The David Pakman Show - 9/19/25: Divisions grow and everything becomes a conspiracy

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Sarah Matthews, former Trump White House Deputy Press Secretary, joins David for a Substack Live -- America is split between those who see change as belonging and those who see it as threat -- Conspiracy influencers spin events like the Charlie Kirk shooting to erode trust in evidence -- JD Vance jokes about civilian deaths after US strikes, treating loss of life as comedy -- Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for a national divorce and says Republicans will not fix the country -- Gavin Newsom mocks Donald Trump with a dementia jab after Trump spreads false claims about California -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Kamala says she didn't pick Buttigieg for VP because it was "too risky," and much more... 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.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 (00:00) Change seen as threat or belonging (07:36) Conspiracies eroding trust (12:34) JD Vance jokes on civilian deaths (18:51) Marjorie Taylor Greene on national divorce (25:58) Gavin Newsom mocks Trump (33:23) Sarah Matthews joins Substack Live (53:46) Friday Feedback  

The United States is divided and I think arguably as divided as ever. Many people agree on the division part, but the harder part is figuring out why. What is the line that cuts this country essentially in half? And there are a lot of really bad answers. I want to tell you what I think is the primary way in which this country is divided. But for example, you sometimes hear, well, this is a country divided on race. On the one hand, you have people who say it's racism that is dividing the country. On the other hand, you have some racist people who say races are just too different.

We can't live together in harmony. But the point is you will often hear it is race that is dividing the country. Now, of course, racism is a real thing. Racism shapes lives. But race doesn't explain a nearly 50-50 divide in this country. And we've seen Latino and black voters shifting towards Republicans. We've seen plenty of white voters in big cities voting for Democrats. So the picture on race just isn't really that clean to say this is the division in the United

States. Well, what about class? You have a lot of class reductionists and just people more broadly who say socioeconomic status class. This is really the dividing line in the United States. Usually, it's rich versus working class. But the numbers just don't really add up on that. Most of the country is working or middle class and they're split right down the middle politically.

The rich are too small a slice to explain the entire deadlock and divide of this country. So then sometimes you'll hear, well, it's a religious thing. It's atheists versus believers or it's even, you know, you've got white evangelical Christians that lean one way and is Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, different types of Christians. But you kind of have the same problem, which is that that doesn't really explain in a substantive manner the division in the United States today. Now, others will zoom out and they'll say, well, religion is a part of culture and culture is really the divide, which includes religion.

It includes urban versus rural, city versus country. But if that were the real split, you wouldn't see the suburb. as this huge battleground in every election, which sometimes flip back and forth, back and forth. So certainly culture does matter, more so in some areas than in others, but I don't think that culture and the kind of urban rural frame really explain why we have a country that is not just divided roughly 50-50, but is acutely divided. Or you could even say it's divided one-third, one-third, one-third among the left, the right, and non-voters or something like that, you could, you could kind of slice and dice it a few different

ways. So what really might be the dividing line in the United States of America? I want to propose something to you that is a different framework. And fundamentally, it's about belonging versus threat. I want your feedback on this. Does this layer appropriately onto the division? One side looks at the country and says, changes are progress where everyone belongs. And when you expand the circle of who belongs, we are stronger. That's one side, belonging. The other side looks at change and policy and says these are threats. These are invasions. We should be afraid. We could lose our livelihoods, our families, or our country. And once you start looking at politics through that lens, you see that just about every specific

political issue snaps right into place. I'm going to give you some examples. Take immigration. On one side, you've got the view of belonging. Newcomers are part of the American story. We all belong. On the other side, it's these are invaders. These people are replacing us. They're criminals. They're dangerous. They're rapists. They are a threat. And so it's belonging versus threat. You look at race. One side believes in belonging. Diversity strengthens democracy. Everybody belongs. The other side believes diversity is potentially coded with decline. It's coded with threats.

It's coded with crime. Abortion. Abortion rights mean women belong as equal citizens who are trusted to make their own medical and moral decisions. Autonomy, freedom, belonging. On the other side, abortion is a threat. It's a threat to the traditional family. It's a threat to religious values.

It could even be a threat to demographic survival, depending on who you talk to. The idea that if women do have this choice, social order will unravel. Gender and sexuality, okay? On one side, more people living openly, more freedom, more belonging. The belonging is good. They belong to society no matter what, their gender identity or sexual orientation or whatever. On the other side, it's, oh, no, no, no, that's a threat. The family is under attack, schools are corrupting our children, masculinity is in danger.

It's a huge threat. Look at religion. On one side, pluralism. Everybody belongs. They have the freedom to believe or not whatever they want. On the other side, it's they're coming for Christianity. It's under siege. There's a threat here from the atheists and from the people who believe in separation of church

and state. look even at economics, right? I mean, consider healthcare, taxes, jobs. Who is the system for? The belonging side derives economic beliefs from we're in this together. Everybody deserves a share. The threat side says they're taking what's mine. They're getting what they don't deserve. And you can even apply this to guns, right? Gun regulation is about making the community safer. So everyone can participate and belong in public life without fear. Belonging means you don't have to carry a weapon to exist or be safe. And then on the threat side, well, we need guns because we're under threat. It's hostile. There's criminals. The government might become tyrannical. Your neighbors might become dangerous. And so owning a gun is saying, I don't trust that I belong in a safe society. It's all a threat and I need the guns to protect myself from the threat. So I believe that every fight is it about voting, vaccines, schools, borders, it really lays onto this belonging versus threat framework and that that is really the dividing line in the United

States right now. So I'm with the people saying the United States is very divided. And the real fracture that I believe it all flows from is some see change as an expansion of who belongs and others experience change as a. threat to their way of life. I believe this is really the divide of divides. And sometimes this will layer and get you to be fiscally conservative. Sometimes it will layer and get you to be an authoritarian. It can manifest in a lot of different ways, but belonging versus threat. I want to hear from you. What do you think info at David Pakman.com? What happens when everything becomes a conspiracy?

