The David Pakman Show - 8/28/25: DC fiasco grows as Governor drops dementia bomb

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

-- On the Show: -- David responds to a Wired article that names him and other creators in connection with the progressive group Chorus and clarifies there is no content control or direction from the organization -- Trey Gowdy says on Fox News that the country must confront keeping firearms out of the hands of young men after school shootings while Sean Hannity suggests metal detectors as the answer -- Congressman Josh Brecheen faces angry constituents at a town hall who challenge him on false claims about the Trump economy and demand answers about high drug and grocery prices -- Grocery prices rise as stores pass Trump’s new tariffs directly to consumers undermining his promises that foreign countries would pay for them -- Rising prices, layoffs, and tariffs create inflation and early signs of a downturn that could become a severe Trump recession -- A federal judge orders the closure of Trump and Ron DeSantis’s $245 million Everglades detention camp exposing waste and donor enrichment -- Gavin Newsom uses Elon Musk’s Grok AI and Trump’s repeated falsehoods to suggest Trump shows signs of dementia sparking viral reactions -- Trump claims Washington restaurants are booming, but data shows his crackdown and rising costs are actually hurting the industry -- Congressman Mike Collins is caught on a hot mic saying Trump’s name is in Jeffrey Epstein’s files -- After Robert F. Kennedy Jr fires CDC Director Susan Monarez, four top officials resign in protest, accusing the administration of pushing anti-science policies -- Japan’s top trade negotiator cancels a planned Washington visit, citing “technical” issues with the deal, exposing Trump’s weakened leverage after cutting tariffs from 25% to 15% without securing concessions -- On the Bonus Show: Putin escalates strikes against Ukraine, prosecutors are unable to get an indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent, 25 countries suspend postal service to the US over tariffs, and much more... 🔬 Freedom From Religion Foundation: Text DAVID to 511511 or visit https://ffrf.us/school ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🌳 MyHeritage: Discover your family roots for FREE for 14 days at https://davidpakman.com/myheritage -- 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

All right. I was not even going to talk about this because I hate participating in the drama. I hate the circular firing squad that often builds on the left. But it's really important that my audience know what's going on. So I am going to talk about it. I was named in an article in Wired yesterday. And the article is about a so-called dark money group. on the left called chorus and I'm named in the article along with other creators as

being part of the group and since this article came out I've heard from a bunch of you David did you sell out David is the DNC telling you what to say how could you do this to us I knew back in 2021 when you had the following to say that you must have been getting paid by someone and here's the proof. And I was not even going to give this the time of day, but my relationship with you, my actual audience, is the most important thing. And so I decided to do this segment. I also was told that other creators, like a Twitch streamer named Hassan Piker, were covering this in ways that don't reflect the reality of the situation and are perpetuating falsehoods about what is and isn't going on. Now, I can't speak to the motives of the people that

wrote the article or those that are reacting to it. I can't get in their heads. All I can do is tell you what's going on. And then you can judge and you can make an assessment of me. Now, I also want to mention, I'm aware that many of the people I'm hearing of aren't even part of my audience. They're doing the, well, now I'm unsubscribing and they mostly were never subscribed. And so I'm aware of that, but it doesn't matter because I want to make sure my audience hears from me about this. Now, the most important thing to say is that the idea behind this group is exactly what I've been advocating for for years. It's for years I've been saying the left needs to organize independent media in the way that the right has been doing.

The left needs to fund independent creators the way that the right does. The right has won even arguably presidential elections because they're organized with regard to online and independent media. They're killing us. We've been so behind. And this kind of support for creators is exactly what I've been advocating for. Now, the article is riddled with inaccuracies. and they're not minor inaccuracies. First and foremost, this group has nothing to do with the DNC.

People writing saying, the Democratic Party is telling people what to say. At its base, the group has nothing to do with the DNC period. Number two, I do not get clearance for anything I say. I do not run interview questions by anyone at chorus. I don't tell chorus when I'm going to be doing an interview. Not a single segment I have done, not a single question I've ever asked a guest has anything to do with chorus. They don't tell me what to talk about. They don't tell me who to interview.

They don't tell me how to cover a story. There are no restrictions of any kind on my content. I've never covered a story because chorus suggested I do it. I've never not covered a story because chorus suggested I not do it. There is no content relationship of any kind. So what does chorus do? They run technical trainings, how to produce content, how to make your operation more efficient. How do you take a small shop of one, two or three people and put content out on multiple platforms

the way I've been doing successfully for decades? They set up mentorship relationships between larger creators like me and small up and coming creators who are looking to do content, which is something I've said for years we need to be doing. They do advocacy trainings. They do media trainings. How do you deal with adversarial media, reporters with bad intentions who contact you? They do legal training. So we understand how is the right wing machine potentially going to come after us?

