The David Pakman Show - 8/13/25: Police state grows, Karoline crashes

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump declares a false crime emergency in Washington D.C., federalizes police, unleashes military surveillance, and launches a national health monitoring system to consolidate power -- Donald Trump and his family have earned billions during his presidency through cryptocurrency, hospitality, political events, and personal business deals -- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stuns reporters by suggesting monthly jobs reports may be halted, defending jailing homeless people, and sidestepping Trump’s Russia gaffe -- Karoline Leavitt refuses to give reporters any details about Donald Trump’s medical treatment despite growing concerns over his health -- Karoline Leavitt reacts to a bizarre question from Benny Johnson about awarding the Medal of Freedom to a staffer nicknamed Big Balls, prompting a surreal White House moment -- Jeanine Pirro dismisses questions about addressing the root causes of crime in Washington D.C. and becomes combative when asked about funding cuts to gun violence prevention -- Texas State Representative James Talarico dismantles Will Cain’s arguments about gerrymandering on Fox News, forcing the host to abruptly end the segment -- Gavin Newsom mocks Trump in a series of viral posts threatening to legally counter GOP gerrymandering, flipping Trump’s combative rhetoric back on him -- Donald Trump lashes out on Truth Social over media coverage of his planned meeting with Vladimir Putin, attacking critics like John Bolton and framing himself as the victim -- On the Bonus Show: Ken Paxton tries to jail Beto O'Rourke, Supreme Court is asked to overturn same sex marriage, Mike Lee introduces a bill to criminalize porn nationwide, and much more... 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.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 to the show. One of the things I always make an effort to do is just call things what they are or at least what I believe them to be. If you disagree with me, then you tell me and then we sort of figure it out. One of the terms that at this point, I believe has to be used with what is happening in the country is that there is an attempt by the current. administration to create a police state and a surveillance state, both to degrees we have not seen in the United States for a very long time.

We also have to consider the sort of hypocrisy or double standard of the reality that what the MAGA and Republicans warned us about previously that Democrats would do is what they themselves are doing now. are going to put people in camps. Well, Trump built the camps and he's putting people there. Democrats are going to surveil you through technological means. Well, that's what the new digital health surveillance apparatus of Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing. And Democrats are going to create a police and surveillance state. Well, Donald Trump is now doing that. Donald Trump is now doing what his allies used to warn erasing local control, militarizing our streets, weaponizing

personal medical data. Trump is now doing it, even though the people who support him told us, if you vote for Democrats, they are going to do this. So let's walk it through. We talked earlier this week about Trump declaring a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., crimes at nearly a 30-year low. in D.C. specifically, the murder rate down 35% last year, down 26% this year, but it doesn't matter. He's federalizing the D.C. police, unleashing the National Guard, overriding the

city's elected leadership. He did it in Los Angeles, ignoring Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom. And what Trump is also doing in service of this goal is manipulating outdated statistics to terrify people. It is fear-based. You can't even call it. fear-based governance. It is fear-based authoritarianism. Last year, murders fell 32%. Armed carjackings down 53%. Violent crime continues down by an additional 26%. But none of that stopped Trump from portraying Washington, D.C. as this dystopian lawless war zone that you would expect in, you know, sci-fi movies. And he created a public relations spectacle with it. And far worse than that, arguably, is that he's creating a precedent for even more of these abuses

in other cities, which he has openly said he wants to do. Now, think back to people like Sean Hannity on Fox News, Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News, Glenn Beck, these types of people who along with half of the Republican Party were warning Barack Obama in 2008 is going to build the deep state to crush your freedom. Okay, he didn't do it, but Barack Obama in 2012, if you reelect him, is building a deep state to crush your freedom. And okay, he didn't do it. If you vote Biden in 2020, Biden's going to do it and he didn't do it.

But what they used to say would be tyrannical for the left to do, they are now doing. And of course, they love to weaponize these terms, right? When the FBI legally served the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, it was a, it was the Gestapo, they like to say. Or when there were COVID guidelines, this was a tyrannical government lockdown. But Trump has now become what they claim to fear. And when you look at history, this hypocrisy runs really deep. Presidents have deployed troops domestically before.

I'm not going to go through the full list because we talked about it on Monday. We talked about it on Tuesday. But the point here is we have seen this anecdotally. And it has been an extenuating circumstances where the government was using those resources to try to defend rights, not to trample them. Now, you could still disagree with it. There is not one always correct view on everything. There is room for interpretation in some of these areas.

You could say, okay, when this was done previously, whether it was, um, a little rock or whether it was Kent State or to end Detroit riots or Rodney King. You could say the the reason really was to maintain law and order. The reason really was to defend rights, but I'm still against it. I'm just against the militarization of local law enforcement, the federalization. I'm just against it on principle. Fine. We can talk about that.

But the difference here is that we are seeing military gear and surveillance technology and stuff often reserved for war zones it's being used domestically and we are going in a direction where this stuff is not being used to preserve rights it's being used to suppress rights and to suppress and skip and circumvent due process so the next logical steps these aren't necessarily predictions but this is sort of like we are we're clearly building to something here would be spy aircraft spy drone surveillance drones used domestically cell tower spoofers and stingrays, AI-driven facial recognition that can look at how you walk your gate, GAIT, and voice stress and emotional state and trigger responses based on that.

