The David Pakman Show - 8/18/25: Putin crushed Trump, and it devastated Karoline Leavitt

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Vladimir Putin exploits the Alaska summit to humiliate Donald Trump and walk away with legitimacy while Trump gets nothing -- Donald Trump runs to Sean Hannity to repeat Vladimir Putin’s flattery and election lies after being embarrassed at the summit -- Marco Rubio struggles on live television to name any concessions won from Vladimir Putin after Donald Trump’s failed summit -- Donald Trump rants on Truth Social with an authoritarian plan to seize control of elections and eliminate mail in voting -- Nationwide protests erupt against Donald Trump’s authoritarian power grabs and grow larger despite his crackdowns -- Gavin Newsom releases a sharp ad against Trump that frames the fight over redistricting as a national battle for democracy -- Karoline Leavitt fails to hide Trump’s obvious physical decline and cognitive struggles as evidence mounts in public view -- Karoline Leavitt looks shaken and ashen after Trump’s disastrous meeting with Vladimir Putin that produced no concessions -- A reporter confronts Marco Rubio with his own past warnings about Vladimir Putin to expose hypocrisy in defending Trump -- On the Bonus Show: Trump to meet with Zelensky today, "non-routine" white-collar workers getting replaced by AI, Republican governors send National Guard troops to DC, and much more... 🍽️ CookUnity: Get Free Premium Meals for Life at https://cookunity.com/pakmanfree 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/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

Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the United States in a very long time. And it happened because after Donald Trump had American soldiers literally crawling around on their hands and knees laying out a red carpet for Vladimir Putin, the brutal dictator Putin showed up, conceded nothing. made Trump look even dumber than when Kim Jong-un tricked him with his fake concessions, Putin didn't even give him any concessions and truly the biggest foreign policy humiliation of Donald Trump's political career. And that really says a lot.

So let's zoom out. The context here, Trump's going to Alaska where Putin will meet him. They're going to have a tough conversation where Trump might even get Putin to end the Ukraine war. None of that happened. And in fact, the very, the very nature of the meeting taking place already framed Putin as the dominant one, as the strong one. And with the entire world watching, who came out stronger?

It is abundantly clear that it was not Donald Trump and not the United States. Now let's get back to the optics for a moment. As I mentioned, American soldiers rolling out a red carpet for Vladimir Putin, where we have a brutal dictator who disappears dissidents, who has seen adversarial journalists accidentally fall out of a hospital window or stab themselves in the back. You know, you hear these crazy things which are meant to be unbelievable. part of the game. Of course, that didn't happen. Of course, they were ordered killed. But Trump rolls out almost like they were royalty on American soil. The red carpet and he's laughing and he's

hugging and doing all of this. And the symbolism of these American troops bowing down before Putin's plane to lay out a red carpet. These are optics of subservience. These are optics of Trump, Not an alpha, even though he claims to be, but of a wannabe alpha who's enamored by these dictators and authoritarian strong men who rule with an iron fist. It would be easier for Trump to just be able to disappear journalists the way Putin does, rather than having to deal with questions he doesn't like when he does a press conference. It would be better for Trump to be able to just say, you're off the air when there's a channel that's reporting things that Donald Trump doesn't like. And so all of the optics were humiliating.

This then gets us to the outcome, the or the lack thereof. What did we get from this so-called summit? Well, even though Trump announced it went very well, we had a lot of points of agreement, understand the reality of what we got. Vladimir Putin conceded nothing. Vladimir Putin did not make a single commitment. He didn't agree to even one reform. He didn't agree to any kind of change to what he is doing and to what he plans to do in Ukraine. He didn't do any of it. Now, I was sort of thinking back to the Kim Jong-un summit when Donald Trump made a big, big deal out of going out to meet with Kim Jong-un. And there was even this photo op where Donald Trump stepped into the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and it was all so incredible and Trump said

we won, we did it. And all he got from Kim Jong-un were the same sort of vague commitment to, oh, denuclearization or, you know, stuff that North Korean leaders have been saying for decades. Kim Jong-un's dad said this sort of stuff. Kim Jong-un's grandpopy said this sort of stuff. And they never do it. And because Donald Trump is so naive and so little understands history, Trump thought that it was a real success, that he got real concessions out of Kim Jong-un.

They were fake concessions. Well, the Putin summit was even dumber. The Putin summit didn't even lead to fake concessions that Putin has no intention of actually carrying out. It was just really a photo up for Vladimir Putin more than anything else. the Kim Jong-un summit, Trump could at least wave around paperwork. It was meaningless paperwork. It was unenforceable paperwork. But with Putin, he has nothing. He has no leverage. He didn't get a single win. It's just a global humiliation. Now, from Vladimir Putin's perspective,

of course he would do this. Think about it. Simply being invited legitimizes Vladimir Putin. Putin is an anti-democratic, authoritarian, dictatorial strong man. And so when a nominal democracy like the United States says, come for a summit, we're going to have, what did they have a green salad with champagne, vinaigrette and surf and turf, right? Oh, Vladimir Putin says, whoa, Trump coming out and over there speaking. We'll get to that in a moment. When you do this to a guy as anti-democratic as Putin, you legitimize him. you legitimize Russia. You say, hey, you know what? The way you have run your country with

an iron fist and oppression and all of it gets rewarded by a beautiful lunch and meeting with the president of the United States. It gives Putin a major propaganda boost back at home. And the narrative for Putin to go back there is, look at how big and strong I am. They literally laid out a red carpet for me. Did you see what happened when I went to the United States? Putin can now say they had soldiers on their hands and knees and uniforms putting a red carpet right up to my plane. And the president sat there.