How do you organize your business to be protected? That's what they do. And I want to make this really clear. And I know that 99% of my actual audience knows this. If this was a group or an organization that required me to get permission before saying things or fed me talking points or told me, David, talk about this and not about that or anything like that, I would never be part of it, period. who knows me would know that. Now, I'm one of the larger creators in the current cohort. I want to

help others grow. I want to mentor people. I want to grow the left media space. That's something I've been advocating for for years. And now the circular firing squad is getting going. You look at tick-tack. You look at these different platforms, people going after each other. Most of it based on misunderstandings or misreporting about what's happening. Now, let me go to another aspect of this. I've seen messages like, oh, David, when you said X in 2024, that must have been because they told you to. Oh, David, this explains your take on Bolivia from 2017. Now I get why you said that. Or when you did that interview in 2022, it must have been because chorus told you to. Even if you wrongly believed that I was now completely compromised by my participation in this

group, this thing is brand new. It's like eight weeks old or something like that, maybe 10 weeks old, something like this. So the revisionism of going back and going, now I understand why David, not only are they not directing content today, this thing is brand new. So that's just like impossible. other thing I want to mention. The article identifies my friend Brian Tyler Cohen as the co-founder of this group. And now he's being attacked as well. His motives being impugned. Brian worked on this as a volunteer. He has spent hundreds of hours for not a penny on this project solely because he

like me believes we need this type of organization on the left. They're killing us on the the right. He doesn't need to be doing this for himself. He's trying to do this to build up left-wing content creators as am I. And so the framing of Brian is some kind of villain in this entire thing. It's just farcical and pathetic. So the bottom line is we need more of this on the left, not less. We need more organization and infrastructure and people understanding how do you build a content machine? How do you produce a podcast? How do you grow an audience? How do you distribute it? How do you organize your day? What's your YouTube setup like? The article is designed to attack and degrade, I can't speak to the motives of the people behind it, so I won't even

speculate. My involvement is, as I've described it here, there's nothing more and there's nothing less. It's up to you to decide whether you trust a particular creator. It's up to you to decide what sort of structural organization the left should pursue. But what I can tell you is that the circular firing squad is how the left loses. We start turning each other over what at the end of the day? So I'm sick of the losing. I'm trying to win.

Join me if you also are trying to win. And then maybe we can have some better outcomes in future elections. We finally got a Republican to admit we should look at ready access to guns. There was a horrific shooting yesterday in Minnesota. We, it is believed that the shooter was to some degree motivated by anti-Semitism. There were anti-Semitic elements of stuff scrawled on weapons. And we're still getting the details. The details are it's yet another shooting.

Okay. So we had another one. Trey Gowdy went on TV and said, we should have a conversation about. freedom to have guns versus protecting children and isn't it time to have a conversation about keeping firearms out of what is mostly young white males listen to this their our system is reactive something bad happens we react to it and what people are crying for now is how can we prevent this how can we stop it and the only way to stop it is to identify the shooter

ahead of time or keep the weapons out of their hands. And so we're going to have to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. I mean, how many school shootings does it take before we're going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out? It's always

a young, white male. Almost always. I mean, did anyone this morning think, I wonder if that was a female? Did any of y'all think that? I mean, there's been one school shooting involving a female. One. Tennessee.

But other than that, it is usually young white males. But do we not worry how laws on the books? Now, someone off Mike is yelling about laws that are on the books. Now, there is some additional controversy to Trey Gowdy's comments about it being a young white male because it appears as though the perpetrator in this case had a trans identity. I don't even want to get into that. I just wanted. We can discuss those elements later.

Trey Gowdy, even remotely willing to say, maybe keeping guns out of people's hands in the first place is something that has to be balanced with the so-called freedom to have guns. Now, Sean Hannity has a very different idea. He wants metal detectors at the schools. The problem, these kids were in a church and the gun person fired through a window. So I don't know what a metal detector in school would do. And here's the saddest part. school shootings are preventable and simple basic common sense actions can mitigate these tragedies

if we have the desire to stop school shootings this is the first thing you should do every school in the country should have a metal detector uh you have them at airports you have when you're around elected politicians by the way they have armed guards around them uh you have to control the entry of kids and the perimeter around every school and by the way the way the way I would do it, I would hire retired military, trained law enforcement, retired with concealed carries. They should be in every school in the country, along with metal detectors, along with a secure perimeter. Now, for these people that you hire, you could even do it and not pay them. What do you mean? Hannity, everybody's going to work. All right, Hannity, now is talking about volunteer people

or whatever the case may be. We have a situation here where there is one side that never wants to talk about the gun aspect. It's either the doors that were unlocked, that's the problem per Ted Cruz, or it's there was no metal detector, or it's mental illness, or it's video games, or it's woke, or whatever the case may be. At a certain point, if the tool that continually is used is guns, we've got to look at access to the tool. Now, I'm the first to tell you, Mental illness is often a component. Most mentally ill people, as loosely defined, are never violent. Most.

Sometimes mental illness is an issue. But these very same Republicans are the ones trying to cut social programs who don't want the possibility of having mental health professionals rather than armed police respond in certain scenarios to people who have 911 called on them. These are the people who insist when we want to talk about guns. the problem is mental illness. But when we want to talk about funding programs to treat mental illness, they say, no, we don't have the money for that.

Let's actually strip care from people. So I'm not pretending that Trey Gowdy is now the ultimate arbiter of truth on gun safety and regulations and gun violence. But he's at least at the point where he's ready to say all of the talk about freedom, the freedom to have guns, right, the Second Amendment, as the highest and most the top priority virtue is freedom to have guns. There has to be some balance and that balance may be keeping guns out of the hands of certain people. Maybe we're turning a corner in terms of this discussion with Republicans, but I don't really think so. Republican Congressman Josh Brechin was just

torched by his own constituents at a town hall. It was not subtle and it was very ugly. Josh represents Oklahoma, people in the audience going after him about Donald Trump's failed promises on drug prices, Trump's failed promises on grocery prices, which we're going to get into a little bit later. These town halls are not going to go well for these Republicans for as long as Trump keeps failing to deliver on promise after promise after promise. Listen to this. I had a couple of related questions.