And some of this stuff is already sort of starting to be deployed. So if local, if municipalities say we're going to ban some of these things, it will probably be useless because one of the sort of characteristics of federalized forces is they don't answer to civilian review. That's kind of the whole point of them. And really, this is not about crime. What we are seeing are surveillance tools and federalized police as a protest monitoring machine.

Donald Trump's extraordinarily thin skin makes him get wildly triggered whenever people protest. And so these are protest suppression techniques and technologies. ICE is already using facial recognition at demonstrations. And that gets us to the sort of broader future of this police state. When you can justify emergencies, a permanent emergency, you can use that to tag, track, and treat as security threats, journalists, activists, political opponents, protesters simply exercise. their right to free speech. And you do it not because they've broken the law, but because you go, look, we've got this emergency. This is not, things aren't normal. Normally, we would respect the press. And normally we would respect people's right to assemble and protest and demand a redress

of grievances. But look, we've got an emergency. Of course, an emergency Trump declared, an emergency Trump declared based on misstatements or ignoring what the data is. So that's what's going on. It's a police state that is building. We do have the health front. I'll just, we cover this a couple of weeks ago, but this new medical surveillance thing, Donald Trump and the HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., they're rolling out this wave of digital health surveillance. And this is the stuff that Republicans warned us about, oh, Bill Gates is going to do this and that. Biden's going to do this and that.

But what they're doing is they are going to sort of combine data from wearables, apps, AI powered health scoring. It's all being pitched as being for wellness. But then you can cross-reference that with your movements and your social media and who knows what else. So this is the very dark turn that they warned us about. And the danger is that these measures often never go away. We learned after 9-11.

Some of us are old enough to remember when the Patriot Act turned emergency surveillance because of this unique thing that happened on September 11th of 2001, it sort of became a permanent fixture of American life. And once you put in place the infrastructure, the cameras. the databases, the biometric scanners, you're going to use them. And you can always point to some pseudo crisis to say, we need to keep doing it for this. So you've got a temporary emergency, a data feed, a precedent, but you keep adding. We've got another data feed now. We've got another temporary emergency. And this is how police states have been built historically. Trump is building

one. He's doing it in plain sight. Most of his supporters are justifying it by saying, we are against this stuff. And if Democrats had done it, which of course they had no plan to, it would have been bad. But when Trump is doing it, it's for all the right reasons. It is cult mentality. It is grifter mentality. And speaking of grifting, that's exactly what we're going to talk about next. According to a new report, Donald Trump and his family have raked in an estimated $3.4 billion dollars, billion dollars from Donald Trump's two terms at the White House, one full term and seven months of a second term. Most of that of the $3.4 billion, about $2.3 billion came from the crypto schemes, the Trump

coin, the Melania coin that were launched by Donald Trump. And the rest of it, about $340 million, came from financial deals run. by Don Jr. and Eric Trump, $270 million came from hospitality, $116 million from media, and nearly $300 million from other sources. That's your grab bag. What's 300 million between friends, right? It's just other. That includes legal fees paid with donor money, private planes, merchandising, this sort of thing. And by the way, even Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is estimated to have pulled in about an extra $125 million as a result of Trump being president due to, you know, everything from having secret service and the government rent rooms

there to other ways that they have monetized that. So Trump spent, um, a long time telling Americans that the presidency cost him money. He would do this rant where he goes, I had a very nice life. I didn't have to be here with you people. And I was making this money. And it cost me money to be president of the United States. He sacrificed. What a big boy. He sacrificed his media empire to serve the country. But the analysis shows that that's a lie. Trump has gained hugely, hugely, hugely, hugely. And even like campaign events can be profitable when he self deals Republican fundraisers, the gatherings and all of this. And like just a little example of this. Last month, Trump did this taxpayer-funded state trip to Scotland.

And they nominally made it about presidential stuff. But it was really to kind of christen this new golf course of his. And so he ended up receiving millions in public money towards travel, security. And now that golf club is going to make more money. That's the opposite of what Donald Trump promised before the first term. Because if you think back to 2016, after Trump won, he had that event where he stood in front of the cameras and they had stacks of papers that seemed blank where he said, here is the documentation, I am going to make myself fully separate from my business empire. My sons are going to run it. I'm going to

have no involvement. And the idea was I'm putting in place a firewall. I'm putting in place some kind of ethical safeguard here. But it really wasn't because if you give day to day control, control to your kids. It doesn't stop you from being an owner and benefiting from the profits. It doesn't prevent you from knowing what's going on. It doesn't stop you from coordinating with your kids about what you're going to do. And so the value of Trump's businesses, the hotels, the resorts, the golf courses. It's tied to Trump being president.