By the way, Putin made Trump wait. I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. Is it cuckoldry? I, you know, the people who were blackpilled or whatever on the internet were saying Trump was cucked by Putin, not phraseology I would use. But this is the exposure of Donald Trump's weakness. Trump comes off looking desperate. He comes off looking submissive.

No defense of American interests was put forward during this summit. And you contrast it with others. Put aside for a moment that when Barack Obama met with Putin, the dynamics were very different. Putin didn't get a red carpet. Putin wasn't glad handed by Barack Obama. made it clear who was in charge. But even look look at other instances with Biden, Biden in Geneva where he brought up the issue of human rights and set boundaries. Trump grins for the camera leaves empty handed with nothing. So if you voted for Trump because he was going to be America

first and because he was going to finally restore America's reputation around the world, how do you look at this and say, boy, am I proud? He really did us well, Donald Trump. people see weakness, adversaries see opportunity, and the person celebrating this the most, you know, I saw these videos floating around from Mara Lago where Trump's clubgoers were saying, you did so good, Mr. President. The real person now in a position to celebrate is Vladimir Putin, and Trump had no choice after the summit, but to run to Sean Hannity for what was supposed to be a friendly interview. With his tail tucked between his legs, after being globally humiliated by Vladimir Putin, Donald

Trump ran to Sean Hannity on Fox News. He needed a friendly interview. He needed a softball interview. And in this clip, you will see Donald Trump confirm Putin owns him. Listen carefully to what Trump says here. Trump says, you know, Putin told me, your mail in voting is a. scam. It's fraudulent. And this is why Putin, you got to, you got to admit it. When you're bested, when they've gotten the best of you, you've got to admit it. This is why Putin owns Trump

because he understands that if he supports Trump's conspiracy theories, like about the 2020 election being stolen, Trump will go, he knows what's going on. And Trump will accept whatever Putin says. Look at the look at how it worked to manipulate Donald Trump. Oh, Vladimir. Putin said something. One of the most interesting things, he said your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. He said mail-in voting every election. He said, no country has mail-in voting. It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections. And he said that to me, it was very interesting because we talked about 2020. He said, you won that election by so much. And that's how he got it. He said, and if you would have won, we wouldn't have had a

war. You'd have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead. And he said, And you lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election, but mail-in voting show. Do you think that Vladimir Putin really believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 election? Putin is a lot of things. He's a brutal dictator. He's an oppressor of media. He's an invader.

He's an aggressive global force. But Putin is not stupid. And Putin knows that Donald Trump did not win the damn 2020 election. But what, and by the way, Putin, a known falsifier of elections is saying to Trump, you really won in 2020. What is this about? Trump has no idea that this is a master manipulation by Putin. Putin is playing Trump like a fiddle.

And when Trump later will hear from Putin, no, you know, the truth is we are defensively in Ukraine. Ukraine was the aggressor. Trump's going to go, I believe him. I mean, listen, Putin recognized I really won 2020. He was right about that. He's probably right about this as well. And we saw after Putin during Trump's first term in Helsinki said, oh, no, we didn't do any

hacking, even though that was the determination. We didn't do any hacking. Trump comes out and he goes, listen, why would he hack? And he said to me very strongly, he didn't do any of the hacking. Putin owns Trump because Trump doesn't realize how he's being manipulated. Biden would never have fallen for this. Obama would never have fallen for this. To his credit, George W. Bush would never have fallen for these attempts at ingratiating

himself and the entreaties and the entire thing. Never would have happened. Here's Trump more. And he's really pleased, really pleased with the review Putin gave him. And Vladimir said just a little while ago, he said, I've never seen anybody do so much, so fast. He said, your country is like hot as a pistol. And a year ago, he thought it was dead. Everybody thought it was dead. Let me ask you this. We mentioned it is so easy to play this fool. It is so easy. Here's the playbook. You praise Trump so that he's

enamored with you. You tell Trump you believe some of his most unhinged ranting. Like I won in 2020. The country is so hot right now. I'm achieving so. much. You go in there, you go, oh, Mr. President, you know, you were really screwed in 2020. You really won that thing. And your country is so hot and doing so well. And it's just unbelievable what you're doing. So Trump becomes enamored with you, which he already is because he's enamored with these strong men dictators. And then you can manipulate him. And then he will take your word on everything, everything. If Putin's right that I'm so cool and so awesome, he must be right about other things as well. And this morning on the issue of the mail-in ballots, Trump has come

out and said he's going to try to do away with all mail-in voting. And then also Donald Trump coming back. And we have word that Crimea will remain in Russia's hands no matter what happened. So Putin got a lot of what he wanted. So basic, so pedestrian, so childish. But it worked on Donald Trump. And then this put Marco Rubio and so many others in the position of having to defend what took place. Now, later in the show, we are going to get to Donald Trump's press secretary Caroline Levitt's reaction to all of this. Reports are the word is ashen. She was ashen over what took place in Alaska. We're going to get to that a little bit later. But we're going to start here with the response from Donald Trump's secretary of