One is I've heard President Trump say more than once that he has lowered drug prices by 1,500 percent. I'm not sure how that works. And the other is, can you tell me what specific bills we've passed or worked on that would lower grocery prices? Yeah. Well, ma'am, you're talking about things relative to state level. And so you're mixing federal and state.

Wait, hold on a second. Hold on a second. This crowd is not going to buy that. The question was, Trump made certain promises. Tell me, Congressman, what has been done for Donald Trump to keep those promises? And now Bruchin goes, well, some of these things are state level. Where were the Republicans when Trump was campaigning on lowering the price of everything? Where were the Republicans who should have said, you know, these aren't really promises that Trump should make because these are state level issues. No, they went along with it.

They said Trump's going to be the guy to lower prices. In terms of if you look at what the 18-enumerated powers say, the 18-Numerate powers that every member of Congress holds up their hands swears an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. And most people who run for Congress don't know those 18-enumerated powers. And they don't know the 10th Amendment that says the power is not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states or reserved to the states or their people respectively.

Remember that he was asked for a list of bills, not hearing that. And so what I'm saying to you is, Oklahoma, if you want to have that conversation about grocery taxes, they've been having that conversation. Grocery taxes, what is he even talking about? It's a mush-mouthed meltdown. And there is something telling about these town halls. You know, you can certainly campaign by screaming about the border. You can do it and sometimes you win. You can campaign by yelling about Hunter Biden. And sometimes that'll help you win. But then you're in power. And you sit down with constituents, which these Republicans are increasingly unwilling to do for obvious reasons.

And when they say, wait a second, I still can't afford my medications. The grocery prices haven't come down. Electricity's up 10%. What is going on here? And then they don't have answers. It's not going to work. And what we, of course, knew is that the Trump economy was never designed to solve these problems. The Trump economy was really a branding economy.

exercise. It was a PR campaign and the applause lines are how you measure success. Household budgets getting more balanced is not even part of it. And the problem now for Republicans like Ruchin is that voters are noticing the promises get bigger and bigger and bigger. The numbers get more absurd. We're going to cut energy by 50%. We're going to cut it by 100%. We're going to cut it by 1,500 but then they get their grocery bill and it's a piece of hard data that can't be spun. The question as always is 14 and a half months from now when hopefully half of the voters go to the polls right turnout in these midterms is very low 14 and a half months from now at the midterms are voters going to hold the people in power accountable because Republicans have the

White House Republicans have the House Republicans have the Senate Republicans also control in this case it's Oklahoma Republicans overwhelmingly control Oklahoma as well there's not a Democrat in sight to blame are they? going to hold those Republicans accountable? I don't know the answer. Part of my job is to encourage them to do so. And that's increasingly going to be a conversation. So let me know what you think. Info at David Pakman.com. Make sure you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash the David Pakman show. There was a time when public education meant learning math, science, history, but now we are seeing Bible verses in biology class.

We're seeing 10 commandments on the wall, religious chaplains taking the place of trained counselors, and it's all funded by taxpayer money through voucher programs that are sending public dollars to private religious schools. This is part of a broader effort to inject religion into public education. I'm against that. And it often is coming at the expense of real academic standards and the well-being of the being of the students. Now our sponsor, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, is fighting back.

FFRF defends constitutional principles, takes legal action when schools cross the line, and protects students from religious coercion in public classrooms. If you believe in facts in protecting education and keeping religion out of public schools, I can tell you this is an organization very much worth supporting. To get involved, go to ffrf.org slash school or text David to 511-511. Message and data rates may apply. The link is in the description. Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists.

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

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description one of the problems with putting all of your eggs in one basket is that then all your eggs are in that basket and you live and die by whether those eggs hatch i'm talking about groceries donald trump staked much of his campaign and i'm going to bring grocery prices down and i'm going to bring grocery prices down quickly that isn't happening we learned last week that wholesale produce prices were up 40 percent and so as we see grocery prices go up We start to see grocery stores pass these higher wholesale prices onto consumers. That means you will pay more for your whatever you buy. And that is the opposite of what Donald Trump promised.

You will recall, I'm sure, that Donald Trump told the supporters that foreign countries are going to pay for his tariffs, just like Mexico was going to pay for the wall. Just like prescription drugs are going to drop by 1,500 percent, certainly mathematically improbable thing and gas was going to be under $2 a gallon again, just like when Trump left and it was a $1.87, even though it wasn't, it was actually more like $250. And just like every single one of these economic fairy tales that Trump tells, the truth is that every economist knows how these things work. Every eighth grade civics teacher knows how these things work. And we know that we are the ones paying for it. We are going to pay for it at the checkout line. There's a new

report and it confirms what shoppers are already seeing in their grocery carts. It's funny because by the time we get reports, actual people living in the economy, just trying to live for a living, for lack of a better term, they go, yeah, I know, I'm already seeing that when I go to the checkout. A grocery chains are passing the costs that are happening to a degree because of Trump's tariffs onto consumers. So it's not the corporate greed that we sometimes hear about. This is just math. It's arithmetic. Tariffs are an import tax. The importer, be it Walmart, Kroger, Target, by the way, places where increasingly people get their grocery stores, get their groceries, Walmart and Target, not necessarily always assumed to be that's where people