Foreign dignitaries and lobbyists and corporate leaders book rooms at Trump's venues because they know that it's a way to ingratiate themselves. with Trump. That's, it's just that simple. And when a campaign or a political organization says, hey, you know what would be a great venue for us? How about Bedminster or Mara Lago or whatever, Trump Tower, whatever the case may be? And so traditional presidents have put assets in a blind trust so that they have no knowledge,

control or ability to make decisions to boost personal wealth. But Donald Trump's in a different situation. First of all, he refused to do that. But even if you do that, how do you put Mara Lago in a blind trust or what it? It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't pass the sniff test in any way. So they, when confronted with this stuff, the Trump administration says, we're doing everything by the book.

Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says, oh, Trump could have made a lot more money if he hadn't been dealing with the fake news and, you know, corrupt political opponents. What does that even mean? And we now have a situation where after years of accusing the Bidens and everybody else, right? But the Bidens, they're profiting from public office. Trump is enriching himself in public from this presidency. So the real story here is, yes, he claimed that it was costly to be president, but it was actually very profitable.

But the second order story is he doesn't even feel the need to hide any of it. It's not, oh, he made $3.4 billion from the presidency. It's he ran on draining the swamp, but built one of the most lucrative presidential swamps in American history, and he did it without even pretending to follow the rules that he said he believes in. 3.4 billion. Not a bad payday for a few years in the Oval Office. That's for sure.

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show is indeed an audience-supported program. I invite you to support this show or any progressive media show that is valuable to you through whatever means you choose to support. For us, the most direct ways, the most efficient ways, really, where we keep the most of every dollar. Our number one, signing up on my website, join Pacman.com. We do an extra show every day for our members. It's called the bonus show. Alex Jones despises the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Yeah, we also offer commercial free audio video feeds of the show and a lot of other great things. That's the website where you can sign up at join packman.com. You can also become a substack premium subscriber at substack.

David Pakman.com. We do extras for our substack premium members, including monthly Q&As. You can also send me direct messages on substack. So that's substack. And why not both? You can basically do both for eight bucks a month if you use a coupon code on the website. And the website coupon code is it will end soon at join packman.com. Caroline Levitt had a crash during yesterday's press briefing. And you know what? Not that I feel sorry for her. She chose this job at the end of the day. But I don't Envy being in a position of having to defend a confused and feeble president who doesn't seem to know what's going on with economic policy, lies constantly, misunderstands endlessly, and also seems unable either to hear or parse syntactically words that he has asked. So he just spits out random noise and then Caroline Levitt is brought in to have to clean it up. The issue facing Caroline Levitt right now is what is going on with inflation numbers and

jobs numbers given that Donald Trump is firing the people responsible for these numbers when he doesn't like what he is told. He fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He's now putting in place a guy named E.J. Anthony, who is just an overtly brazen political actor. I have never said before whether it was a Democratic president or a Republican president. I'm not sure we can trust the jobs number. and the inflation numbers.

I am now saying that because Donald Trump is putting overtly partisan actors in those roles. Caroline Levitt is asked about the future of all of this. And she says, oh, yeah, we may be suspending the job reports until we can really get it all in order. And of course, it was in order. My question would be, where are the Epstein files? money for BLS Commissioner EJ and Tony recently told Fox business that the BLS should suspend issuing monthly job reports and only issue quarterly reports until the jobs data methodology is corrected. What's funny is if the methodology is bad, why are you issuing any like let's give

bet we're still going to give bad reports but only quarterly. That doesn't make any sense. The president disagree with that assessment that his nominee is severe or suspending these monthly job reports a real option. I think he floated the idea of possibly suspending until they can get the data and the methodology in order. And this president wants to ensure that the BLS, again, is putting out accurate and honest data that the American people can trust. Since you brought up the new commissioner, he holds a master's in doctor's degree in economics

from Northern Illinois. He's got a doctor's degree. He's the chief economist in the Heritage Foundation's Center for the FedExter. budget. And in addition to his work at Heritage, he has multiple other roles. He's been widely renowned for his work on economic issues. He's been called before Congress to testify as an economic expert. So he's a qualified individual and the president trusts him to lead this important department. I really want you to understand the brazen, absurd, propagandistic reality of this. If they stop the jobs, there's one way to interpret this. If they stop,

the jobs reports, the jobs reports will only come back when the books are fully cooked by E.J. and Tony. That's what's going on here. And there was a really great, I guess I'd call it a follow-up question, even though it's from a different reporter, which is if we are being told the job data isn't reliable, should Americans trust the inflation data? And I, this is essentially a version of what I pointed out yesterday, which is we've been told, that bad, by bad, I mean, not great numbers for Trump on jobs should be ignored because they're just not accurate. Yesterday, the administration got numbers.

They're not good inflation numbers, but they're not yet terrible. Like, it's going up. Inflation's going up. It's now over 3% in terms of core inflation, which is higher. But it's not like it's 6%. So the Trump administration has come out, even though they promised to reduce prices. They've said, well, the inflation numbers are sort of looking okay. Can we even trust that?

It's a great question to Caroline Love. Or just on the BLS, they collect the inflation data, obviously if the jobs data is not reliable, should Americans trust the inflation data? Well, look, the jobs data has had massive revisions. We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS is trustworthy and is accurate, which is why the president has restored new leadership at the BLS. Not an answer, not an answer.