I want to explore that with you today. Charlie Kirk was shot at a campus event in Utah on September 10th. Prosecutors charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder. They're seeking the death penalty. They've got text messages, surveillance video, digital evidence, tying Tyler Robinson to the shooting. That's the official story, as it's often called. But you look online and it's a different world. Within hours, you had people insisting that it was staged. The texts are doctored. The surveillance footage isn't really of Tyler Robinson. My favorite is he couldn't possibly be a sniper because he's cross-eyed. This one came from vaccine conspiracy theorist Stu Peters. And if you spend even like five minutes in these rabbit holes, you are sort of like,

it becomes CSI, the Facebook comment section. And the thing about it is you can pretty accurately predict who's going to boost this stuff. Like before any of the conspiracy theory started, you could have guessed, oh, Candace Owens is going to start jumping in. She's absolutely going to do it. And she is. She's questioning whether the texts are real. She's hinting at different explanations. That's her playbook. Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, to a degree, the same people always find themselves asserting

conspiracy theories. And to a degree, they make a living off of it even when there's no evidence. Now, if we zoom out a little bit, we remember that we've seen this movie before. We saw it in Butler, Pennsylvania, when someone opened fire at Donald Trump. And before the roof was even cleared of the shooter, the conspiracy theories started. Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet. A spectator was killed. The shooter was then killed by Secret Service snipers.

And online, you found claims that it was staged, that it was all faked or that it was a, every version of conspiracy theory popped up there. And there were security failures. Local police saw someone on the roof before the event. They never got the information to the Secret Service. There were real mistakes made here. But the conspiratorial version turned into botched inside job, deliberate setup, this sort of thing. And we see that reflex again and again.

You go back to 9-11. People saying it was an inside job. Building 7 controlled demolition. You go to Sandy Hook, Alex Jones, saying there were crisis actors. So this is a pattern. Any time something shocking happens, the conspiracy industry starts revving up. Now, where it gets dangerous is what happens? if you can't trust anything. If every event is staged, every video is fake, every document

is doctored, that is nihilism. And at that point, you are no longer debating evidence. You're debating, I don't even know what. You're debating vibes at the end of the day. You can't convince someone with facts if their baseline is that everything's a setup. And in the vacuum steps the strong man. Just trust me. And that is how authoritarianism thrives. Why do people fall for it? Part of it is psychology. Humans don't like randomness. I would rather believe that there was a sinister plot and it was all controlled rather than random terrible things happen. The world feels less chaotic if you believe the conspiracy theory rather than random

terrible things take place. And then sometimes you add into that tribal loyalty, right? If my side is under attack, maybe it's better to suggest that the attack was fake than to admit that we were really targeted, right? might be like an emotional armor element to it. And meanwhile, this is exploited by influencers who know the incentives. Social media rewards outrage and not accuracy. The what if this was fake gets millions and millions of views and the correction gets a fraction

of that. So what I recommend is who's the source? Is it a court document or an actual report from law enforcement or is it the Twitter feed of Candace Owens, for example? Has the claim been corroborated by independent outlets? Is it new evidence or is it a reframing of the same blurry video that we can't make heads or tails out of? And is the claim falsifiable?

Could it be disproven if it's the type of claim that can't even be disproven that should at least raise a red flag for you? And hopefully with that, you can separate some of the signal from the noise. And the through line here is that not everything is a conspiracy and we can pretty reliably predict who will tell you that it is a conspiracy because their careers depend on it. What are the odds that the same people are always stumbling across the conspiracy? Is it just that they're obsessed with conspiracies or is it that they just have incredible intuitive powers to divine when there's a conspiracy of foot? So if everything is a conspiracy, is anything a conspiracy and what does that do

to our understanding of events? Let me know what you think. J.D. Vance is the vice president of the the United States. And he callously joced about the killing of innocent fishermen on a boat. Here is J.D. Van speaking in Howell, Michigan this week saying I wouldn't go fishing in that part of the world. And of course, the joke is we might kill more innocent people. You don't want to be one of those innocent fishermen on the boat. So I was talking to our great, I said secretary defense, but our new Secretary of War, Pete Heggseth. And I was talking to Secretary Hegesith, and you know what he said? He said, you know what, Mr. Vice President? We don't see any of these drugboats coming into our country. They've completely stopped. And I said, I know why. I would stop too. Hell, I wouldn't go fishing

right now in that area of the world. But that is what a military that is dedicated to its purpose and a commander-in-chief that is dedicated to the national good can do. If we just have our actual government fighting for the interests of Americans and nobody else. We can make this country safer. We can protect your jobs. We can make sure you've got the best wages anywhere in the world. All right. So you get the joke, right? We might kill more innocent people. Isn't that so funny? Nothing like a joke about the United States potentially murdering more innocent people. And what the joke kind of boils down to is that it becomes a punchline. Violence against innocent people is becoming a punchline. The vice president

of the United States, lauded by many as the natural air apparent to MAGA, treating civilian deaths like a laugh line. And of course, he's very pro-life, remember, but the body count abroad of innocent people is comedy material. Imagine the outrage if an Iranian general joked about Americans in this way. And if your reaction is that's so cruel, that's right. It's part of the brand. It is part of the brand to be cruel. And if Iran's whoever made the same joke about Americans, it would be front page outrage.

And Trump advance would be calling for the assassination of whatever an Iranian official made that statement. But when it's JD Vance, the crowd loves it. They laugh. I mean, you can see them here. They love it. They loved the joke. This is a very dark direction for the country.