are going. Those importers pay the tax to import, and then they raise prices to cover it. Now, groceries are particularly interesting because the margins are really thin. Net margins on groceries are often one to two percent. And so you might say, well, Mercedes-Benz is going to eat some, most or all of the tariffs. All right. Well, grocery stores can't do that. And they're not doing it. You are the one who is going to bear that increased cost. And I know some of you again are saying, David, this is so obvious. It's already happening. That's right. It is obvious. Unless you live inside of, you know, a Fox News studio where tariffs magically punish China while leaving. Americans unscathed. We've seen this movie before. You look at Biden's administration. Republicans were screaming about Biden inflation, even though global inflation was hitting every major economy and the inflation rate declined in the U.S. under Biden more quickly than in any other Western wealthy nation. We now have Trump. With Trump manufacturing an entirely unnecessary round of price hikes and the same voices that we're complaining about Biden inflation are trying

to figure out how can we spin this to keep blaming Joe Biden, even though it has everything to do with Donald Trump. And there's sort of a sick irony there. And the reason I call it sick is people are suffering as a result of this. The MAGA base that voted for tariffs to own the liberals are now paying more for coffee, But the beautiful espresso beans that I used to pay 1549 for are now 1849. Same amount, 12 ounces, still beautifully medium roast, no complaints there, hints of chocolate and cherries.

Anyway, it's now 18, 18 bucks and change rather than 15 bucks in change. People are paying more for meat. People are paying more for produce. And Trump is bragging about, look at all the money we're raising from China. even though it's American companies that are paying for it. So Trump's voters are still going to tell you that they're winning and Trump's doing everything right. These are the people who thought painting the border fence black might stop migrants because

it'll be too hot to touch or something like that. And now they are thinking Walmart is going to eat 15% cost increase on groceries, 30% increase on groceries. So this really goes beyond political ideology. This is like cause effect. If you increase the cost of importing stuff, you're going to increase. increase the cost to consumers. That's the way it's going to work. If you pretend otherwise, it's like a flat earth theory. It's that delusional. Now, meanwhile, Americans make an adjustment.

What is the adjustment? Well, you can buy less. You can buy cheaper stuff. You can swipe the credit card and accrue debt and hope for the best. None of that is good economically. And then we've got to wait and see the political consequences. I know I said this last segment. Will voters connect the dots between here's what's happening at the register and here's the guy who said everything will be cheaper. Will they connect the dots and punish the right people? And in the meantime, we have the potential for a recession. We now are looking everywhere and we see prices up. I already discussed grocery bills are climbing coffee egg staples, up double digits. And somehow Donald Trump supporters are insisting everything is fine. Now they go, prices go up every year. Where were they when it was

Joe Biden's economy and declining inflation? Where were they on prices go up every year? And the same people who screamed about Biden inflation are now amateur economists. And so we have to talk about the political consequences here. What should be done with regard to taxing and regulating corporations, price gouging, tariffs, child, the earned income tax credit. All of these different elements of the economy work together to lead to a very general question, are you getting ahead financially relative to where you were under Biden or are you falling further behind? What we get from this administration in a sense is fairy tales.

We get fairy tales about big, beautiful factories coming back any day now. We get fairy tales about bringing back manufacturing, even though the manufacturing index saw its largest decline in five years dating back to COVID in March, April of 2020, just a couple of months ago. And so then you start hearing about, well, maybe we will do a Doge dividend, thanks to all the waste, fraud, and abuse that Doge found. By the way, I'm still waiting for the arrests for the fraud. Fraud is a crime. If they found it, then someone should pay. Zero arrests. Who's even talking about it anymore? They forgot about it just like all of the broken promises.

And then are they going to say, voters, that is, I need to hold the right people accountable here. Now, the numbers paint a brutal picture. And I always hesitate about, oh, there's going to be a recession at this point in time, at that point in time. You go back to 2014. There are pundits who have been predicting recessions going back to 2014. They happened to have the COVID downturn, which was relatively brief. But otherwise, they've just been doing the sky is falling for 11 years. So I'm not big on that. What I am big on is data. Amazon has laid off more than 22,000 workers this year. Other tech companies have done the same. John Deere has laid people off. Wages aren't keeping pace and we still have inflation in the sense that prices are going up. So we are now waiting for

the dealmaker in chief to make the deals. He slapped tariffs on goods we can't even produce domestically. He told us that countries are going to come running to him. By the way, Japan just canceled their trip to come negotiate. They don't seem eager to negotiate. But Trump said the countries are going to come running because they're going to need to. And then now they're talking about Doge dividend checks. Under Biden, stimulus checks were socialism, dangerous socialism, sloppy Soviet socialism. Under Trump, the idea of a doge dividend, aka a stimulus check, is something that his base is cheering for. They say it's great. Under Biden, the fact that inflation was greater than zero was proof of Biden's failure. Under Trump, inflation being greater than zero,

Despite Trump promising real price declines is just part of how the economy works. It's part of Trump's master plan. So the worst case scenario right now, I hope this doesn't happen. The worst case scenario is prices keep going up and we see a hiring issue. We get into stagflation. Unlike a normal recession, there's no sign that if this current scenario put us into a recession, prices would come down. Sometimes recessions do lead to declining prices.