She sort of is alluding to, well, the job's not. numbers have been revised too much according to Trump, which makes them inherently unreliable. And the inflation numbers, I guess she's suggesting are more trustworthy because they haven't been revised. But historically, you don't revise inflation numbers. Inflation is a different metric than jobs. Jobs is based on a different sort of reporting. And it's just, it's a number that's compiled differently. Jobs numbers have always been revised. And there were big revisions under Biden, which they had no issue with whatsoever. So a pathetic. pathetic answer.

They then were able to touch on the question of this purge, a dystopian sci-fi-like purge of the homeless from Washington, D.C., that Donald Trump announced earlier this week. And Levitt confirms if homeless people refuse to go to a shelter, they will be imprisoned. Now, there's like a little tiny question, which is for what crime? see if Caroline answers. Some related topic, regarding the president's efforts in Washington, D.C., do you have any specifics about how homeless people will be dealt with, where they would be moved to?

What does this look like? I do, yes. And it's an important question. So thank you for raising it. The Metropolitan Police Department, with the support of the new federal agencies who have been surging on the streets of the District of Columbia, are going to enforce the laws that are already on the books here in Washington, D.C., For far too long, these laws have been completely ignored,

and the homelessness problem has ravaged the city. So D.C. Code 22.307 and D.C. Municipal Regulation 24100 give the Metropolitan Police Department to the authority to take action when it comes to homeless encampments. So homeless individuals will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services. and if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time. Again, these are pre-existing laws that are already on the books.

They have not been enforced, which is part of the reason for this nationalizing of the Federalizing of the National Guard to bring in this assistance for law enforcement. While we are targeting criminals and trying to remove criminals off of the streets, we also want to make D.C. safe and beautiful, and that involves removing mentally disturbed individuals and homeless encampments. as well. Now, I think it's important to mention that there's a difference between removing an encampment, which I don't think there's any question as to the legality. And then some of the other techniques used to criminalize homelessness, which sometimes include selectively applied

loitering laws and other aspects that we've talked about previously. But what's very clear is that they are now looking for a sort of retroactive justification for just the wholesale arrest of homeless people. Later, we're going to look at an interview with Janine Piro where she was asked about the reasons people commit crimes. Similarly, here, we really need to be thinking about the reasons why people end up homeless. That's like, this is something that the magas often don't want to do. And if you want to seriously and more robustly consider solutions, when we think about it's

When we think about undocumented immigration, you've got to consider what's going on in the home countries of people that is even leading them to try to come here. If you're trying to figure out how to deal with crime, you really should be looking at what are the determinants of crime and that put people on a path to criminal activity. Why don't we deal with that? And then similarly, with homelessness, we should be considering the exact same thing. But Caroline Levitt doesn't want to do that. That's not how they want to figure, figure issues out.

Finally, as you remember, Donald Trump twice said that he's going to Russia, but what he meant was he's going to Alaska, Trump was confused, Trump was disoriented. If Biden had done it, they would have demanded immediate removal from office. Caroline Levitt was asked about it. Here's what she had to say. Charlie. The president said the podium yesterday twice that he was planning to go to Russia. Was that a verbal slip up or does he actually plan to go to Russia?

Perhaps there are plans in the future to travel to Russia. And on Friday, the president will be meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Perhaps there are plans for Trump to travel to Russia. Now, of course, when Trump two days ago said, I'm meeting Putin in Russia this week, that was not about future plans. Trump was just confused. He's not going to Russia. He's going to Alaska.

He misspoke. He was confused. They are hypocrites. And she's using the word perhaps, perhaps Trump will be going to Russia extraordinary. It's doing some heavy lifting. The word perhaps is doing some heavy lifting. But as poorly as she handled all of this questioning, she was asked about Donald Trump's health. And that's when it got really, really weird.

Donald Trump's White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, did not appreciate being asked about Donald Trump's health. A reporter had a great idea. Why don't we maybe get access to the people that are treating Donald Trump's various health conditions, then we could all maybe get a little more information about it. Caroline Levitt is not exactly a bastion of transparency and openness here. And it's very clear that they are going to tell us as little as possible about what's going on with Donald Trump's help.

Back to some from last month, you guys announced the president was diagnosed of chronic venous insufficiency after his legs were seen swelling. How's he being treated for that? while you were upfront about those health issues, curious if the White House would be willing to let us speak. By the way, they were not up from, I'm going to back it up and we'll pick it up at the beginning of that question. They were not up front about those health issues.

Trump has had bruised hands and swollen ankles for months. And they said nothing for months until many media outlets push the story to the point where they had to say something. And they acknowledged the CVT, I'm sorry, CVI, chronic venous insufficiency, but they didn't address in any real way the hand bruises. They just said he shakes hands with people. So his hands are constantly bruised. Very weird. So there's no transparency. But okay, let's listen to the rest of the question. Those health issues, curious if the White House would be willing to let us speak with his position correctly about those health issues. I know there were a lot of concerns with the last White House not making the physician available.

Would the physician be available in this case? I don't want to make that commitment on behalf of the physician, but it's certainly something we can look into and explore out of the effort of transparent. That's a no. Because unlike the previous White House, there is nothing to hide. You guys see this president working other than what they've been hiding for months until they were forced to say something around the clock, literally 24-7 all of the time. And I will be happy to look into that request.