And I know from the emails that I've been getting this week, many of you are worried. Many of you wrote to me saying, David, this is it. I'm leaving. Some of you wrote to me and said, David, this should be it for you. You should leave telling me, David, I should go to Canada. I should go wherever the fears around the targeting of independent media that are growing. The fears are on the targeting of legacy in corporate media. I don't really have anything super optimistic to say about the immediate other than there

are still tens of millions of people in the United States who agree with us about this stuff and billions of people globally. And there is an off ramp. And I hate to, you know, make it electoral, but it's good to have something to point to. We've got the California redistricting that hopefully Californians will vote to approve in November. And then next November, we've got the midterms. And if we take the House from Republicans, Trump's agenda is dead in the water. Now, on the last day this month, the 30th, we're going to be doing a single day membership drive.

I hope I want it to be the best single day in terms of new members since we've started the show. It'll be the biggest discount, I think that we've ever done, certainly of the last year or two. And I want you to be a part of it if you're not currently a member. All you need to do is get on my newsletter and you'll get an email on the 30th telling you what to do. Substack.david packman.com. Get on the newsletter and we'll take a quick break and be right back. You know, it's not that the system is broken.

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Let's check out what she said on Twitter. Quote, there is nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us. They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them peacefully debating ideas. Then millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead. By the way, that didn't happen. That's totally imaginary. She continues.

To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it's no longer safe for any of us. What will come from Charlie Kirk being martyred is already happening. It is a spiritual revival building the kingdom for Christ, but it will happen on the outside, not within the halls of our government. Democrats are hardened in their beliefs and will flip the switch back as soon as they have power. And if you're expecting Republicans to fight against evil, with the power they currently possess and end this once and for all.

you are going to be extremely disappointed. This week, Congress will be voting on another continuing resolution, Biden's budget that funds transgender policies, not our own Trump policy budget that funds what you voted for. We had nine months to get it done, but for reasons I don't understand or agree with, it wasn't the priority. Government is not answer. God is. Turn your full faith and trust to our almighty God and our Savior, Jesus.

Tighten your circle around your family and protect them at all. times. I will pray for the left, but personally, I want nothing to do with them. So this is a blunt message from Marjorie. It's don't look to Republicans to fix this. Don't look to government. Don't look to Congress. Don't look to the people wearing the suits on TV who say that they're going to do things and take care of it. This message, don't look to Republicans, is a sign to her followers that the Republican Party has failed them. And if Washington isn't going to save you, you've got to turn to God. You've got to turn to family.

You've got to prepare to go it alone. It's interesting because it's sort of a Christian nationalist prepper survivalist kind of mishmash, but it is predicated on the idea that even Republicans, even the party she's a member of is not going to be able to take care of the problem. And when a sitting member of Congress signals that the institutional path that we typically point to to make changes and to solve things and to deal with problems, that it's not going to work, it's a delegitimizing move aimed at the party that's supposed to be her home base. It hands a radical message to the base for the people that already reject any kind of compromise.

And so what this will allow are fringe organizers who want to. to build parallel tracks, right? We're going to have our own schools. We're going to have our own militias. We'll have our own local government. It's sort of like playing into that sovereign citizen wet dream type of thing. And it could end up forcing Republican leaders into a brutal choice, which is, do we denounce Marjorie Taylor Green and rescalienating her followers and the types of people that like what she's offering? Or do we stay quiet and let the party brand rot because this is rot for the Republican Party. And once you kind of shred the parties claim to be the stewards of conservative power,

they're not. They claim to be fiscally conservative. They blow up the deficit. They say they're for free speech, but now they want to clamp down on speech. If you shred them as the stewards of these values, you actually weaken the entire party altogether. And that's where the foreign policy angle starts to come in. doesn't need to try very hard to destabilize the country because you've got American officials like Marjorie Taylor Green telling Americans, we just got to walk away here.

We got to, we got to do a split, secession talk that she's done before, delegitimize the federal government. These are gifts to our adversaries. And this was why thinking back to 2016, Putin preferred Trump. This isn't, oh, they met personally and figured out a way. Putin preferred Trump because it would call into question. the intelligence of American voters. It would divide the country. And if the United States is divided, the U.S. becomes easier to pressure from abroad, easier to outmaneuver in like a cyber conflict or

to exploit. And so when Marjorie Taylor Green talks about this peaceful national divorce that she's been talking about for a while, this is strategic weakness and other countries love it. Now, meanwhile, corporate media reacts exactly as we would expect. And so does other media. The right wing outlets frame this as a truth telling. She's willing to tell the truth. truth here. Legacy and corporate coverage focuses in on, you know, secessionist violence and constitutional crisis sort of stuff. And then social media just becomes a war zone, right? Some people are celebrating. Some are panicking. Some are mocking. And some Republicans don't even know how to deal with this. So the real damage here is very practical. Imagine people refusing

federal programs. Local governments refusing or resisting federal law. Kids crossing, in visible state lines for health care or for benefits. And then you've got courts and contracts and military logistics. All of it is just a complete and total mess disrupted by walking away from government as we know it. So I think that this is not merely performative outrage for Marjorie Taylor Green. She does a lot of performative outrage. And this is to a degree performative outrage.

But this is more. This is Republicans won't solve this. Withdraw politically. reject institutions that are necessary to keep the country running. And then any kind of silence is going to be seen as complicity with the status quo. And even if the Republican Party acted tomorrow, she's done her damage. She's said her peace. The country has heard a sitting member of Congress say, our own party is not going to fix

this problem. And the part of it that is not super surprising is intuitively, we know that Christian nationalists at the end of the day, they really want God in charge. They want Jesus to be the guiding light, not civil government, not separation of church and state. And so Marjorie Taylor Green is sort of resorting back to exactly what we suspected was always her ultimate goal, which she's acknowledged, which is, yes, Christian nationalism for religion but not any religion, specifically Christianity, to be the law of the land.

So I'm curious to see what her Republican colleagues will say or won't say about this. And we'll have to see whether any of them choose to follow her in this direction, a direction which also carries risk for the Republican Party itself. California governor Gavin Yusom is back at it. He dropped another dementia bomb on Donald Trump. And this one hits really hard. Here is what happened. Trump did one of these, you know, rage fueled truth social posts.