But right now, when you look at the erratic tariffs, the hostility to the regulatory stability, the political meddling with the Fed, all of this points to if we got to a Trump recession, it would probably be one where prices don't come down. Now, the Wright loves to mock Trump derangement syndrome. Oh, it's all about Trump. What we are seeing right now is a cult-like refusal to admit that. Trump's policies are harming them. If you want to use the term Trump derangement syndrome, it's the people who refuse to acknowledge that Trump's policies aren't good for them. They seem

committed to defending these policies and wrecking their finances. Now, we've been here before. You go back to 1929. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs help turn a downturn into the Great Depression. And Trump's running a playbook that is disturbingly, disturbingly similar. So, We can call it Trumpflation, we can call it the Trump session, you know, whatever the branding is, we have a bill here that is coming due. And unless something changes, it's going to get very ugly. Now, the hope is to save face, someone will get to Trump and go, you need an off ramp, sir. We need some kind of off ramp here.

And hopefully Trump listens. Remember Alligator, Alcatraz, the $245 million Everglades detention camp. that Ron De Sanctimonious built to serve Donald Trump's mass deportation machine, it is already shutting down. A federal judge has ruled they've got a shutdown alligator Alcatraz within 60 days. They're not allowing new detainees to go there. Now this was supposed to be like this shiny flagship, a shiny prison on a hill, even though it's not really a hill, it's more of a swamp that Donald Trump could point to to say, look

at how great I'm doing here. Thousands of migrants warehoused in what are essentially tents surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of hurricane country. And it has become a case study, not only in failed leadership, but also in corruption. Let me explain why. Florida taxpayers fronted a quarter of a billion dollars to pay for this thing, plus an estimated $450 million a year to run it. The facility is going to be dismantled.

dismantling it is going to cost 15 to 20 million dollars where did the money go this is the corruption part the money went straight into the pockets of the well-connected contractors this is the swamp fit it's a figurative and literal swab filling because of where they built this thing the friends of ronda sanctimonious the buddy buddy cronyism nepotism et cetera they came in and they participated in these 245 million dollars in contracts. There were no bid contracts. Companies like critical response strategies linked directly to a DeSantis donor. Longview Solutions got 25 million for site prep, site prep for, you know, tents on swampland. Gothams did the IT contracting for $21 million. None of it was for fiscal responsibility. This was

was about rewarding allies and donors. They built it. Trump went down there. They got the photo op. And now they're going to dismantle the entire thing. Now, there are critics who fear that this is part of a rinse and repeat scheme. They built a useless facility. The contractors got paid out.

Now it gets dismantled. They lost in court. Well, now they can do it again somewhere else. Maybe they can build one in Texas. Maybe they can build one in Oklahoma. And of course, for Trump and DeSantis, cruelty was the point. The photo op is what mattered, the conditions in which these migrants were housed, reports of just swarms of mosquitoes, just biting the hell out of people.

And now the entire thing is going to get shut down. And even though Trump told us he was going to drain the swamp, he's been filling it. The move is you take public money, you funnel it to insiders, it gets shut down in court, You say, my enemies didn't let me do it. And everybody got rich who participated. This is how you run a government if what you're trying to do is just enrich your friends. And of course, that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. Are they going to hold them accountable at the ballot box?

I just don't think so. I don't, you know, this, as you might say, David, it's such a simple story. They built this thing and gave money to contractors and now it gets shut down. It's like open corruption. How could voters not get it? You, they elected Trump twice, okay? So if you think that this is a country that holds absurdity and stupidity accountable, I've got a bridge to sell you. Your personal data is everywhere and you might not even know people search sites and data brokers are quietly publishing your name, address, phone number, even things like property records, political views.

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removals feature included in the unlimited plan. They've got their 250 plus sites where removal is automated. But if you find your information anywhere else, you can custom submit that and they will have it removed manually. This is serious protection. Using Incogni can cut way down on the spam calls and the messages that you get. Fewer risks, more control over your identity. Try it risk-free for 30 days and get 60% off an annual plan. When you go to incogny.com slash Pacman, the link is in the description. We have now reached the point where a top governor is openly saying Donald Trump has dementia. This started with a simple question from Gavin Newsom to Elon Musk's grok AI, which is like a funny

little detail, by the way, in response to a clip of Donald Trump repeating once again, we're sending gallons and gallons of water to the ocean, we're just dumping, dumping, dumping. Gavin Newsom posted to his Twitter account, a question asked of Grock, the AI run by Twitter and Elon Musk, do people with dementia repeat false things over and over again? As I told you yesterday, Grock's answer was, yes, people with dementia can repeat false statements or beliefs, a behavior often linked to memory impairments and cognitive changes. This can manifest as confabulation, which, where they create or repeat false memories to fill gaps in recollection or perseveration, where they fixate on a particular idea or statement.

Then Gavin Newsom posted the exchange alongside Donald Trump ranting and raving about, you know, water and wildfires and whatever. And Donald Trump in typical fashion responded by referring to Gavin Newsom as Gavin Newscum saying he's got strange hand action, which is a really weird choice given that Donald Trump's own hands have been the subject of, we've, really between Trump's tiny hands as an old topic and now Trump's bruised hands. Trump's hands are the last thing I'd be talking about if I was him. And the reaction was swift. Immediately dementia dawn trended as a hashtag online and a whole bunch of nicknames were rolled out, ancient orange, trumple stiltskin, velvita, Voldemore.

Somewhat darker, America's fattest pedophile. I would never do stuff like that. I mean, that's just very, very low, low grade stuff. But there were people out there who were saying it, of course, related to Donald Trump's alleged involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. I want to go beneath the humor because I think there's something really significant here. The hypocrisy in Maga world on this issue isn't a bug. It's really the point.