We at least get an update on how he's being treated for the swelling legs and for the hands and the other issues. Look, you see the president every day. He's moving. He's working. He's continuing. There have been no... We will not be giving you an update about that, sir. We are not going to be doing that. You know, I'm, it's, I wish that there was something that would make us feel like, okay, if we got this, then we would finally get the truth. I hate to break it to the press score. Even speaking to Donald Trump's position is not realistically going to actually give you the real information. And we have two bits of evidence for that. Number one, every written report from Trump's doctors is a propaganda document similar to, you know, Kim Jong-un gets holes in one

at every hole, doesn't defecate and invented, you know, the Hadron Collider. It's similar sort of stuff about Trump's golfing skills and that sort of thing. So the written reports from Trump's doctors are propaganda documents. And remember that when Donald Trump was at Walter Reed hospital during his first term for COVID, we learned that the COVID was way more serious than we were told. We saw Donald Trump's doctors in real time be extraordinarily evasive about, has Donald Trump been on oxygen? And they were asked, was Trump on oxygen and they go, the president has not been on oxygen

for the last 24 hours? Right. But the question was, was he on oxygen at all? And then the doctor goes, I'm paraphrasing, you know, we're really going to focus on where we are right now and we're not going to go through like every little bit of his treatment. So even when you get to talk to Trump's doctors, you often don't get transparency. job by the press corps asking and demanding that, but unfortunately, even if we were allowed to talk to Trump's doctor, I still don't think we would know the full scope of what's going

on. Donald Trump's press secretary was shocked when she was asked about big balls. What the hell am I talking about? This is one of those White House press briefings where you think to yourself, there is no damn way that this is real, but it was. The White House now has a new media seat. where they sort of sub in various media grifters and dilettants. Yesterday, it was Benny Johnson who was caught taking Russian money laundered through

an intermediary named Tenet Media. He also has extraordinarily suspicious YouTube numbers where his subscribers have gone up by millions in the last quarter, yet his views are down. We did an analysis of that as well. So anyway, that Benny Johnson was there. And here's Caroline Levitt telling us about it. Let's get started. And as always, we'll start with our new media seat, who is our podcast host today, Benny Johnson.

Benny, why don't you kick us off? And thanks for being here. Thank you, Caroline. There it is. Benny Johnson in the new media seat. So what does he ask about? He asks about big balls getting the presidential medal of freedom. Let me play the clip.

I'm going to explain this for those who haven't heard about this. Given the heroic actions of a member of this administration, just a few blocks from this building, will the president consider giving the presidential medal of freedom to Big Balls? I haven't spoken to him about that, but perhaps it's something he would consider. I'll ask him and get back to you, Benny. Thanks for being here. So what the hell is Benny Johnson talking about? This is Kafkaesque.

It's beyond belief. There's an ex-Doge staffer that is being colloquially nicknamed Big Balls that could end receiving the highest civilian honor in the United States, which would place him in the company of luminaries like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and others. Two weeks after 19-year-old Edward Koresstein was attacked during a carjacking in Washington, D.C. We now are hearing it's on the table, maybe he could get the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his bravery on that day. Big balls getting the medal. What an what an extraordinary question from the new media seat, Benny Johnson. And then finally, Benny Johnson sort of piling on with

these often nebulous claims of dystopian D.C. crime. Listen to this. As a D.C. resident of 15 years, I lived on Capitol Hill. I witnessed so many muggings and so much theft. I lost track. I was carjacked. I have murders on my ring camera and mass shootings. I witnessed a woman on my block. It held up at gunpoint for $20. And my house was set ablaze in an arson with my infant child inside. And so to any reporter that says and lies that DC is a safe place to live in war, let me just say this. Thank you. There you go. And reportedly, Benny Johnson got this haircut at at at gunpoint uh that's a keith olberman joke i i did not come up with that um you know we've talked before in a country of 340 million people you're going to get lurid stories

in any major metropolitan area and what they love to do when trump at his rallies would talk about some individual instance of violence committed by an allegedly undocumented immigrant or allegedly committed by an allegedly undocumented immigrant, or when Benny Johnson talks about this and Benny Johnson could be lying or not. It actually doesn't matter. We have to look and evaluate what's going on in the country by considering the broader trends. And so if Benny Johnson really was witness to carjacking or was the victim of arson or whatever, okay, we got to deal with that.