state, Marco Rubio. Donald Trump's Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin was such a globally humiliating failure that even Trump's own secretary of state Marco Rubio could not explain any of what went well without crumbling on live TV. Listen to what Rubio says here, which is that many concessions were asked of Vladimir Putin, asked of Vladimir Putin. He doesn't say that Putin agreed to a single one of them and believe you me, if Donald Trump had been able to secure any concession from Vladimir Putin, you know we would be hearing

about it. But Marco Rubio plays it like, well, I'm not going to just start talking about that on this show. Why not? Take a listen. Can you name any concessions that Vladimir Putin made during this meeting? Has he, has any, have any, have any? I wouldn't name them on your program. I wouldn't name them on this program. I wouldn't name them on your program. Why would I do that? Where is the pressure?

Of course, because you can't have a peace agreement. Now, you can't have a peace agreement unless both sides give and get. You can't have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions. That's a fact. That's true in virtually any negotiation. If not, it's just called surrender. And neither side is going to surrender. So both sides are going to have to make concessions. So, of course, concessions were asked. But what utility would there be, am. going on a program and tell you, we've wagged our finger at Putin and told them, you must do this. Well, to prove that the summit wasn't a pointless and humiliating failure. And you must do that. It's only going to make it harder and less likely that they're going to agree to these things. So these negotiations, as much as everyone would love it to be a live

pay-per-view event, these discussions only work best when they are conducted privately in serious negotiations in which people who have to go back and respond to constituencies, Because even the authoritarian governments have constituencies they have to respond to. People have to go back and defend these agreements that they make. And so and figure out a way to explain them to people. So we need to create space for concessions to be made. But of course, concessions were asked. Concessions were asked.

Remember, he first said concessions were made. You're going to tell us about them? No. And then he goes to we asked for a lot of different things. Well, easier question that Rubio was asked during a different interview, this one on NBC News, with Kristen Wilker. Can you name any of the concessions that Trump asked Putin to make? Can you name a single one? You won't be surprised to hear that Marco Rubio doesn't name any. Can you name one thing that President Trump is asking Russia to give up in order to get peace?

Well, I'm not going to disclose those things because if we do, then you can imagine the negotiations could fall apart. These negotiations, look, I know everybody wants to know what's happening. And to a certain degree, that's important. But what's more important is that these negotiations work. And for us to run to the press, like you see these leaks sometimes that are completely inaccurate. And in many cases, sometimes you see leaks out there that undermine the negotiations. These negotiations, in order for them to be successful, allow, require for us to allow both sides to agree to potential concessions or discuss potential concessions without it finding this way in the public sphere and creating all kinds of internal problems from one

country or the other country. So here's the bottom line. We all know what the elements of such a deal. There has to be talk about what the territories are going to look like and what the border lines are going to look like at the end of this conflict. There has to be talk about Ukraine's legitimate desire for security in the long term to make sure they don't get invaded again. There has to be talk about how Ukraine is rebuilt and how do you rebuild a country that's been attacked. So listen, if there were real concessions that Putin made, they would be bragging about them. We know that. That's how the Trump administration operates. If they had even, if they sniffed out any, anything that was even a pseudo concession from Vladimir Putin, they would be bragging

about how big and strong Donald Trump is. Rubio has not articulated a single concession Putin made. Caroline Leavitt hasn't. They're not even telling us what concessions Trump asked for. And I don't even know that Trump had the gall to ask for a damn thing. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. We know he didn't get anything. And so when you see Marco Rubio dodging like this, it's proof that there's nothing to point to. Trump's top diplomat can't sell this as a win. So what's the takeaway? The summit gives Putin legitimacy on the global stage and gives him propaganda value.

He can go back to Russia and now say, look at how respected I am. Look at how feared I am. They rolled out a red carpet for me. Propaganda victory. In practical terms, in term, if your priority is, let's end this war. which above politics is my priority, nothing was achieved. Absolutely nothing. And then even from a public relations standpoint, which is important, I don't pretend that PR isn't important for American presidents. From a PR standpoint, Trump got nothing either. And I know that you've got the usual

sycophants and dilettons saying, what a big strong boy. He did such a good one. But Trump got nothing and it's a disaster for him as well. So I'm going to have a piece today on my substack in more detail about what the stakes were of this summit and where we go next, make sure you're subscribed free to my substack at substack. David Pakman.com. We're going to take a break and be right back. Skip the hassle of planning meals or cleaning up. Our sponsor, Cook Unity, brings a unique twist to meal delivery by being the first collective of award-winning chefs offering locally sourced dishes straight to your doorstep every week. Each meal is. is fully cooked, ready to eat after only five minutes of heating. One of the most memorable

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The David Packman Show is an independent, audience-funded, progressive media program. This means a few different things. This means, number one, I have no editors, executive producer, or layers of managers saying, why don't you cover this? Why don't you cover that? Why don't you take this position? Why don't you soften that position? We don't have anything like that. Whatever I want to talk about, whatever I want to say, that's what it is. The downside is we do depend directly on our audience to fund the show. Now, it's only a downside in the sense that that does mean it's up to individual folks who say, hey, I kind of like this. I'm going to support the work that you're doing.