And I read a comment online that said something like. the fascist mind, the cult member mind, does not care about consistency. Arguments are just weapon. That's all it is. Well, here's what you all used to say about Biden, but now you're not applying it to Trump. We think that exposing the double standard matters, but they don't care about it. It doesn't make a difference. It's not useful to them to care about being logically consistent.

They'll just come up with what they can come up with to attack someone they don't like. And then if the same thing would apply to a greater degree even to their guy or gal, they don't talk about it. And when their argument stops working, you drop it, you pick up something else, even if it contradicts the last thing. Trump isn't in the Epstein files. And also, he's in there because Hillary Clinton made the Epstein files and put him in there. Wait, so are you in there or aren't you?

Both pick the one you want. It's like Madlibs or something like that. And this dementia angle is stinging Trump, according to people close to them, because the dementia angle combined with the health angle, the, you know, the cancels and Donald Trump's bruised hands and his swollen eyes and the entire thing, they can't seem to shake it. And even though corporate and legacy media wasn't talking about it for a while, now they are talking about it. Now I'm regularly getting emails from people in the audience who say, you know, David, I have or

I had an elderly relative with cognitive decline, and they would repeat the same old crap just the way Trump does. They would speak incoherently. What Trump describes as the weave, which is the inability really to stay on topic and to actually sequentially and logically think through a topic, that's what my elderly relative did, the inability to process new information, relying on the same stories and phrases that go back decades in many cases. And it's also been pointed out that the cognitive test that Trump brags about, you would only

be given such a test if dementia or brain injury were suspected. And that passing it doesn't mean you're fine. It just means it's not so bad you can't identify a camel in a picture book. And that's not really an accomplishment to write home about. So what I think is kind of brilliant and interesting about a governor starting. to talk about this. It's not the insult. Anybody can insult. Trump's being forced into a lose-lose because if Trump doesn't respond, we have growing consensus from high-level officials that something's going on with Trump. That's not good for Trump. On the other hand, if Trump does

respond and goes, I passed a brain injury test, Gavin Newsom's wrong. It keeps the story in the news cycle. And if Trump ever tries to use it as an excuse to dodge legal trouble in the future. Oh, he, he, imagine the lawyer said, no, no, no, he was cognitively declining. He didn't know right from wrong. Then he just looks like a liar. And so Democrats are often allergic to playing hardball. I can't think of many Democrats that are actually fighting now. Newsom's fighting. Newsom's trying to redistrict in order to get Democrats more seats. Newsom's going right after Trump. Newsom's doing the dementia bomb stuff. And I think a lot of people are kind of tired of the joy and optimism that some Democrats are pushing in the face

an authoritarian movement. This is a movement that thrives on humiliating people and dominating people. And I'm pleased that Gavin Newsome is willing to throw a punch. It's rare in the Democratic Party right now. Now, in the end, whether Trump's decline is only mental, only physical, the culmination of decades of malignant narcissism, it kind of doesn't really matter. What matters here is the emperor has no clothes, no straight line. to walk, literally, Trump having trouble walking a straight line.

And he doesn't even have coherent thoughts to finish. So I like Democrats pointing this out. Relentlessly, you can use humor sometimes. You can use bite. You can use snark. But that is going to make it harder for even Fox News viewers to ignore that it smells like something is rotting here. I'm glad Newsom is doing this.

Let me know what you think. The DC plan is blowing up and completely backfiring. The Trump administration wants you to believe that since federal troops poured into Washington, D.C., it's safer, it's cleaner, and the economy of D.C. is booming. Now, it may be cleaner because Trump has members of the military picking up trash, as we talked about yesterday. Not exactly the mission the National Guard was trained for. But put that aside for a moment.

Here is Donald Trump insisting that thanks to him, D.C.'s economy is booming. The restaurants used to be closed, but now they're open. This is according to Trump. A lot of good things are happening for our country, a lot of really good things. The thing we're here today to talk about is crime and specifically in D.C., I am so proud of what these people, every one of them, what they've done in D.C. Because to literally stop crime on a button, I'd walk down that street right down. I were friends of mine are going out to dinner now.

They haven't gone out to dinner in four years. They were petrified. Half the restaurants closed because nobody could go because they're afraid to go outside. Now those restaurants are opening. And new restaurants are opening up. Now, this is not true. This is what we call a lie. I know it's so old fashioned.

David, what? Whoever heard of the term lie? Well, that's what it is. Trump is saying half of the restaurants used to be closed. People were too scared to go outside. Now that the city is occupied by federal forces. It's blowing up. It's booming.

That is not the case. I was in D.C. a few weeks ago, everything was open. The restaurants were full. As I told you, I went to Haleo and sat next to Scott Besson at the next table over. Everything was packed. It was hard to get reservations, in fact. We now are getting reports that reservations are down 30 or more percent. There is, first of all, no evidence anywhere that half of the city's restaurants had shut down

because of safety fears. A local chefs and, you know, owners say, the problem we're having is now. We now have a problem because of Trump's crackdown. When you see an armed presence outside the restaurant, it doesn't exactly make for an inviting dining environment. I'm not looking to sit on a patio as D.C. finally starts to cool as we head into the fall. If there's going to be a platoon, I don't even know, excuse me, I don't know the term, a group of members of the military walking by.