We've got to look at the circumstances of that. But we need to remember that crime in D.C. is down significantly. down 35 percent last year down 26 percent this year the murder rate all types of crime are down carjacking's down more than 50 percent and so if you want to be seriously uh if you want to be considered and taken seriously on issues of of policy at a municipal state or federal level anecdotes don't really tell us what to do he might be lying he might not not even going to weigh in on that and caroline levitt just loves it this is what he's there to do and he did it he gets his add-a-boy and that he will be rewarded for it for sure. We're going to have more about this

new media seat and the dynamics of it in an upcoming substack piece. So make sure you're subscribed free to my substack newsletter.substack.com. Many of us know all too well about the sticking, rubbing, and chafing that you can get with traditional underwear. Our sponsor, Sheath underwear, have created unique boxer briefs with multiple ergonomic compartments in the front, which prevents skin on skin, and that means everything stays separate, comfortable, dry, and cool. You will have a boost of confidence when you're out and about. I've known so many people who were skeptical about those compartments, friends who say,

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Baltimore was another one. There's a broader question, which is, what are we doing to prevent crime? And I alluded to this earlier in the show. this is an entire area of governance and policy that is just missing from serious discussions right now. I listen, it's worse on the right. You sometimes get this with Democrats too, but it's significantly worse on the right, which is what about dealing with root causes and what about dealing with economic determinants and socio-cultural determinants? Well, here's an example of it. Janine Piro, who is now U.S. attorney for D.C., of course, she's bigly.

supportive of everything Donald Trump is doing, criminalizing homelessness, taking down encampments, federalizing the D.C. police. She loves all of it. She was asked a really good question. What about crime prevention? And she just straight up goes, I don't care about that. My prosecutors. You just walk through the changes you'd like to see from the punitive aspects. What about preventative? Do you or the president plan to do anything to address the root causes of crime in D.C. such as truancy. My job is to try to heal the victims and prosecute the criminal. Everybody else can deal with rehabilitating the individual.

I honestly am not concerned about why they commit crimes. We know. My concern is if they commit crimes. My concern is the victim. of the crimes. That's my job as a U.S. attorney. Go ahead. But just follow up on that quickly. So there's a really this has to do with political expediency. I mean, you can say she's a U.S. attorney. She's doing prosecution. Fine, right? That's not crazy. But the trend line here is we look at

undocumented immigration. They go, oh, let's start. Do we need a wall? What about visa overstays? Can we put a new detention camp. Let's build alligator alcatraz. Do we get mosquito nets or just let the detainees be exposed to the mix? But there's the question of what are we doing to prevent people from even trying to come here illegally in the first place? And that has to do with what's happening in the home countries. Republicans do not like to deal with that. They often see foreign aid as a waste of money. But that's actually where it starts. Yes, you're allowed to have border enforcement, of course, you're allowed to do all of that. But at a certain point, we have to look at why are undocumented immigrants trying to come here in the first place? And it has to do with

what's going on in their countries. It's not very politically sexy to do that. Building a wall, even if you never build it, and even if Mexico never pays for it, or a migrant detention camp that you can bring cameras to and bring reporters to and do a whole dog and pony show, that plays far better than, hey, you know what? We're going to focus on working with some of these countries to improve the circumstances there. And we might be able to reduce the number of people who even try to come to the U.S. by 50%. It doesn't make headlines. Where can you go to show that? And so we see the exact same thing here with crime. The sorts of social programs, the sorts of tax policy, the sorts of infrastructure that prevent people from turning to crime to begin

with, making sure everybody has health care, making sure nobody's going hungry, making sure that people are, you know, growing up, even if they are in subsidized housing, that the subsidized housing is an environment that is not conducive to crime and builds community. It's just, it's not appealing. It's not attractive. Now, there are some Republicans who are morally opposed to that as well. They go, they don't deserve it. But they deserve. is to be allowed to grow up in environments that point you to crime, and then we'll just punish them when they commit the crime. But that is, if you want to seriously deal with this issue, you've got to deal with the root causes. Now, Janine Piro, who was particularly unhinged during

this event, she also was asked about violence prevention. And she just goes, oh, stop it, stop at you. By the time, that means it had enough. Goodbye. Thank you. I want you to report on it. But you said it's guns on the street that's causing this problem. Are you concerned that the DOJ's funding cuts to gun violence prevention programs undermine the efforts? We are putting all kinds of resources on to the street.

What about the gun aspect of the gun violence? Thanks. There you go. Wow. Wow. Particularly unhinged. And then finally, I don't think. this statement from jean piero is going to come as a surprise to any of us it's really the embodiment

embodiment of maga here's what she said i i am you know i'm i'm not going to bore you with the facts uh that's don't quote me on that she's not going to bore us with the facts you know jean i think we knew that you were not going to even deal with fact that is now the u s attorney for Washington, D.C., a Trump suckup who got her goody bag, which is this job. Terrifying, terrifying stuff. A Texas state rep James Talarico, actually, you know what? I want to make sure I get that right. Yes, state rep for a second. I thought he's, is he state senator? State rep. Texas state rep James Tala Rico went on Fox News and was interviewed by Will Kane. I've been on with Will Kane. James Tala Rico is much better at this than I am. And he absolutely

crushed the fox host, sent him running to a commercial break with his tail between his legs. The topic was partisan gerrymandering. The issue that came up is Texas's attempts to gerrymander in favor of Republicans. Gavin Newsom threatening, if Texas does it, we're going to do it in California. And James Tolariko is very good at this. Will Kane's head was spinning. Again, I've condemned all gerrymandering across the country. And in fact, when Democrats had a majority in Congress, they voted to ban gerrymandering in every state, red states and blue states. Do you know how many Republican members of Congress joined them in that effort? Which one? I'm sorry, which state did you just refer to?