And I invite you to get a membership. You'll get instant access to so many great perks, including the bonus show, commercial free audio and video streams of the show and many other things by signing up at join packman.com. Another way to support the show is to become a substack paid subscriber at substack. David Pakman.com. This morning, Donald Trump unleashed a roadmap for dictatorship. You have to see this. It is terrifying.

He did it on truth social. Truth essential. This after Vladimir Putin told him, you really got crushed in 2020 by those mail-in votes. You really won the 2020 election, but those mail-in votes screwed you. Trump posts the following. Quote, I am going to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots. And also while we're at it, highly inaccurate, very expensive, and seriously controversial voting machines, which costs 10 times more than accurate and sophisticated watermark paper, which is faster

and leaves no doubt at the end of the evening as to who won and who lost the election. We are now the only country in the world that uses mail-in voting. That's not true. All others gave it up because of the massive voter fraud encountered. We will begin this effort, which will be strongly opposed by the Democrats because they cheat at levels never seen before by signing an executive order to help bring honesty to the 2026 midterm elections. Remember, the states are merely an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the federal government is represented by the president

of the United States. Tell them for the good of our country to do with their horrible radical left policies like open borders, men playing in women's sports, transgender and woke for everyone and so much more, Democrats are virtually unelectable without using this completely disproven mail-in scam. Elections can never be honest with mail-in ballots voting. And everybody in particular, the Democrats, knows this. I and the Republican Party will fight like hell to bring honesty and integrity back to our elections. The mail-in ballot hoax using voting machines that are a complete and total disaster must end

now. Remember, without fair and honest elections and strong and powerful borders, you don't have even a semblance of a country. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump, president of the United States of America. I wrote an op-ed two months ago. They will try to steal the 2026 midterms. And this is the beginning. Not even really the beginning.

It's actually just the next step. they've been doing it for a while, Trump will attempt to use an executive order to end mail-in voting altogether. He claims only watermarked paper ballots are valid. He says we're the only country using mail-in voting. That's completely untrue. And via executive order, he says he will tell states exactly how they should run their elections, wrongly arguing that states are merely an agent of the federal government that's completely authoritarian framing it's i decide i decide everything now let's kind of break this down step by step the constitution is very clear if you're a constitutional conservative or a whatever the constitution gives states the power to run their elections trump saying

he decides and he can boss states around and all of it that is overt authoritarianism and it contravenes the Constitution. This is a very obvious attempt to rig the 2026 midterms in advance. Donald Trump is seeing what's happening with Gavin Newsom's beautiful maps and potentially other blue state governors getting involved. Donald Trump is seeing that his approval is at historic lows, that the economy, jobs numbers, inflation, it's all shaky. It's shaky. And so he is trying to figure out how can I steal the 2026 midterms so that I can actually get something done. Because remember, if Democrats take the House in 26, Trump's agenda's dead. It's dead in the water.

So the pattern is the same one. Lie about 2020. Even better if you can get Putin to go, oh, you was stolen in 2020. Use those claims about 2020 to purge officials, intimidate secretaries of state, try to take control of the election yourself. And then ultimately, attempt to use an executive order. This is phase three. attempt to use an executive order to just declare federal control of state elections.

Trump wants federal control of local police departments. Trump wants federal control. And remember, we were told these are small government conservatives that don't want the government to involve where they're not needed. And Trump wants to federalize everything. He throws in open borders as if this is also a national security issue. He mentions men and women's sports and sort of these culture. It's like a generic culture war filler whenever you need to expand.

post you just add stuff about woke add stuff about men and women's sports and the takeaway here is that trump's been whining for years about the 2020 election that's that's not a new thing but trump is now openly saying that he's going to override states this is exactly how authoritarian takeover start you change the rules of the vote itself we've seen it in russia with vladimir putin we see it all the time i mean listen in in north korea you even even have to change the rules. It's just, it's been built from the ground up since Kim Jong-un's grandfather was in charge there. They just built it from the ground up. It doesn't even, there's nothing to change. And when we step back, we find ourselves watching a sitting president

plotting openly. It's not even happening in secret. And why would it? A lot of his supporters say sounds awesome. It is all rigged and stolen. He is openly plotting to dictate state elections. It's a constitutional crisis in real time. Now, what is it that we on the left should do? Well, first of all, uh, Trump outlawing mail and voting in red states that Republicans are easily going to win. It doesn't really matter because they're going to win those states anyway. So the first question is whether blue state governors are going to be legally prepared to be able to hold elections the way they determine they should be held, not succumb to. Donald Trump's bullying, uh, and actually make sure that we get, uh, the will of the people

represented and that includes being able to vote my by mail. So first of all, blue state governors need to be really sure of what can Trump do, what can't Trump do. That's number one. But number two, midterm turnout is often really low, like pathetically low. And so there's a real question here as to what kind of turnout we're going to get. We're still 15 months away, 14 and a half months away from those midterms. I hope, and I know we say this every midterm, I hope that this time around people will

understand the scope and gravity of this. And as I've said before, one of the best defenses, one of the best defenses against election rigging is the biggest possible turnout. Overwhelmed, just absolutely overwhelm the polls. easy to pay lip service to it, easy to say it, doesn't always happen. But we're going to be talking extensively about voter turnout as we go forward. The anti-Trump protests have exploded. Donald Trump cannot stop them no matter what he does.