He ranted about new scum is trying to build low-end. income housing in a rich part of Los Angeles. We covered the original post already. But what's really interesting about this is that Gavin Newsom went right to Trump's cognition. He took Trump's truth social post, quote tweeted it on Twitter, and said, take your dementia meds, grandpa. You were making things up again. I love a couple different things about this.

of all, they fact check the substance of it. I already did that on Wednesday. There is no plan for low income housing in Pacific Palisades. The water doesn't come from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles. Like, it just lie out. There's like six lies in this truth social post. So they did that. But then he kind of like twist the knife and says, take your dementia meds, grandpa. And we're hearing from more and more Democrats in prominent positions about this. Newsom has now mentioned it a couple of times. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said Trump often forgets from one day to the next what's going on, suggesting maybe there is a cognitive issue here. And the White House predictably just lashes out and goes, oh, these guys are stupid. It's Trump derangement syndrome. That's all this is.

And meanwhile, you've got Trump's disgraced Dr. Ronnie Jackson insisting no one has ever been than Trump. No one has ever been mentally sharper than Trump. No one has been physically more robust than Donald Trump. But we see the bruised hands and the swollen ankles and the confused outburst and not recognizing people who are right in front of them. And it's all another one of these exercises in projection because for years they were hammering Joe Biden with dementia. Every time Biden paused mid sentence or he squinted or he turned one way, but then ultimately walked off stage the other way. that Biden wasn't declining. But the degree to the degree to which and the frequency with which they

would talk about this, when their guy was clearly declining, is pathetic. And so Trump rants about imaginary housing permits. He can't remember details from one day to the next. The line he used to attack Biden is sort of boomeranging back and sticking to Trump. And I believe that this is more than just political mud slinging. Trump's father suffered from Alzheimer's. The family history alone doubles Trump's risk. You add in his obesity, his terrible diet, his advanced age, the memory lapses, the angry confusion, the physical decline.

The other day he said he's, instead of saying he's a populist, he said he's a popular wrist. And so it's not really funny. It's not really a joke. These are red flags. And people, there was this bizarre video. I should have had it ready. I don't.

Of Trump sort of falling asleep at an event, but his face was totally lopsided and droopy. That raised questions. Is this neurological? Is it a mini stroke? What's going on? And so it's all building, but Republicans are sticking with the hypocrisy. They spent four years saying Biden's senile. They put sleepy Joe bumper stickers and memes out there and now Newsom flips it around.

And all of a sudden, it's borderline hate speech and that's where I want to tie this back to. In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's killing, they have shown they're not really the party of free speech. They're not really absolutists. Charlie Kirk was a free speech absolutist. Charlie Kirk tweeted, we don't have hate speech laws in the United States. You're allowed to say whatever you want. If you're harassing or inciting, these are special categories, but we don't have hate speech

laws. And now you heard it from Trump. I'm not so sure the First Amendment applies to protesters. We heard it from Pam Bondi. We're hearing it from many on the right that we actually need to crack down on speech. And so what I'm wondering is, is there going to be an attempt from Trump's orbit to try to actually silence the sort of stuff Gavin Newsom is saying as hate speech, disrespecting the president?

You can't do it. And that's where it gets very serious. you know, Newsom's being funny, grandpa meds and this sort of thing, but there is something underneath it. It's already bad when you have an authoritarian consolidating power. It's already bad when you have someone whose primary currency is loyalty and a thirst for power and retaining control. That's bad. We've seen that go really bad all around the world. But when you have an aging, visibly slipping authoritarian, history shows us. that when leaders start to deteriorate physically and mentally, that's when they often get the most

dangerous as authoritarians because they become even less inhibited and it becomes the most dangerous for the country and for the population, especially the people who disagree with them. So it is funny and interesting to see Newsom and Pritzker kind of torch Trump, but it's also deadly serious because the guy they're torching is exactly the sort of guy that might be empowered to do terrible, terrible things in response to what. What he believes is unfair criticism, maybe even hate speech. So my question to you, do you expect that in this free speech clamp down that they seem determined to do, do you expect that it is going to include going after people who are going after

Trump for his cognition? I want to remind you the last day of September, the 30th, we are doing a single day membership drive. We will have our largest membership discount of the year. get 100% of the benefits at a huge discount. If it sounds intriguing, you don't have to commit today. Just get yourself on my newsletter at substack.davidpack.com. On the 30th, you'll get an email telling you how to sign up at the discounted rate. It'll be a great day that I can assure you. We'll take a quick break and be right back. If you were shopping for a new mattress,

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sitewide. Go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Welcome, everybody. It is great to have Sarah Matthews back with us, former deputy press secretary during Donald Trump's first term. Sarah, great to see you again. Yeah, great to be on the program again. Thanks for having me. So I want to talk a little bit about what I find to be very disturbing news with regard to the clampdown on free speech. You know, I consider myself a small L libertarian. And what I mean by that is not that I'm like a member of the libertarian party, but that on the kind of spectrum between authoritarianism and libertarianism, I tend to don't get government involved unless there's a really good reason to do so. And sometimes there isn't, sometimes there isn't. And when I see

now what's happened with Stephen Colbert, we now have learned about an instance of self-censorship where Jimmy Kimmel's show is now being effectively canceled, suspended indefinitely is what they call it, but effectively canceled. We see lawsuit, palpable hostility to like when the Late-night hosts make jokes that are adversarial to Trump or whatever. Was this sort of like a topic of discussion within the press shop? I think in regards specifically to late-night hosts, I think Republicans are used to those late-night hosts attacking them for years and years. This was something that predated Donald Trump's tenure in office.

