just now that you are mentioning, especially like just the comments section of it all, right, like, you know, there seems to be a very strong reaction. It's not just like, oh, false confessions are a thing. And people

go, oh, interesting. Like there's a sort of like really strong defensive mechanism that comes in. defensive mechanism that comes in. It sort of, to me, sounds like the lady doth protest too much. Like, I think the idea, the very idea that someone could be compelled or coerced to implicate themselves in a crime that would land them in prison for the rest of their life or on death row is such a scary idea that I feel like we almost automatically reject it out of hand because we think no, just no. Like no, I can't, like we can't go there. That would never happen to me.

And it's not because that's coming from an informed place, it's coming from a place of fear. And it should come from a place of fear because it's a terrifying experience. It was the worst experience of my life, of the entire ordeal. That night when I am 20 years old and being screamed at and lied to and deprived of sleep and deprived of food and deprived of water, having all of my basic needs just unmet and used against me. Like that, by authority figures that I had been raised to trust in a context where I

was already in shock and psychologically vulnerable because of the sudden and gruesome death of one of the people I was living with in my own house. All of that played a role in making me vulnerable to suggestion, to manipulation, to gaslighting. If you look at the cases, and I have looked at the cases because for the longest time, I did not even understand what had happened to me in my interrogation. It was so psychologically disturbing and confusing to be sort of led, like strung along and beaten along to believe something that is not true. Like that, it

was like the, you know, there's actually an interesting parallel. I don't know if you've ever spoken to anyone who is a specialist in extremists, like extremism and how people are- Many, many, many, many, yeah. So you know, one of the things that they talk about is that ideologies, new ideas, extreme ideas are more easily implanted in a person who has gone through some kind of shock or has gone through some kind of loss or is experiencing grief.

Suddenly the sort of like normal thing about their life has been disrupted. And then it is at that moment that an ideology or an idea or some kind of suggestion is more easily able to enter into the mind of the most stout believer in democracy suddenly becomes an extremist? Like, it's a similar thing that happens at a very fast pace when you are a single person who doesn't have to be young, although I was young, doesn't have to be speaking a foreign language, although I was speaking a foreign language. Like, there are all these things that made me more vulnerable, but even a person who is like totally fit and adult,

like a grown man, can be led to believe things that are not true because of a series of steps that police are, even to this day, legally allowed to do in interrogations rooms without consequence that will coerce an innocent person to confess. And it's something that, to this day, is like shocking to me that people don't know more about. I did not know more about. And it wasn't until I went through the experience and then was given information and research about this that I became aware

of it. And I did a big series on my podcast about false confession. So anyone who is curious, please come to my website, amandanox.com. I did a really huge deep dive into like the meticulous way that once you're in the interrogation room, the police will break down your own sanity and insert a new reality. It's frightening. And I think that's, again, the big reason why people sort of automatically reject it without actually thinking about it is we'd like to think that we're immune to that kind of thing when the reality is that we are very psychologically vulnerable when under duress. Yeah, that that those episodes are really good. And I listened to him and I encouraged people to check them out. Do you did you consider changing your name at any point?

No. Although someone in my position, you know, I know people who have been through this experience like me, exonerates who have who have gone through something like this like me, maybe not as internationally, globally vilified, but like on a local level, vilified, like their own hometown, their own state, like everyone has turned against them and they feel like their identity has been irrevocably just destroyed. There is a temptation to change one's name and just to start over, just to be reborn and move on as if this never happened. I resisted that for a couple of reasons.

One, because it felt like changing my name was admitting defeat in a way. It was like saying that there was something wrong with the Amanda Knox of it all. When there wasn't anything wrong with the Amanda Knox of it all, there was something wrong with the way that The world had treated Amanda Knox and that was what the problem was

So there was a part of me that was like no I shall not admit defeat because because it's not my like It's not my fault. I'm not the problem the other part of me realized that I Didn't want to live my life as if this thing that was so tremendous and such a hugely big part of my like development as a person didn't exist right like there it's almost this um it's it's all it's a it's both a blessing and a curse that the worst experience of my life is publicly known because then I don't have to feel awkward about introducing the fact that I have this horrifically traumatic experience that informs who I am as a person.

People just know that it's out there. I don't have to go through the trouble of explaining it. It does mean that people have certain ideas about me or prejudices or stereotypes or just thoughts about me that may not be true. So that's the bad side of it. But the good side of it is that I just have to accept that it is a part of who I am and changing my name is not going to do anything to... It's putting a band-aid on a cancer diagnosis.

It doesn't actually help. So I have embraced the fact that this is a thing that happened to me and it informs me, it doesn't limit me. And I think that was the big shift that I try to talk about in Free My Search for Meaning is that realizing that even coming out of prison and even being vindicated and freed and recognized as innocent didn't free me from the burden of being the girl who was accused of murder. Like that is my life now.