We have been seeing the biggest coordinated anti-Trump mobilization since Donald Trump returned to office. The scope of these protests is massive. It's widespread. They are diverse. We've seen over 300 protests in 44 states plus Washington, D.C. Why are people furious? Yes, Donald Trump's authoritarianism. Yes, Texas's attempt to redistrict and gerrymander overtly to avoid potentially losing

control of the House of Representatives in November of 2026. We have seen large marches in big cities and in small towns. And one of the biggest flashpoints in this entire thing is Texas at this point in time. In Austin, more than 5,000 showed up at the Capitol to fight the Trump takeover. And of course, they're upset about the authoritarianism. But we have a lot of great people in Texas. Remember, Texas is, what were the 2020 or 24, Texas presidential results, even though Texas is, of course, a red state? Kamala Harris still got 43% of the vote and nearly 5 million votes in the state of Texas.

There are a lot of Democrats, leftists, and blue voters in the state of Texas. And they see this attempt to overtly gerrymander their congressional maps in order to generate more Republican seats and they don't like it. So Texas, one major flashpoint here. Washington, D.C., another major flashpoint. Free D.C. has been a sort of slogan or motto, and we've seen Free D.C. march from DuPont Circle down to the White House. Trump federalized local police. He deployed the National Guard. They're pushing out homeless people. Guardsmen from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were brought in.

And despite this military presence, protests grew louder and louder and louder. Now, I want to say one other thing about protests. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, had a massive turnout last week when he announced at a press conference, if Texas is going to gerrymander, we're going to gerrymander and we're going to generate more democratic seats. Something I support completely. I support ending all gerrymandering, but I also support not unilaterally disarming. And that's what Gavin Newsom is doing. Ice agents were sent to Gavin Newsom's press conference. The implication is the sort of people that would support this effort. of gerrymandering in California are more likely to be undocumented immigrants.

So send ice there to pick them up. And of course, it's completely idiotic. Number one, undocumented immigrants can't vote. So why would they be at an event? I guess they could go to show support. But why would they be at an event that's primarily about a referendum in November? It just makes no sense. But why on earth, if you know you were undocumented, would you show up at a massive event

filled with cameras? It doesn't make sense. So these are all intimidatory tactics. But so far, the protesters are saying, we're going to show up anyway. Now, why can't Trump stop it? Well, he wants to stop it. Even the National Guard deployments have failed to deter the crowds. And what's happening right now is a circle or a cycle where the more that the Trump administration

and federal law enforcement attempt to crack down on protesters who were legally saying, we're going to use our voices to be heard, the more they try to crack down, the more it is inspiring people to get out there and protest. And so Trump's entire law and order farce, which is really all it is, it's being flipped. And the more Trump tries to say, stop them from protesting, the more that they protest. And that makes Trump make Trump look weaker. And it makes him look desperate. And it makes him look like he can't control what's going on, which he can't do. So I am hugely invigorated by the grassroots energy that is exploding in ways that Trump can't contain, the louder Trump tries to crush dissent, the more people seem to be showing up

and saying, we're not going to be staying home. And one of the greatest nightmares for an authoritarian is a resistance that grows when you push, when you push back. Authoritarians expect and they want that when people start protesting, you go, we're going to send National Guard and levy some threats and everybody will go home. People aren't doing that. And authoritarian's hate it because they want to be the ultimate powers. So good for everyone that's been protesting on today's full audio podcast, which I hope

you're subscribed to on Spotify and on Apple Music, we're going to have more also on the bonus show about the resistance techniques that are not only working, but they're really triggering Donald Trump. All right. So we all know Alexa listens to us, recommends products based on our. our conversations, meta retargets us based on our browsing and engagement history. Have you wondered what chat GPT and Claude are up to with your conversations? We feed so much of our information to these AI chat bots, thoughts, dreams, sensitive questions, business ideas. They take the information,

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One of the things Donald Trump hates the most is when there's somebody he can't control. And right now that somebody is California governor Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom dropped a brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal anti-Trump ad, steamrolling Trump. This is a digital ad for the California Democrats redistricting campaign. This is what Gavin Newsom announced last week, which, if successful, could effectively neuter the Donald Trump presidency. This is sharp polished stuff. It goes directly at Trump.

Trump hates this. Take a look at this. Wake up, America. Wake up to what Donald Trump is doing. Here he is once again trying to rig the system. He doesn't believe in the rules. We can't stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district. We have got to meet fire with fire.

asking the voters for their consent to do midterm redistricting to level the plane field all across the United States. On November 4th, you have the power to stand up to Trump. Donald Trump, you have poked the bear and we will punch back. This is a serious moment. Wake up. This is very, very good. Now, I know that my audience is split about Gavin Newsom.

I know some of you absolutely. despise the guy. You say, look at what he's done to California. He is not brought California to prosperity. Now, that that's one faction of the audience. I have others writing to me saying, David, this is the only guy fighting right now. I get you've got Democrats filing some lawsuits and doing town halls, but the guy really fighting here and he's a governor, but he's fighting on the national stage. The only guy is Gavin Newsome. I'm going to get back to Gavin Newsom in a moment. What is so good about this entire campaign is that it is hitting Trump's power grabs on gerrymandering. It's framing this California gerrymandering campaign, which is what it is.