And so I think that's just become the new norm. And I do think that those, I'm not the biggest fan of Jimmy Kimmel. And so it's funny for me to now be defending him in this instance. But at the end of the day, these are comedians. And so I do think that they're entitled to make jokes. And whether you agree if it was in poor taste or not, or you agree with the contents of what he said, this wasn't necessarily something I think that was on the radar of the White House, at least when I was there, in the first term.

And I think, too, that the second term, they've become much more emboldened to go after these types of folks, whether it be news organizations or late-night talk show hosts, you name it, I think that Trump now doesn't have any fear of going after these folks because he doesn't really have anything to lose. It's not like he has to worry about running for re-election again, even though I know he loves to go out there and float the idea of a third term. But I do think that he feels emboldened now to go after these people to threaten them with lawsuits and to peer pressure them as we saw the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, do

with ABC specifically in this instance with Jimmy Kimmel. And so it is ironic, though, because I think such a big part of being a conservative as being a constitutionalist and being an advocate for free speech. And so now to see the table's turn where they're going after people who they just don't like what they have to say. And so they're trying to silence their opposition. And that just goes to show how far American people. conservatism has eroded under Donald Trump because he's taken everything of what it means

to be conservative and kind of flipped it on its head. And so with this example, it's really disheartening because I just don't even recognize the party that I used to be part of at one point. I would say I'm still a conservative. I just think that the Republican Party has moved away from me. Well, the conservative perspective on this would land where I think the progressive perspective would land, which is keep the government out of this stuff. The conservatives, because they're against business regulation and principle sometimes, and the progressives because they are not for limiting the speech of people and parody, satire, and comedy and opinion are important forms of speech. And oftentimes, if we look over the last 150 years, sort of important for keeping those in

power kind of in check with regard to the actions of the media companies. Are you surprised at the capitulation because we saw, you know, Paramount settled because of, depending on, you know, some combination of concerns about where the litigation would end and concerns about what might happen with their merger if they were to fight. So they said, we're going to capitulate. 60 minutes didn't agree with that, by the way, but that was the decision that Paramount made. With the Jimmy Kimmel show, it's totally preemptive. I mean, in other words, nothing had happened officially that we know of. But they decided, oh, because of this joke, which, by the way, like you point out, whether it's funny or not, it is a protected form of speech. They capitulated kind of like in advance.

Are you surprised by the degree of capitulation that we're seeing? I'm not surprised by the power grab by Donald Trump and his administration, but I have been surprised by the capitulation. And it goes across the board, whether it's the media companies that you just laid out, the big tech oligarchs, law firms, you name it. It is very disheartening to see people not fighting back. And this organization that I'm part of, it's called Home of the Brave, we are encouraging people to join us and speak their truth and talk about how the Trump administration has negatively impacted them because it now rests on our shoulders. We, the people, have to be the ones fighting back. And I think I am encouraged to at least see that the New York Times seems to be pushing back with their reporting on the Epstein birthday letter that Trump wrote him. him and they're being sued by Trump for it. And obviously it's a frivolous lawsuit. I mean,

look at the signature. We all know that this was written by Trump. And it's just because he wants to bury that story and doesn't want us to be talking about Epstein. But I'm encouraged to see that they're fighting back. But then when you look at all these other media companies, and it's not just them appeasing Trump, but as you noted, there are mergers at play. And so they're choosing the business decisions over protecting free speech and doing what's right for their programming. And so that is very disheartening. You know, one of the things that feels very different over the last, really over the last week or since the murder of Charlie Kirk, because of the reaction, not because of the murder itself, but because of the clampdown on speech kind of reaction from it is I can't, I will

only speak for myself, but I will say that the opinion is shared by a number of other creators in my cohort, we've all been in touch recently about it seems almost inevitable that they're going to try something with one of us. And it doesn't mean that it's going to get to the very top where it's Trump on truth social talking about Midas touch or Brian Tyler Cohen, not necessarily that, but that at some level, we have to assume either through a lawsuit or lawsuit threats or some at the platforms would be the other possibility. If in a month when this meeting happens, between the White House and some of the social media platforms, if the White House, I think, makes the platforms fear that they may be persecuted based on what opinion people say,

I think the platforms will capitulate and they'll start clamping down on news and politics talk. So I'm very concerned that that is going to become a reality. Do you think it's a reasonable concern or maybe we're low enough on the totem pole that it won't be a priority of the administration? No, look, I mean, this is the new media. This is how people are mainly getting their news nowadays. And so I don't think that it's unreasonable to think that these kinds of platforms and shows will be targeted next. Look, their efforts have been effective. They've been able to get these bigger media organizations to capitulate.

So I don't think that they have any reason to not want to extend that further, especially if they don't agree with the things that your show and other shows are espousing. And so they would want to silence that. And so I don't think it's unreasonable at all to assume that that could be the logical next step of their plan. I see people in the comments saying that can't happen because of Section 230. That I think is a, that's a 2019 sort of reaction to this. Because I think that although certainly that is the case in Section 230 is important, which relates to the platforms not being legally accountable for what people say, political pressure exists outside of Section 230. Section 230, influence campaigns, quit pro quos, or mergers that won't happen, or favorable treatment, or we're going to pull you all in for congressional hearings.

If you, all of that stuff is the kind of mob boss stuff that is outside of the law that this administration, I think, you tell me if I'm wrong, has shown themselves very willing to engage in. Definitely. I think that Trump has demonstrated that type of behavior where he acts like a mob boss and then he sends out his cronies to go do his bidding. I mean, look, you had the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, doing just that and strong arming ABC and the affiliate networks. And so I think that even though people say, oh, well, Section 230 would protect it, there's also been talk on Capitol Hill of repealing that. And so whether it's they go down that avenue or, like, as you outlined, there are plenty of other measures that they could take to strongarm these types of shows.