And so how do you find freedom within that limitation? And the way that I did that was by allowing myself to be informed by it, to be propelled by it instead of held back and limited. Were there people after the exoneration who sort of would privately say, listen, I'm not going to say anything but like, did you do it? Like I know you've been exonerated and I get it. Listen, but you can tell me sort of thing. Or people that you perceived or told you I actually think

you did do it or was that not something that took place? No one's ever asked me, did did you do it in private like that? But what I will say, though, is I've definitely had experiences where I have encountered a person in passing. We had a nice, like very human exchange. And I thought that I got to be a normal person there for a second. But then I find out later that they went around telling their friends, my god, I met Amanda Knox and she could have killed me, who knows?

And so there's that like, I'm not being encountered like a regular person and I'm not being received the way that I am intending to be received, which is as a normal person who would just like to have a normal human exchange with another human being, I remain an idea of a person and other people's minds. And that idea is something that I cannot control. Or sometimes there's the idea that if you go through something that's really difficult, it then in some way hardens or prepares you so that moderately difficult things that happen in the future don't seem that difficult. Right. Is there any sense that you feel now that you are better equipped to deal with the difficulties

of everyday life because of what you went through? Or is it so distant? It was so far away. It was such a one off that it doesn't really translate in that way. So what I can say for me personally is that, yes, the everyday things of life even you know Really difficult everyday things of life that can seem catastrophic When in comparison to what I have already experienced Do not seem catastrophic, right? Like I

Which isn't to say that they are any less painful. Painful experiences are painful. But I think that the trick or the issue that we do in real life is that we add layers of pain, unnecessary pain on top of painful experiences, which are the, and those unnecessarily painful things that we impose upon ourselves unnecessarily are things like my life shouldn't be this way or, you know, thinking that

life should be other than it is basically. And like, I have so accepted that life is painful sometimes that I don't, I don't get into. That I don't trick myself into suffering even more by thinking that I shouldn't be feeling pain right now. So I feel like in that way it lessens it. That said, it is not by definition that someone will go through a painful, very extremely catastrophic experience and come out the other side being able to deal with the minor catastrophes of life.

It might be that that major catastrophe was so devastating and that person was not able to pick themselves up that even the smallest of catastrophes are very triggering to them. So I don't want to take this stance that hitting rock bottom is a good thing. Some people don't come back from really big catastrophes. And I think the thing that is the difference between someone who does and someone who doesn't is first of all, a deep, deep knowledge that they matter or that they are loved. If you don't feel like you really truly matter or that you are really

truly loved by anyone, you do not recover from catastrophe. You don't. And if you're not able to shift in your perspective and see that something valuable can be obtained or gleaned from a painful experience, you're also going to struggle to pick yourself back up because you're going to feel like you are just lessened by a painful experience. You've had something taken from you instead of you have you have been able to get something from even the experience of having something taken from you. If that makes any sense, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. The newest book is free.

My search for meaning. We've been speaking with the book's author and also the host of the Hard Knocks podcast. Amanda Knox, really appreciate your time. Yeah. Thank you so much. Many of us know it can be tough to stay on top of nutrition every single day, especially when things get busy and hectic. That is why I've made AG one part of my morning routine. Agee one

has now launched their next gen formula. Still just a scoop a day, but it's been upgraded with more vitamins and minerals, a stronger probiotic blend. And this is the biggest thing clinically backed by four human clinical trials. Most supplements don't go through anything for I'm in to for on your information to then target you using incognito can cut way down on the spam calls and the messages that you get. Try it risk free for 30 days and get 60 percent off an annual plan when you go to incognito.com slash Pacman. That's I n c o g n i dot com slash Pacman for 60 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. Donald Trump is now making the calculation that racism on his behalf is not as bad as

being involved in child sex trafficking. And to be perfectly honest, I think he's probably right that that's the way it would be perceived by the American public. What am I talking about? Let let me explain. If you thought that Trump couldn't sink any lower, what he is now doing is as questions just spiral out of control about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, Trump is attempting to change the subject by demanding the return of racial slurs as sports team names.

Donald Trump posted that the Washington whatevers should change their name back to being the Redskins. He dragged Native Americans into it. He says that the Native Americans want the racial slurs to be brought back. And where we now find ourselves halfway, more than halfway through 2025, is that Trump is invoking racist nostalgia to distract from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Here's the post, quote, The Washington whatevers should immediately change their name back to the Washington Redskins football team.

There's a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams with a storied past, are great Indian people in massive numbers want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now that than they were three or four years ago. We are a country of passion and common sense. Owners get it done. Trump's flailing.

Trump is flailing because the Epstein story will not go away. He's deputized Tulsi Gabbard to come up with some cockamamie Obama conspiracy theory to take attention away. He's saying let's rename sports teams with racist slurs. And it's happening because Trump's base wants the files released. And instead of delivering, delivering on that, Trump is saying his supporters who fell for it aren't smart. He's blaming Democrats. But MAGA is not buying it.