You know, they call it redistricting. Yes, it's partisan redistricting. We call that gerrymandering. That's what it is. We got to own it. I'm against gerrymandering. But I'm not going to unilaterally disarm and let Republicans do it and win elections. And we're going to just stand aside. I don't want that. And the visuals and the tone. it really feels like a presidential campaign ad more than a local issue spot. Now, there's a couple realities there. Number one, the redistricting concept is a national concept because if Kathy Hokel says we're going to do the same thing in New York and J.B. Pritzker says we're going to do the same thing

in Illinois, you start to get some, a pretty powerful national movement. But there's a bigger signal here and I know you all know what it is. It looks very clear that Gavin Newsom is positioning himself for a presidential run. He is nationalizing a message. It's not California versus Trump. It's the United States versus Donald Trump. The ad drops right as anti-Trump protests are exploding nationally. And so the timing is a major factor in what's going on here.

What's my view about Gavin Newsome as a Democratic presidential candidate? I want to, I'm not going to be cagey here. Okay. I'm going to give every all the information to you up front. It's extraordinarily early. I don't even know who's going to run in 2028. Is, um, you know, is Pete Butt edge edge going to run? Is Congresswoman AOC going to run? What about Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer who we, I just don't know who's going to run yet. I can't pick who I like the best until I know who is running. What I do feel very strongly about is that I want a primary where candidates must earn the nomination, fight it out. I'm ready for it.

The bench is so deep. And I know that the right loves to say, oh, Democrats have nobody. They've got a bunch of 80 year olds whose careers are over. What, Bernie? He'll be 90 at the end of the next presidential term in early 90. No, no, no, no. That's a total distortion of what's going on. on there there's are there are almost too many good people and certainly among those good people

I include Gavin Newsom and I know many of you, oh, but we don't like them. Hey, there's going to be a fight. Okay. We're going to see who reigns Supreme. We're going to see who the votes want. Gavin Newsom is excellent on hitting the right tone, triggering MAGA, generating national attention, getting people interested in something, right? I mean, however many lawsuits you file to try stop Trump doesn't exactly activate people because there's not much they can do. This is an effort people can get behind. This is an effort people can donate to if they want to help in California or they can call their governors and say, hey, you've got to do what Gavin Newsom is doing. So I am going to advocate for an open and robust primary and we will see who comes out on top. But Gavin Newsom,

Josh Shapiro, AOC, John Ossif, Gretchen Whitmer. There's a long list. I'm not going to be Buttigieg, I'm not going to be able to get to everybody. But the point here is this is a, this is a deep bench. What I want is people willing to fight. Like really fight. And Gavin Newsom is fighting right now. So the takeaway here is this is a brutal and very effective ad. It's rattling Trump. It's energizing Democrats. It's giving people something to fight for. Gavin Newsom is showing. he's ready to throw punches on the national stage, this instantly getting national, if not global attention. So whether or not Newsom is running, I mean, listen, I don't know. And whoever it is that is ultimately the nominee, opposition needs to be robust and it needs to be energized and it needs to be

well calculated and organized. And Gavin Newsom is doing that. I'm super interested in seeing where it goes next. The makeup patches on Donald Trump's hands are spreading and Caroline Levitt simply cannot cover up what's going on with Donald Trump's health anymore. We saw over the weekend at Donald Trump's golf course that the patch of makeup on his hand to cover bruising is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And we've seen this in different shapes and forms and iterations over recent time. And what's happening is that the cover up is really falling apart. Caroline Leavitt is in a position where she needs to manage two aspects of Donald Trump's help.

Number one, yes, it's the cognitive. It's the incoherence. You don't have to say he has dementia to realize that he seems regularly lost, doesn't know what's going on, saying things that make no sense syntactically, saying things that make no sense factually, rambling incoherently. Last week, it was about grass and who the hell knows what else. So on the one hand, you've got the brain. On the other hand, you have Caroline Levitt trying to always give as little information as possible about what's going on with Donald Trump's physical health. Trump's working very hard. Every day, we are seeing how much energy he has.

The bruising on his hands is from shaking hands so vigorously with so many people. These are really not explanations. This is damage control where you release only the absolute minimum. Now, the overall signs are really undeniable. We saw the swollen ankles. We were told no big deal. It's simply chronic venous insufficiency. Okay.

Well, wasn't on any, any of Donald Trump's health disclosures over the last decade. We've then got the swelling, sorry, the bruising on the hands, which we're not really being told what is actually the explanation for it. Trump's shaking hands doesn't really make any sense. You then see, you know, I'm going to Russia when he was going to Alaska called Christy Nome, Christy Kerr, asks where people are when they're right in front of them forgets things. So we've already built that picture up over time. The dissembling pattern is notable, which is that when Donner,

Donald Trump is caught in confusion. When you see that look on his face when he's visibly confused, he'll make up detail. So he'll just make stuff up to fill gaps in his memory. And often what he comes up with doesn't make any sense. Now, the issue we're talking about here relates to Caroline Levitt. Leavitt has a sort of impossible task here, which is she is trying to gaslight America into ignoring what's right in front of us. And she's clearly working with a guy who doesn't want to reveal anything.