I want to talk a little bit about what's happening in the area you had direct experience, which is the press briefing apparatus of the Trump White House. We were promised that unlike under Joe Biden, the press briefings would be regular and comprehensive and transparent. I don't have to give you examples of how that's not really happening. But we now have longer and longer stretches of time where there's no press briefing. Caroline Leavitt is just not out there. And we keep a close eye on that, again, because we're trying to hold accountable based on what was promised that they were going to do. Generally, we'll dig in specifically, but generally, what are the reasons why a White House press shop would start to spread out press briefings and do fewer of them? Like, what sorts of influences would get them to say, let's not brief today, let's not brief tomorrow?

It can definitely depend on what's going on in the news cycle. Obviously, the past several months, it has been dominated by Jeffrey Epstein News, and so I'm sure that that has played a hand at them going further and further in between having regularly scheduled press briefings. So that could certainly be it. I think, too, that sometimes when you're the press secretary, you're such a public-facing role of the administration. And I feel like you're going to be on Donald Trump's radar a lot more than. any other person in the administration. And so it's almost a protective measure, I would assume, too, where sometimes you don't want to be putting yourself out there in a situation where you're going to be asked tough questions and you could potentially make the boss look bad. And we know from based on his cabinet selections, he purposely picks people who are good on TV and he wants them out there. And so I'm sure that he wants them to be briefing more than they are if I had to guess. I recall from my days at the White House when Kaylee McEnany, who was the press secretary at the time, when she would go longer stretches without having press briefings, then he would see me in the hallway and say to me, we need to get Kaylee out there. She needs to be briefing today. And it might have been a news day that we didn't want to be out there. Or we had other things that we were prioritizing or focused on that day that we wanted to kind of carry the news cycle. And that could also be a play. I,

I'll give them that the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes there are things where you don't want to step on some other policy that you're pushing out and you don't want the new cycle to be swamped them by answering questions about Jeffrey Epstein. So I think there's a lot of things that go into it. But it is interesting that they kind of seem to have gone back on it, considering that they were so critical of the Biden administration's briefings. And they're not out there as frequently anymore. Is it generally the case that if you feel you have. things going on that you can speak positively about that you would be incentivized to be out there? Like, would there be any reason not to be out there if you felt that today is a news day

we can win? Yeah, I mean, that definitely could be an incentivizing motivator to want to be out there to push positive news. I just think that as of late, it seems like a lot of the news surrounding them has been negative, whether it be the Jeffrey Epstein files, whether it's, whether it's a it be tariffs, the economy. It's all these things that aren't great for them to want to be out there talking about. And so they definitely should be out there if they have positive things to push. And beyond that, I think they should be out there in general because they owe it to the American people to provide answers to the questions that we have and that these journalists would be asking of them. And they claim to be the most transparent administration of all time.

yet they're not out there briefing. And I know that their pushback, because I can already picture it, what they would say is that, well, President Trump is the most accessible president of all time. So we don't need to be having as many briefings because he'll answer the questions. And it's better coming from his mouth rather than a spokesperson's mouth. And that is true in a sense that, yes, he is accessible and will answer questions. But I do think, too, that you have a spokesperson for a reason, someone who can go a little bit deeper into questions. and the president doesn't have all day to sit there and answer questions. But guess what?

It's the job of the White House press secretary to do just that because he has other things that he needs to be focused on as well as the leader of the free world. And so that would be their pushback, I guess. I just know that's what they would say. But it's still not an excuse. And it doesn't seem all that transparent then if they're not having as many briefings. What's your sense of what they want to talk about the least right now in terms of of, is it about the free speech crackdown that they don't want to be asked about? Is it Trump's

health and his right hand now? It's that weird patch of makeup now is the entire hand. It used to be a one inch square. Now it's the entire hand. We saw the video from the UK. Is it the Epstein lack of transparency? What is the main thing they don't want to talk about right now in your mind? I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. I would say it's a toss up between Epstein and his health because obviously there's something going on with his health and they have not been clear about what it is. And so it leads me to believe that there is something there. There's a story there. And they could simply put that to bed by just saying, oh, well, he bruised his hand doing XYZ, but they're not doing that. And so it seems like there is some sort of cover up happening

there. And then also with the Epstein files, I think they don't want to talk about that. because it upsets their base. And that is what Trump is always concerned about the most is keeping the base happy. And so them going back on their word that they were going to release these files and him trying to downplay them. And now it's seeming like he's in the files and he's trying to say this is a hoax and all these other things. I think that they're worried about talking about that, not just because of many potential implications of him in those files. But I think, too, that they know that the more and more that that's in the news cycle and their refusal to be transparent about it is just going to further upset their base.

In the last few minutes we have, I want to go into a little more detail about something we kind of touched on last time we spoke, but I'm curious your thoughts now. What is it that the folks that are sort of like more traditional Republicans actually have some conservative beliefs rather than these kind of neo-reactionary authoritarian views that we see from this administration? to the extent that you're in touch with folks kind of in that space, what is that group kind of want looking into 2028? Like, is Vance something that that would be, that would, who would be looked upon as better

than Trump or is Vance seen as basically more of the same thing and the desire is for like a Thomas Massey or something like that? Like, what's that cohort kind of thinking right now? Your question is about the kind of more traditional conservatives. Yeah. I think that Vance is seen as a tamer version of Trump. And so that does seem appealing in a lot of ways where he is, emulates a lot of Trump and his policies and is seen a little bit like a disruptor and an outsider in a way. But then at the same time, he kind of comes without all the baggage of Trump. And so I think that it would make sense naturally for him to be the successor if that's what you wanted. And I think that there are. some conservatives out there who are happy with the Trump administration and the work that they've done and cracking down on immigration, for example. I think they like that. And so I think that they see Vance as a continuation of that. But I do think that there is a faction of folks who are

hoping that maybe in 2028 there will be a competitive primary and that we can shake things up and someone new might emerge. I think that I don't really, if I'm being an optimist, I hope that it would be someone who's a little bit more of a more moderate Republican, but I just don't think there's an appetite for that in the party largely. And so I think that it's going to be a figure that more closely is aligned to Vance, whether it be a Josh Hawley kind of more populist. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

I don't want it to be someone like that. I want it to be, I want us to start to revert back to more traditional conservatism. But I just think that the path that we're headed on, it really looks like that the party, I don't know if we'll ever go back. And so I hope I'm wrong, but I do think that they seem to be happy so far with the way that Trump has kind of shaped the party in his image. And so I think most of those folks, honestly, will probably be on board with someone like advance or even a Marco Rubio, who's obviously been a critical person in the second administration. So I think there's a lot of names that will be out there.