I'm asking. Will Kane's not even paying attention. Do you know how many Republicans joined Democrats in the U.S. Congress to ban gerrymandering? All the Democrats voted for it. zero Republicans voted for it, zero. It's an odd. You can spare me to both sides' rhetoric. It's clearly one side that is trying to rig the rules in the middle of the game.

This is like two football teams coming out of the locker room at halftime, and the team that's ahead says they want to change the rules for the second half so they can win the game. All of us would be throwing food up the TV. If that happened, we don't accept cheating in our politics, we don't accept cheating in our relationships. We shouldn't accept cheating in our elections.

I appreciate whatever you just referred to about the number of Democrat Congress. He has no idea what it was. I'm unfamiliar with who made this against Republican congressmen who opposed it. It just kind of flies. And then very quickly, before you know it, they are just out of time. I got to run. I'm so sorry.

This was a brutalization by James Talarico. It's exactly what's happening here. And I asked you, if Republican policies are popular, why do they need to redraw these maps? Why can't they just run on their policies? I'm getting wrapped on time. I'm enjoying this conversation. I want to let it go on. And I apologize that such as the nature of cable television.

But James Talariko is really good. He is, he is excellent. His style is sort of Buttigieg-esque. He might even be better. I don't know. I mean, Pete Buttigieg is good in these environments, but James Talariko is really good. And this was a complete and total domination. Will Kane trying to catch him in.

little minutia and James Tala Rico coming prepared here. And I think that this is the sort of political communication that more Democrats need to take a page out of. I don't know how many of you saw James Tala Rico's appearance with Joe Rogan, but just truly excellent. And I hope that we see a lot more of him. People in my audience know I am a bit of a pastry connoisseur. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the first bake from frozen sour. subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. Wild grains boxes are customizable, depending on what you like and prefer. They've got their classic variety box. They've launched the new gluten-free box. They have a plant-based box that's 100% vegan. And it just takes the

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And I love this because it really says more about the way that MAGA has taken to be normal communication. So let me explain to you what happened. Donald Trump is of course known for these increasingly hysterical all caps posts to social media using phrases like, thank you for your attention to this matter, calling things, failing, talking about the worst in history, the best in history, all this sort of stuff. So Governor Gavin Newsom put together a series of posts on Twitter where he just mirrors the way Trump posts and it really illuminates the normalization of the insanity of Trump.

Like the real shocker here and we're going to look at the messages in a moment is that when you put in anyone else's voice who you aren't used to seeing communicate this way, the way that Trump's, Trump communicates, you go, you go, this is nuts. This is absolutely nuts. So let me show you what I mean. And all of these posts are in all capital letters. Not all. No, the first post is in all capital letters.

Quote, this is Gavin Newsom. Okay. Donald Trump, the lowest polling president in recent history. This is your second to last warning. The next one is the last one. Stand down now or California will counter strike legally to destroy your illegal crooked maps in red states. Press conference coming hosted by America's favorite governor Gavin Newsom. Final warning next. You won't like it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay. Then Newsom continues with another Trump-esque post. Quote, California crime

way down in 2024, murders, robberies, assaults all down. Meanwhile, crooked, he even randomly capitalized the word crooked, even though it's not a proper noun, nor at the beginning of a sentence. Meanwhile, crooked Trump sends in troops to fight crime in Dem cities, a lie, while GOP states have much higher crime rates. He even pardoned the J6 thugs, total fraud, and then issuing another warning in all capital letters. Final warning, Donald Trump, may be the most important warning in history. Stop cheating or California will redraw the maps. And guess who will announce it this week? Gavin Newsom, many say the most loved and handsome governor and a very powerful team. Don't make us do it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And I love this stuff.

And then finally, quote, Donald Taco Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps. They will be historic as they will end the Trump presidency, Dems take back the House, big press conference this week with powerful Dems and Gavin Newsom, your favorite governor that will be devastating for, quote, MAGA. Thank you for your attention to this matter, signed GN. for Gavin Newsom. Okay. What is so good about this? First of all, this is only good if the person that it is being ridiculed by it is thin-skinned, self-centered, egomaniac, unable to take

criticism. And Donald Trump checks every single one of those boxes. These posts contain so many of the things that Donald Trump do, uh, things that Donald Trump does. Number one, randomly posting in all capital letters. Number two, nicknaming and referring to himself in the third person saying I'm your favorite president, all of this stuff, randomly calling things beautiful, randomly putting things in quotes. It's going to be devastating for quote, MAGA. But what's really, I think, absolutely great about all this. And you don't even have to like Gavin Newsom to recognize this. I got emails from people who were in. You look at our subreddit. You see a lot of people say, I don't even like Gavin Newsome, but this is good. This really gets to the absurdity of Trump. When you

see anyone else speak in this voice disjointed, grammatically bizarre, hyperbolic about things that don't even make sense. When you see anyone but Trump do it, you realize, man, I've gotten really desensitized by the way that Donald Trump communicates. It's nuts. It makes no sense whatsoever. Now, let me briefly deal with the substance here. I am against partisan gerrymandering. I've put forward, not that I came up with, but I've put forward to you some of the best ideas for how to deal with partisan gerrymandering. And they include using algorithms that basically make every district not only the same population roughly, but even splits of Republican and Democrats.