Caroline Levitt or any spokesperson for a president could come forward and just tell the whole story. And then we would go, oh, that's the whole story. We can evaluate it for what it is. But she's not doing it because Donald Trump doesn't want her to. And the stakes are significant because you've got a 79 year old here who can't remember countries and continents. And he's got access to the nuclear codes. And at a certain point, no matter how skilled you are.

as a press secretary and to a degree, I'll acknowledge Caroline Levitt has some skills. And when you really sit down, the way to analyze what a press secretary says is you step back and you say, okay, let me read the answer and let's evaluate each element of what she says and determine whether what she's saying is true or not. In a sense, she lies all the time, of course, but she has some skills for this job. But at a certain point, no press secretary can really spin a way visible decline where the emperor is degrading in front of our very eyes. And so I don't really know what are the next excuses that she'll come up with. Certainly we don't know what the next health crisis is going to be.

But Trump doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders and placing Caroline Levitt in this position really asks her to do something that is that is extraordinarily difficult. Now, one of the things that I would expect is sometimes when there's an attempt to come cover something up or kind of like manage in the public eye, sometimes there's an attempt to say nothing. And that was the attempt with Trump's hands and ankles for a while. The pressure got so big that then they went to, well, we've got to say something. And the something that they gave us, it doesn't ring true. It certainly seems only partially substantive. It doesn't feel complete. We know it's not the full story. And the reaction has been so disastrous.

that I wouldn't be surprised if I see them go back to the we're not saying anything at all. Last week, a reporter asked Caroline Levitt, would we be able to speak to Donald Trump's doctors and get answers from them? And Caroline Leavitt just said, yeah, I don't know that that's really something that we're going to be doing. So I would expect that after their brief attempt at saying a little more, it went so poorly that they're going to go back to saying a little bit less. My expectation, what do you think let me know info at David Pakman.com?

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.

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Go to ground. News slash Pacman or enter the code Pacman in the app to get started. The link is in the description. New reporting indicates that Donald Trump's White House press secretary Caroline Levitt was visibly devastated. Ashen is the word that's being used by the abject failure. and humiliation on the global stage of her boss Donald Trump in the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We are going to look at reporting indicating that, you know, there was a lot of pre-summit

bravado. This is going to be Trump's biggest victory and we've got full confidence and it's all just going to go so well. Leavitt even said, anybody criticizing this is pathetic. Trump knows what he's doing. There's no better person than Trump. And Trump rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin three hours of talks with no deal. Fine.

No concessions. Uh-oh. No path even to Putin doing anything worse optics than the Kim Jong-un summit. Whereas I said earlier, at least Kim Jong-un gave Trump some sort of red meat fake concessions where he was like, well, denuclearize this and we might do that. Didn't do any of it. Trump fell for it, but at least Trump had something he could list. Nothing from the Putin summit. Widespread reaction. Here's Peter Alexander talking about what he saw himself, the faces on

people's, the expressions on people's faces, the faces on people's heads, say it however you want, and that Caroline Levitt was Ashen. What struck me, Jen, in particular, was really just the looks on the faces of a lot of the American delegation here. Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, Steve Whitkoff, who came into the room, then left quickly, then came back in. Leavitt appeared to be a bit stressed out, anxious. Their eyes were wide, almost ashen at times. Those were some of the sort of images that are going to, that I'm going to stick, will stick with me as we leave here.

This was not the way the president likes to do things. He likes to be the producer of this presidency. He got that in the first half of the day. But when he was behind closed doors with Vladimir Putin, it looks like he didn't come away with anything that he claimed he wanted. He said he'd go home unhappy. be if there was no ceasefire. They didn't declare one here today. Yeah, not only that, they didn't even get a single, a sing. We, we shouldn't overstate the degree to which this was a complete

and utter flop. I mean, not a single concession from Putin. So, of course, a lot of Magas immediately saying, oh, the reporting is false. Nobody looked concerned. Peter Alexander saw this. MSNBC's Antonia Hilton said the exact same thing that not only did Caroline Levitt look ash, after the meeting. She looked frightened after the meeting. So the press corps noticing the exact same vibe rattled haunted people. Normally, normally, after something like this, staffers will start calling various media outlets to push a narrative. Here's everything we accomplished. Here's the concessions Putin made. There was none of that. Silence. There was not even an attempt made to spin this because there was nothing to spin. I'm going to give you an example.

example from the Democratic side. It's, it's, this is not a, a partisan analysis. After the June 27th debate in 2024 with Donald Trump and Joe Biden, we all know Biden's performance was not just bad. It was one of the worst presidential debate performances in American history. I don't, there's no other way to say it. I immediately after said Biden will have to drop out. After that, the spin room, and this has been widely reported now, the spin room was totally devoid of people supporting Joe Biden and explaining how the thing was great. They didn't know what to say. They didn't even know what can we spin.