But if Trump anoints the successor, it would be hard to, I think, beat them in a primary. That seems for sure to be the case. We've been speaking with Sarah Matthews, former deputy press secretary in Donald Trump's first term. Also check out Home of the Brave on all platforms. including also substack. Sarah, always great to talk to you. Let's do it again. Yes. Thanks so much. Take care. Good to see you. Good to see you. Bye. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason, no probable cause needed, all while Republicans try

to twist things so that you think this is all great for America. This should be the biggest story in the U.S. right now, but it's almost impossible to keep up with the millions of moves that Trump is making every single day. That's why ground news exists. Ground news is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin before it takes control of our opinions. Ground news is the smarter, more reliable way to stay informed when MAGA is banking on us getting distracted. I'm partnering up with Ground News to give you 40% off the same vantage plan that I use. So you'll pay only five bucks a month for all of their premium features. Just go to ground. news slash Pacman or use the code Pacman in the app when you sign up. The link is in the description

or scan the QR code. Let's get into Friday feedback for the week. You can always write to me info at David Pakman.com. We'll feature Spotify comments. YouTube comments, TikTok comments, all sorts of different things as well as emails and subreddit posts. We start with a comment from our TikTok from Addy. Addie says America is done. He told us what he was going to do. He is isolating us from the world.

And his cult still thinks he's their savior. Their hate for liberals is so strong that they vote to their own demise. Unbelievable, we are here. Listen, I don't know about America's done, but we are seeing interest in moving to the United States decline. We are seeing interest in moving out of the United States at its peak. And we're also seeing tourism significantly down. I personally know more people moving to other countries in the last six months and in the

forthcoming six months than at any other point I can remember. This is not like Googling, how can I move to Canada? This is not Googling what's the Portugal Golden Visa scheme. It's people who either have moved or like they have their house listed and they found an apartment but they just haven't moved yet. Like no other time that I can remember. So America's done. I mean, listen, that's a big, that's a big statement.

And I don't think we can say that right now, but it is clear that this is significantly changing The level of interest that a lot of people have in coming to the United States, and it is making more people than I ever remember. And it's backed up by data about inquiries regarding, you know, Irish passports and Italian passports as well from ancestors who lived there in these different programs. I've never seen a time like this. Also from TikTok, as Anaya says, stop blaming Trump. fall is inevitable. No nation will ever rule forever. One will rise and fall. Now it's America's turn

to fall. So stop pointing fingers. That is the way the cookie crumbles, like you would say. You know, there's two thoughts on this. I do think it's plausible that at some point, cycles won't necessarily repeat themselves. And you often hear this statement made about how Rome also fell. long time, nobody believed Rome could ever fall. But ultimately, Rome did fall. And it fell slowly enough that people didn't necessarily realize that it was happening. Sure. That's fine. And it's totally conceivable that we may be in a sort of slow motion, slow motion fall of the United States as a global superpower. But it's also conceivable that over the last several hundred years, things have changed and much the same way that, you know, there are diseases

people no longer die from, that there could be a change where the sort of default paradigm of the empire that always falls is different or it no longer persists. But there is no question that there are significant concerns that this is part of the slow motion decline of the United States as a global superpower. Maybe empire is the wrong word, but global superpower. And that Trump is a bit player in it. It could have been anyone. It happens to be Trump.

I happen to think Trump has much more to do with what's going on right now than maybe as Anaya is giving credit for. But one of the things that is common about history is that when you look back, things seemed so obvious. But at the time, they really weren't. And the idea of the inevitability of history can make us confused when we look back about what was obvious at the time. I hope that's clear. Debbie says on Facebook, they said Poland will be next for Putin if he is not stopped. Well, and of course, as we now know, Putin did go in a sense into Poland with the drones. Listen, we can disagree reasonably like gentlemen and ladies, right?

We can disagree reasonably about Putin's intentions and ambitions. We can disagree about the history of, well, we can't disagree about the history, but we can disagree about what is right in terms of Ukrainian land based on history, right? Like, there are reasonable disagreements about some regions of Ukraine or something like that. But from the beginning, going back to the Biden administration, when we started hearing and seeing reports that Russia's amassing troops at the Ukrainian border. If Russia gets Ukraine, they will have greater ambitions that go at least beyond Ukraine.

All of that stuff has been shown to be true. And maybe like most importantly, the idea that Putin will be ready to negotiate, ready to deal, ready to wrap this thing up as soon as Trump is the one involved in the negotiation, we suspected that that wasn't true, and it very much is not true. Putin has seemed to have zero sense of urgency. Sanctions against Putin are always two weeks away, according to Trump. And so there are areas, you can have a different opinion. It's a matter of opinion whether the U.S. should support Ukraine.

I happen to think that the U.S. should in the way that has been done without boots on the ground. Okay, but someone could disagree with me about that. But at this point, we have to recognize that all of the warnings we received over the last several years about what Russia was doing or planned to do, they've come true. And that should count for something when we think about how to interpret Trump's opinion of the matter, which has been primarily informed by things that he got completely wrong. All right, Ketotian on Instagram says, I do not agree with a lot of things he do, but he is a hardworking president. Maybe we should give him a break. Ketotian, I'm so sorry to pierce your

bubble here. Trump is extraordinarily averse to work. Now, the fact that he doesn't sleep a lot and he's on his phone tweeting and putting out troth messages on truth social, that's really not working hard. You know, I'm reminded of one of my favorite podcasts is Cal Newport's podcast. And one One of the things that Cal Newport talks about a lot is how in modern work environments, busyness and participation in unstructured communication, like responding to coworker emails quickly, responding quickly on Slack, these are seen as proxies to actual productivity, right? And so my main thing here is I need to record the show. That's the main thing.