And the data backs this up. You could say, well, Trump has one opinion. You have another. The chefs have another. You look at open table numbers. Open tables, the app for making reservations for restaurants. Open table numbers show that reservations dropped as much as 31% year over year on some days. So like comparing, you know, August 26th this year to August 26th last year.

This even included restaurant week, which is normally when things are the busiest. The city's restaurant association reports that. in the first half of 2025, D.C. saw two restaurant closures per week, more than 50 in total. And that's a 17% drop in new openings compared to last year. So that's a DC problem more broadly. And then you've also got the rising costs as a result of Trump's tariffs. The phase out of the tipped wage system is making things more expensive. There are long time establishments that are struggling for other reasons. But the idea that Trump has created a boomtown before the military occupation or since, it's not backed up by any data whatsoever.

Now, like with many of the economic moves that we've seen under this administration, this was optional. There was no real emergency that required Donald Trump to get involved in this way. And unfortunately, it's the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything Trump touches. turns to coal, not to stone. And in the background of all of this, there's a little question that many of you have been writing to me about. Where are the Epstein files? I want to talk about that next.

A MAGA congressman has been caught on a hot mic saying Trump's name is in the Epstein files. Now, on the surface, you might be saying this is a political nuke. This is the end for Trump. But it's really not. It's really not. Let me play it for you. This is Georgia Republican Mike Collins.

He says he's sure Trump's in the Epstein files, but the interpretation of this is what's most important. Let's listen to this and then talk about it. I want to get to ask my question, which was, you know, party unity, the Epstein trials, Epstein files. I mean, do you think Trump's in there? Yeah, I'm sure he's in there because he's the one that was telling the FBI about it. He's the one to kick them to keep the guy out of Marlago. you're being called the fbi i yeah he's in there so what's going to happen are you going to release oh we need to release you want to do i have no problem release but you know you've got to go through

the you got to go through the judicial we all know that if the problem it is all right so colin says at the beginning there i'm sure he's in there i'm sure he's in there i think it's important just to be very honest about this the fact that trump appears to be in the epstein fight let me I want to go back. The belief that Trump is in the Epstein files because members of the House and Senate are saying it and because we now know that Trump was briefed by Pam Bondi and was told you're in the Epstein files. Just being in the Epstein files doesn't mean or prove that Donald Trump did the worst

of the worst that is possible. Trump being in the Epstein files could be. And this is why we just need to see them. We just want transparency. I don't want to allege anything that's not in the data. Right now what we can say is Trump's in the Epstein files. He could plausibly be in there merely because he was associated with Epstein. They knew a lot of the same people.

They hung out together per Epstein, they were friends. It might be as far as that. There might not be a single allegation in there that Donald Trump actually did anything illegal with an underage girl or any of it. We just don't know one way or the other. Trump being in the files is sort of obvious because of his connections. But the fact that he promised transparency, although when it then became more specific, will you release these files?

He was, I don't know, you know, you don't want to wrap up people and stuff that they had nothing to do with. The fact that they have not released them after people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino and others said, under Trump, you will get full transparency. That's what's suspicious. That is what's suspicious. It is also true that Trump is in a situation. where releasing the files and not releasing the files, both could hurt him with his most

diehard supporters. Because on the one hand, if he doesn't release them, his diehard supporters will go, wait a second, we were told that this was going to be transparent and he's not doing it. On the other hand, if he releases him and he is in there, depending on what is in there, his supporters could say, wait a second, the calls are coming from inside the house. Trump is the very problem that he said he was going to fix. So I think there is a decent chance, a decent chance that Trump's involvement is what we might describe as creepy, but not in illegal territory.

I believe that that's the most likely scenario, but we just don't know. I hope that the files do come out. We need to understand that when we start hyping these pseudo bombshells without really knowing what's in there. It is a story that Trump's in the files, but we should be careful not to go beyond where the evidence puts us. So I don't think there's a silver bullet, to be perfectly frank, I think no matter what's in the files, Trump survives it, because there will be enough people who say, well, I don't know that I really believe what's in there. If it's really bad, Trump is going to be able to manufacture consent around Comey really did create the files.

Obama created the files, whatever. So I think if we want to win, we need to find. We need to focus on what moves people. We need to stick to what we know. And for now, it's demand the transparency Trump promised. If he's in there to a degree that's a crime, then we will talk about it. What do you think Trump's involvement in the Epstein files is? Let me know what you think in a comment. I've been researching my family tree for years. And the tool that I keep coming back to is my heritage. I started using it long before they ever became a sponsor. And what I love about my heritage. What really makes it powerful are the features that simplify building the family tree. The other day, I used instant discoveries to uncover an entire new branch of my family.

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My Heritage. The link is in the description. Donald Trump's CDC is getting brutally pounded by resignations after a disastrous firing. It has to do with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It has to do with vaccines. I don't think the subject matter is going to surprise anybody. So here's what's going on. Donald Trump's Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has sort of dropped the bomb in the CDC. And it's blowing up. Less than a month after. After being sworn in, CDC director Susan Menares has been fired. She is not going quietly. She is a respected federal scientist.

She was confirmed by the Senate in late July. She lasted about four weeks on the job. Now, why was she fired? She says she's being targeted because she would not back Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s unscientific directives and refuse to join the purge of career health experts. Two things I respect very much. for her. Now, her attorneys flat out deny that she resigned.

They said she is a person of integrity. She's devoted to science. She was fired. And the fallout didn't stop there because now four of the CDC's top officials have also resigned. This includes the chief medical officer, the head of the vaccine division, the head of infectious disease and the director of public health data. And their resignation letters are very clear in terms of blame.