According to new CBS polling, Trump's grip on MAGA is cracking. Supporters are very divided on how he has handled the Epstein situation. But instead of dealing with that head on, Trump's go to move is let's find a culture war issue. So now he wants to talk about sports team names instead of the fact that the president of the United States is stonewalling on an extraordinarily disturbing scandal. Now, of course, Trump has said, oh, I I'm now going to order the release of pertinent grand jury testimony, maybe.

And who knows how long that will take. Trump's also claiming that he has 95 percent support, I guess, from the Republican Party. Who knows? But that's not true. Trump's support is softening significantly. And this is potentially big trouble for MAGA and for the Republican Party in 2026. And this is the tyranny of the minority. You distract, you divide and you hope no one notices that it's all about protecting yourself.

It's not working. Trump has entered the screaming about racist football team names phase. And even some of Trump's most loyal followers are now saying, why? Why now? All of a sudden, does he want the redskins called the Redskins? And the reason is he's scared and they can see it. Meanwhile, Trump lying about exactly this in another post to Truth Social, where he said, quote, My poll numbers within the Republican Party and MAGA have gone up significantly

since the Jeffrey Epstein hoax was exposed by the radical left Democrats and just plain troublemakers. They have hit 90 percent, 92 percent, 93 percent, 95 percent in various polls. And all are Republican Party records. Now, remember that he previously during his first term, during his campaign, he said he has the record of Republican support at 97 percent. Now he has a record at 95 percent. It's all made up, guys.

It's all made up. He. It's all made up. He goes on to say the general election numbers are my highest ever. People like strong borders and all of the many other things I have done. God bless America. Magda, this guy is terrified. And these posts about polling and support are only a slice of his overnight meltdown. We have to talk about that next. Donald Trump suffered a full blown overnight meltdown.

Once again, one of these things that it's a 12 hour, a 14 hour, a 16 hour bender. And if this were any other president, if this were any other presidential candidate, certainly if this were Joe Biden or Barack Obama, then you would be hearing only about this on Fox News. This these are just this is a sampling of what the president's been up to. Trump saying crime in American cities started to significantly rise when they went to cashless bail. The worst criminals are flooding our streets and endangering our great law enforcement officers.

It is a complete disaster and must be ended immediately. Trump previously shifting his attention to shifty shift, as he describes Senator Adam Schiff saying, Adam Shifty Schiff is in big trouble. He falsified loan documents. He once said my son would go to prison on a scam that shift along with other crooked Dems illegally manufactured in order to stage an actual coup. My son did nothing wrong, knew nothing about the fictional story. It was an American tragedy.

Now Shifty should pay the price of prison for a real crime, not one made up by corrupt accusers. Trump posting endless videos and memes, six months of winning Trump telling people to buy Mark Levin's totally ridiculous book. Trump posting images of a bunch of white guys in suits with their hands handcuffed behind their back. Videos of Tulsi saying that Obama did treason, Photoshopped images of various people in prison garb, including Barack Hussein, Obama and James Comey. And then it just goes on and on and on. Tulsi videos, Trump attempting to speak about a I reposting his six months of winning image, stacking

up wins most secure border in history. America's decline is over. OK. Endless, endless dozens of posts. Bitcoin, just nonsense. An A.I. video. This this is really wacky stuff. Let me actually set this up. An A.I. video or maybe no, it's I guess not an A.I. video. This this is really wacky stuff. Let me actually set this up an A.I. video

or maybe no, it's I guess not an A.I. video of a woman catching a snake with her bare hands and just random nonsense. This is what the president is up to. And we were told Biden wasn't really being president of the United States, despite Biden's decline, despite the undeniable reality that Biden never should have run for reelection. Despite all of that, Biden was busy being president when he was tired. He was taking a break from being president. But when he was being president, he was being president. He was briefed on stuff.

He knew what was going on. This is nonsense. OK, you see what we're what we're dealing with here. The president of the United States. Are we going to hear from MAGA people ready to say we've got to get this guy out? Is the Epstein story, as I suggested last week, maybe what opens the door to more MAGA people saying, you know, we've come this far, but we go no further remains to be seen on the bonus show today.

We'll talk about the astronomer CEO Coldplay kiss cam scandal. It's actually quite a story. We will also talk about Gavin Newsom threatening to redraw California house maps in protest of what Texas is doing. And Congressman Jim Jordan may finally we've been waiting for this. He may finally be deposed over the sex abuse scandal that took place at Ohio State University. I suppose to say the Ohio State University. We're going to talk about all of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at Join Pacman Dotcom.

You can also request a free membership at David Pakman Dotcom slash free membership. See you on the bonus show.