I could look very busy and hardworking by sitting on email, responding. to everybody within 30 seconds all day. I would look very busy and you might say, oh, he's working so hard. But am I getting the show done? That's what really matters. And similarly with Donald Trump, he's up early. He's up late. He's tweeting. He's traveling. He's on the plane. He's going here for a rally there. How much actual work is Trump doing? And how much deep work is he doing? I would argue the amount of deep work is essentially zero. He doesn't seem capable or have the capacity of it. So, Katocheon, I think you got to rethink some of your terms here a little bit, not making a lot of sense. All right, Rob CT30 on Instagram says, hope you're well, David.

I know this has to hit a little close to home for you. I would never compare you to them, but you guys referring to Charlie Kirk share much of the same social spaces. Just stay safe, my friend, and keep up the good work. You know, what's really interesting about this is this. is there, I have had, over the last week, week plus now, I have had so many conversations with some of the largest creators on the left. Everybody, everybody agrees.

There has never been a time like this. Now, what that means can mean different things. And the personal safety aspect of it obviously is important. I'm, of course, not going to reveal anything about any particular. creator. But, you know, I think that it's important just to consider a lot of the creators you know, they don't even live remotely close to where you think they do. And oftentimes it's like, oh, a creator says, like, I live in the Chicago, I live in the Chicago area. And then it's like, they don't live in Chicago. They don't live in the Chicago suburbs.

Maybe they're like over the border in Wisconsin and it's like, no, they live in California. They live in the UK. They're not anywhere close. And so I think the point I'm making is this is a concern and a lot of creators are aware of it and are taking a number of different precautions. But this feels like a different time. Certainly feels like a different time than any that we've experienced. All right. at Spotify, K-Man on Spotify says, I never paid that much attention to the news until I found

these independent podcasts and now I'm hooked. Keep it up. Yeah, you know, one of the things I think is really important about independent media is that when it comes to like cable news and CNN, there's a pie that is basically a fixed size and arguably the pie is shrinking. And what I mean by that is. For the most part, people who are habitual watchers of MSNBC are watching a fixed amount of content, a fixed amount of news. And if they go from MSNBC to CNN, they're not going to just watch more stuff. They'll watch less MSNBC and more CNN and sort of it's zero sum in that the networks are fighting for a share of an audience that is at best stable and at worst shrinking. What I think is so exciting and so important about our space is that the pie is getting bigger.

And so sometimes people go, you know, David, it used to be that the big players in your space were like you, the young Turks, you know, majority report, whatever. That was like eight, ten years ago. And now all of a sudden, it's like there's the big players, which are you mightest touch Brian Tyler Cohen. And then there's like medium to large players. And there's people who are up and coming and you've got Adam Mockler and you've got Luke Beasley and you've got all these different people.

This must be bad for you because the audience is getting sliced and diced. Our audience is bigger today than it ever has been. And why is it? It's because when Luke Beasley and Adam Mockler start a channel, they don't take my audience. They pull more people into the independent space. And so the way I see it, and this is why I try to be collaborative with everybody because we're just, we're not only improving the ecosystem. but we're getting more people exposed to alternative media when luke gets a million followers

that could mean 20 30 40 000 of his followers that now find me and when adam mokler gets a million followers now that's 20 30 40 000 people who could find luke and then 20 30 40 000 people that could find the david packman show and so the platform the ecosystem is growing and i just think it's so phenomenal and uh this is why i think you know we need to be working together to grow the ecosystem rather than doing like the infighting it just the infighting really is is probably the most toxic aspect of this space all right uh taking the road less traveled says on tic talk when someone loses their job they know it when someone doesn't get a raise they know it when someone can't find a job they know it when they lose their home or farm they

know it can't lie your way out of those things this goes to the idea that we learn during the presidency. I can beat you over the head with facts up and down. I can say unemployment is historically low. Labor participation is high. Inflation has come down. But if you're sitting there at your kitchen table and you're looking at money in and money out and what things cost and what happens if I get a flat tire and need to spend 300 bucks, I've got to go into debt. I've got to charge it. I can't give you any statistics that will make you think things are going well. Joe Biden and eventually Kamala Harris suffered as a result of that. And subsequently, Donald Trump is suffering now. And I believe that the midterms will be a major referendum on what's

going on in the economy. You can say a lot of things to people about foreign policy, about social issues, and it's sort of like down to a matter of opinion. But one of the things we've learned is telling people that everything's awesome economically doesn't really work if things aren't going well in their household. All right, Glorbox says, you're heading past the depression and into a full on governmental collapse. Employment, healthcare, and food systems will crumble. The so-called elite will scatter with their wealth and leave the population to fend for themselves.

You know, I don't believe that it is this dire. I don't think it's a this dystopian, you know, sort of like day after tomorrow type scenario. But I do think that we are up against some real problems here. And one of the things I've been talking about this week is the importance of Democrats taking back the House. Now, because I think every Democrat running for the House is, you know, this exciting purveyor of the epitome of progressive ideals. But because taking back the House is the most reasonable bullwork.

against Trump's policy and ideas that we have right now. And so while I wouldn't go as hyperbolic with it as Glorbach does, I completely agree that things are going in a direction that has to be stopped. The special elections this year are part of it, the midterms next year, potentially the most consequential midterms I will have been a part of covering. Send me your opinion about what's going on. Info at David Pakman.com. or leave a comment on the YouTube video or leave a comment on Substack at Substack.

.davidpack.com. We'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back Monday too.