You know, there's all these different ways, nonpartisan redistricting committees. The view that I have on this attempt by Texas to secure additional House seats for Republicans is, you know, this whole like when they go low, we go high sort of stuff, we shouldn't lie. We shouldn't do a lot of the things that they do. But when they use the rules to their benefit, we can't unilaterally disarm. So I'm not for California doing partisan redistricting in principle, but if Texas does it and figures out a way to gain five, potentially five seats for Republicans, then California absolutely should do

the exact same thing and try to cancel out all of the work and sort of make moot what they're attempting to do here. So really great idea by Newsom and the people working for them to expose the absurdity of Trump's communication, but don't fall for the whole. Why would they do it in California? It's simply a response to what they're threatening to do in Texas. That's all it is. Donald Trump is lashing out again. And this time it is over social media coverage of his planned meeting with Vladimir Putin. In this rambling truth social post, Trump blasted what he called the very unfair media and accused journalists of quoting fired

losers like former national security advisor John Bolton. Bolton recently warned that even though the meeting with Putin is on American soil in Alaska, that Putin has really already won. And this has very clearly hit a nerve. So Trump went on and tried to insist we're winning everything. All of these people reporting things about my meeting with Putin. Here is what Trump had to say. Quote, very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that even though the meeting is on American soil, Putin has already won. What's that all about?

We are winning on everything. The fake news is working overtime. No tax on overtime. If I got Moscow and Leningrad free as part of the deal with Russia, the fake news would say that I made a bad deal. But now they've been caught. Look at all of the real news that's coming. coming out about their corruption. They are sick and dishonest people who probably hate our country,

but it doesn't matter because we are winning on everything. MAGA. This is this is consequential. Trump's outburst. It's like it's always sort of about his ego. It's also a revealing snapshot of how he views American foreign policy, especially towards Russia. He equates success with getting Moscow and Leningrad for free. And this reminds us that everything for him is like a real estate deal, you know, territory swaps. This is how you define a victory. And the Bolton comment that set him off really goes to a deeper concern, which is the optics

and the substance of Donald Trump's interactions with Putin. He's hosting the Russian leader on U.S. soil. He has no clear policy wins to announce. And what this can allow is Moscow to project strength and legitimacy, even if there is not a single concession that is made by Donald Trump. And that's what Bolton means who, Bolton, by the way, war mongering guy that I am not a fan of. But Bolton does understand the Trump-Pooten dynamic.

That's what Bolton means by Trump has already lost. Putin has already won by this meeting taking place and taking place in Alaska. And so in foreign policy terms, Trump is kind of betraying an honest. ongoing theme. His personal image and what's good for the country are being totally conflated, but they're actually very different things. Trump is going to measure the success of a summit, not really by the strategic outcomes. Do we actually get close to the resolution with Ukraine and Russia?

What about modifying Russia's belligerent behavior? Are there arms control commitments? What about cyber intrusion? Trump is basically going by, is it framed as a win for me personally by the president? And it's that very fixation on optics over substance that is what a lot of critics, Democratic critics and even Republican critics, are so terrified about when it comes to Trump and foreign policy. Trump's defensiveness also kind of hits on a very fragile balancing act that he's trying to maintain because on the one hand, Trump does want to portray himself as this master negotiator

who can reset relations with Russia and achieve something. But on the other hand, he operates in an environment where there is. very high skepticism towards Putin, even in the Republican Party. And so what you end up with is this cycle where any criticism of his approach gets framed not as a legitimate policy debate, but as an attack on the United States itself. And that's a very, quite frankly, it's a stupid place to be. So if the meeting with Putin does indeed happen, I believe Friday it's scheduled to be, we know what the foreign policy stakes are and we know theoretically what might we want to come

out of it. But it's going to be read not for what is on the agenda, but what does it signal about America, Russia relations under Trump's leadership? Is this a calculated diplomatic engagement? Is it a made for TV moment sort of like when Trump stepped into the demilitarized zone with Kim Jong-un and between North and South Korea? What is it going to be? And because of Trump's ego and Trump's concern with how am I seen, how does the media report

on me? I hope I'm wrong. My expectation is zero substantive progress and a photo op for Donald Trump, which may go well or it may not. I concede that it's possible that the photo up goes well. So I want to hear from you. What do you think's going to happen at this meeting? Will the meeting even take place that's scheduled for Friday?

You can email me info at David Pakman.com. On the bonus show today, Ken Paxton has asked a judge to jail Beto O'Rourke for fund raising the walkout of Texas Democrats. Number two, the Supreme Court has now been asked to overturn the landmark same-sex marriage ruling from 2015. We knew they were going to try it. They're trying it. And finally, there is a bill to make all pornography a federal crime.

It's moving forward to committee. It's Mike Lee. I don't know that that will be a shock to many of our viewers and listeners. Mike Lee is the Republican Senator who wants that. All of those stories and more are on today's bonus show. Sign up at joinpackman.com. I'll see you then.