It was such a disaster. Now, eventually, very late arriving, some Biden surrogates showed up and the narrative they came up with was slow start, finish strong, Trump lied. But the point is, we often see. when it's so bad there's nothing to spin. No one tries to spin it. And that's what happened. Trump staffers didn't even have what what do we even say about that abortive disaster. So the collapse, the trajectory of the collapse was Trump knows what he's doing, full confidence, how dare you question him before the summit. Post summit, visibly shaken Trump staffers

who can't possibly sell this as a win and a shift from very small. mug to terrified and humiliated. So our takeaway is Putin walks away stronger. Trump walks away with nothing. And Caroline Levitt ends up sort of caught in the middle knowing she is the one to defend what happened and being unable to defend it. And everyone knows she knows it. Now, I'm guessing she'll speak to the media some point today. We'll see what she comes up with. Zelensky's meeting with Trump today. And so tomorrow we may have clips of what they are able to put together. But so far, Really not an exercise in courage nor inaccuracy for Caroline Levitt. Marco Rubio was humiliated by Kristen Welker on NBC News when she played a video for him of himself

just a few years ago saying you can't cut deals with guys like Putin just as his boss is now trying to cut a deal with Putin failing and Marco Rubio is left to go and clean. it up and answer questions like, what did we get from Putin? Here's Kristen Welker saying, you said this is not the type of person we can even do a deal with. Terry, I want to play something you said about President Putin. This was right after the invasion in March of 2022. Take a look. This guy lies, habitually lies. He's never kept a deal he'd ever signed. And he's lied. He lies all the time. And I don't know why, but he plays us like a violin in the West because the West wants to believe that you can cut a deal with everybody. Can't cut a deal with guys like this. He's a

professional, experienced liar. Mr. Secretary, given that, what makes you think that if you are able to reach a deal with President Putin, that he would stick to it based on, as you just said, he's a liar? Well, that's the point. That's why the deal has to have enforceable mechanisms in it. That's why the deal has to have things like security guarantees. That's the point I was making a few minutes ago when you were asking me about looking someone in the eye. What's important here is actions, not words. Notice he's not addressing the hypocrisy of what he previously said when it was Biden that was president. It's not paper, document.

Those are all important. Those are elements of a deal, but they have to be enforceable. They have to be verifiable. They have to be enduring. There's no point here in signing a deal that's going to be violated in three or four months. There's no point in doing that. It actually would make things worse. So that's why this is such a.

difficult thing. Not only do you need a deal, you need a deal that's verifiable, that's enforceable, and that's enduring. If you don't achieve that, then I think you could have a ceasefire for a few months, a few weeks, and then the war will start again and more people will die. But of course, the question was, how do you square that you said you can't do deals with a guy like Putin with now saying Trump's going to do a deal and we ask for a lot of things and you just need mechanisms of enforcement? Well, where was that analysis when it was Joe Biden who was president. And of course, it didn't exist because this is all just partisan nonsense, the sort of stuff that you're sick of and I'm sick of and is part of why voters don't trust or like

our elected officials because they just spin. Very nicely, you know, it is always interesting to see people's own words played back at them. Welker didn't even need an argument. It's like just press play. Here's what you said. Why are you now saying something completely different? Rubio's boxed in. He can't possibly defend the summit and what he said in 2022. So he just goes, oh, we need enforcement mechanisms and verifiability. But the bigger picture, of course, and you know this, is that Trumpists keep getting caught contradicting themselves. The past statements expose the hypocrisy. They knew Putin couldn't be trusted. They knew it in 2022. They know it now. The difference is Trump's determined to be the dealmaker that he sees himself, you know, really a legend.

in his own mind. They're bending over backward to justify why this summit even happened. They're now bending over backwards to even say there were concessions. Well, what were they? Well, we asked for stuff. Well, what did you ask for? I'm not going to tell you. So I hope we see more of this from legacy and corporate media. The best fact check against Trump world really isn't pundits or esoteric arguments or whatever. The best argument against these people is their own past selves captured on video and seen in the way that we are seeing it here. Now, today, Trump's meeting with Zelensky. What do we expect? First and foremost, it is a very different environment. Trump traveling to Alaska to meet Putin, Zelensky coming to the Oval Office, red carpet

for Putin laid out by soldiers on their hands and knees in Alaska. No red carpet at the White House for Vladimir Zelensky. Trump in the last five hours before we taped today's show has been shifting closer and closer to Putin's demands to Putin saying, you know, I think we want to keep all of Crimea. Trump's like, I think Putin's going to keep all of Crimea. So questions about is Trump being blackmailed are rising? I am not going to put the cart before the horse. Let's see what comes out of the Zelensky meeting.

Let's check Trump's attitude after the Zelensky meeting compared to how he behaved and sort of his tone after the Putin meeting. But most importantly, does anyone concede anything at this point? And do we take even half a baby step towards ending this war? On the bonus show today, controversy over what Zelensky wore today to meet with Trump. This is what they care about. It's unbelievable. We will talk about an AI-driven jobless recovery that is being discussed increasingly by economists,

which I think is super interesting. And then also, what is important to keep in mind as Republican governors are increasingly planning to send National Guard units to Washington, D.C. By the way, they're sending them overwhelmingly to the parts of D.C. that don't even have a crime problem. It's all staged. It's all theatrics, but it's the way Trump operates. All of those stories and more will be on today's bonus show.

Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else makes money to find themselves as bad. Sure. Sign up at join packman.com. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll see you back here tomorrow.