They say this Trump administration is weaponizing public health. They are pushing dangerous misinformation. They've gutted budgets so that the CDC straight up can't do its job. And they also argue that this is having a human toll already. We have measles at a 30 year high. Violent attack just targeted CDC headquarters, by the way. And instead of responding to public health crises, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fired. firing the CDC's vaccine advisory panel.

They're putting in anti-vax activists who have these long discredited beliefs about vaccines and autism. And my expectation is that in September, they're going to say, we figured it out. Vaccines cause autism. Let's now start dealing with the vaccines. This is something Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been pushing for years, if not decades. It's been rejected by every credible scientific body on the planet. Now, going back to her confirmation hearings, Menares was asked about this, and she said, I have no evidence

of such a link. And that instantly put her on this collision path with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy has said they're going to announce the cause of autism next month. They've done an investigation. It looks like political theater rather than science. I'm in a reserve judgment until they tell us what the cause. of autism are. You know, it's funny because they may have to figure out which conspiracy theory do we settle

on, like which one do we actually prefer to go with. And meanwhile, the White House is saying, no, no, no, the firing made absolute sense. They said that Monarras was not aligned with Trump's agenda of making America healthy again, which I interpret as she did not agree to play politics with science. And this is a health world under Trump that wants to play politics with science. And she is warning that Kennedy's vaccine policy is going to move us back to an era where only the strong survive. And so this is more than a shakeup.

It's a collapse in the country's public health agency, good for other people for resigning. I don't want to pretend that we have a ton of tools to stop this right now. One of the best ones is states being a bulwark against this anti-science push. But even what states can do can be limited. And of course, red states probably love this crap. So it's not good. He's firing people. People are resigning.

This is not going well for those who care about science, which they have completely and totally politicized. Hey, Japan has made clear they're not going to be bullied on the trade stuff. Remember when the Trump administration told us that countries are going to be lining up to make trade deals? They're going to be just desperate to get a trade deal done with the United States after Trump put in place tariffs. Well, Japan just canceled their trip. And they've left Trump sort of standing at the door waiting for his date to pick him up.

And the date's not coming. Trump came into office again, promising that America first trade policy was. going to make other countries desperate to cut deals and to cut the deals on Trump's terms, importantly. And a terrified begging Japan and China and every country would just be terrified and begging to come to the table and make a deal because they need us more than we need them. We were told. Fast forward to today. Japan's top trade negotiator has canceled this trip to D.C. It hasn't been postponed because of bad weather. It hasn't been delayed because of an emergency, just canceled. And the reason is that Tokyo says there are technical problems

with the deal. It's not even at a point where they want to negotiate. This is what diplomats say to communicate, we're in no rush. You don't have the cards. You just don't have the cards. Now, this was supposed to be the moment where Trump's tariffs, you know, 25% on Japanese cars until they agree to terms, this was going to make Japan full. They were going to be so desperate and eager to stop this. They would say, sir, we'll accept anything. And instead, what's happening is, number one, the White House already cut the tariffs from 25 to 15 percent, negotiating against themselves.

And Japan is still not signing. Japan is still not even coming to the United States. And what they now want is for Trump to amend the reciprocal tariffs and lock in that there will be no stacking of tariffs, meaning even on the 15 percent, nothing. nothing else is going to be added. Trump gave that to the EU. And the kicker is that part of the deal includes Japan's $550 billion dollar investment package for the US and that that's free money that Trump can spend however he wants.

Trump said about that part of the deal, it's our money. We can do whatever we want. Japan is saying, wait a second, that's not true. Those monies are going to be split and decided. on based on who puts in what. And they haven't even signed off on written confirmation of the 550 billion, which Trump has already said is a done deal. So we need to zoom out here. Trump told Zelensky in the Oval Office a couple months ago, you don't have the cards. He scolded him and just pathetic, pathetically condescending. He said to Zelensky, you don't have the cards.

It seems we don't have the cards. And I hate to admit that. I wish we did have the cards. It'd be better for the country. But when Japan goes, we don't like this, we don't like that, we're not flying to the U.S. They just don't feel any urgency. Now, we have to really hold the administration accountable for what they promised. Trump said, my approach will terrify other countries about losing access to the U.S. market. They're going to negotiate on our timeline. And Japan showed they're comfortable dragging it out and just making Trump wait.

And the more they wait, the more it becomes clear that Trump doesn't have the leverage he claimed to have. Trump doesn't have the cards he believes that he has. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. We see it with other countries. When Japan sees that whatever, China's not eager to come to a deal, Japan starts to think, maybe we don't need to come to a fast agreement either. And so with Japan dragging its feed and demanding changes and all of it, there is no real reason at this point to expect the deal anytime soon. We hold all the cards isn't working because it's just not true. And unfortunately, and I don't say this to brag, sometimes I hear

from Republicans, David, you seem so thrilled that it's going terribly. I'm not thrilled at all. It's terrible for American companies, American consumers. But it seems to be the reality that we just don't have the leverage we thought we did. And other countries are making deals amongst themselves. It's going to be bad for Americans. It already is. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We will talk about Putin continuing to pound Keev, ignoring everything Trump said to him.

Prosecutors have failed to obtain an indictment against the man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent. And 25 countries are suspending postal services to the United States over the tariffs. This is not good for average Americans. another fail all of those stories and more on today's bonus show sign up at join packman dot com