The David Pakman Show - 9/26/25: Trump Oval Office disaster, more escalator drama
Episode Date: September 26, 2025-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump praises Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a tough leader and jokes about rigged elections while staff look on in disbelief -- Trump dodges questions about V...ladimir Putin and Denmark drones while giving mixed signals on NATO and Russian aircraft -- Maria Bartiromo and Greg Steube describe Donald Trump’s escalator incident as sabotage while the UN explains it was accidental -- Trump posts rants attacking Democrats, Kamala Harris, and the United Nations while claiming sabotage -- The killing of Charlie Kirk sparks a wider discussion of political violence in America and lessons from peace efforts abroad -- Trump should be impeachment (again) over censorship, lawsuits, media crackdowns, and suppression of free speech -- Trump’s tariffs, Fed attacks, and loyalty-based policies create an instability environment for businesses -- Trump’s approval rating drops to historic lows as independents abandon him and even Republicans voice dissatisfaction -- The Friday Feedback segment 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🌳 MyHeritage: Discover your family roots for FREE for 14 days at https://davidpakman.com/myheritage -- On the Bonus Show: Former FBI Director James Comey indicted, Fox News reacts to Comey indictment, and much more... -- 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) Trump praises Erdoğan (05:45) Questions on Putin, NATO, Denmark drones (11:19) Escalator incident and UN explanation (16:46) Trump rants vs Democrats and UN (25:53) Charlie Kirk killing and political violence (33:29) Impeachment discussion (40:53) Tariffs, Fed attacks, and business instability (46:33) Trump approval rating drops (52:41) Friday Feedback
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Donald Trump had a meeting in the Oval Office with the Turkish President Erdogan
that was so sycophantic, so enamored with dictatorial brutality that even Trump's own staff
was sort of like, this might be a little bit too much.
Let's discuss.
And the theme that we've been seeing in Donald Trump's administrations is, of course, that
he's increasingly skeptical of our Democratic Western allies, the UK, France, Germany, Canada.
I don't know about them has been Trump's prevailing position.
But when it comes to the dictators and the authoritarian, Kim Jong-un, Putin, Erdogan and others,
Trump's just fascinated by these guys, truly fascinated.
And here is Donald Trump talking about how tough Erdogan is.
You're a big, tough boy.
Erdogan is so tough.
He's opinionated.
He does an amazing job with his country.
Oh my goodness.
Advocates of democracy and civil rights cringe.
So this is a tough man.
This is a guy who's highly opinionated.
Usually I don't like opinionated people, but I always like this one.
But he's a tough one and he does an amazing job in his country.
You know, if you measure Erdogan's job performance by the number of jailed journalists
per capita, he's off the charts amazing.
And so this is, you know, I don't wanna say it was funny when it started and now it's not.
It was never funny, but the degree to which the prevailing impetus for Trump's political
existence has been to praise and emulate authoritarian and dictators.
and put down denigrate and generically speaking, ridicule Western liberal allies is terrifying
stuff.
And then, of course, if you were terrified at the 30,000 foot level, then you look, well,
Trump's trying to oppress media.
Trump's trying to deny people due process.
Trump is using prosecution as a political tool against his enemies.
Trump is using political favors to try to preserve his or others integrity.
like, for example, with everything going on with Jelaine Maxwell, it's an absolutely despicable
situation to be in.
And there's no turning it around.
And, you know, there are some people, Trump-aligned staffers who have bailed on working
for them, but they are relatively few and far between.
For the most part, it's shut up and get in line and just help Trump keep going.
There was another moment that was almost beyond belief where Trump, in trying to further the case
that Trump really won in 2020, which he didn't, Joe Biden won, in trying to further that and
say his election was rigged back then. He turns to Erdogan and he says he knows about rigged
elections. But of course, the unfortunate thing is it has a kind of double meaning because there
are widespread ballot stuffing allegations against Erdogan himself. Take a listen to this.
Rigged election, you know, he knows about rigged elections better than anybody.
But when I was in exile, we were still friends.
That's always a good way to find out test of friendship.
But he's a highly respected man.
Yeah, highly respected because if you don't respect him, life gets a little bit more difficult
for you.
Also, it's funny when Trump calls losing an election being in exile.
But there is this really weird thing about he knows about rigged elections because
there is a widespread analysis of elections in Turkey.
Here is one such study, forensic analysis of the Turkey 2023 presidential election reveals
extreme vote swings in remote areas.
And what this study has found and we'll link to it and you can check it out is that while
the totality of the results can't be said to be a result of fraud, that there are so many
actual irregularities.
You know, it's funny, the sort of stuff that Trump alleges is true about elections when
he loses irregularities this that the irregularities are investigated they don't really exist in turkey
irregularities were actually investigated and they did exist and they are believed to at least
partially be related to ballot stuffing in remote areas and so again the people trump is most
impressed with most enamored with most uh titillated by are people who engage in anti democratic
behavior with regard to the press they engage in anti democratic and authoritarian rhetoric
and somehow end up with allegations of ballot stuffing in remote areas.
We saw it with Putin in Russia.
We've seen it with Erdogan in Turkey.
And Trump loves absolutely all of it.
So the terrifying reality is that these are the people Trump considers to be of his ilk.
These are his cohorts.
It's not Canada, Mexico, Spain, the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavian countries, northern European countries.
No, no, no, no. Those are the ones we have to be skeptical of. Some of them are a little too sissy. Some of them are a little too soft. Some of them are socialists. Now, these are not the people. But she, Erdogan, Putin, Kim Jong-un, you know, previously, whether it was Bashar al-Assad or Duterte or whoever, those are, that is Trump's cohort. And it is not exactly a great cohort of people. Two weeks to go. That's been the refrain from Donald Trump.
for so many things. In August of 2020, we were two weeks away from Donald Trump signing into law.
His new health care plan. Well, I think we're at least two weeks away today. We still haven't even
seen it. Never mind having it signed into law. Donald Trump was asked during the meeting he had
with Russia, Ukrainian president rather, Vladimir Zelensky. Do you trust Putin? And Trump, it's not two weeks
this time. This time, it's a month. He's going to let you know in a month.
Do you still trust him?
I'll let you know in about a month from now.
Okay.
Okay.
Trump's going to let you know in about a month.
It's all two to four weeks away.
I think it's important in these circumstances to really hold this administration to what
they promised.
And what Donald Trump promised was that within a day of winning in November of 2024, he would
have ended the Russia, Ukraine war.
And then it became, well, within a month of winning, then it became within a day
of being sworn into office.
Then it became within a month of getting sworn into office.
Then it was a hundred day plan.
That came and went.
And we are still at it.
Maybe Donald Trump is not the feared, tough negotiator that he has claimed himself to be.
But it's just four more weeks, folks.
And then Trump's really going to be able to tell us.
Now, critically and importantly, the United States is party to NATO.
NATO is a shared defense treaty, the North Atlantic organization.
And that includes that there is a agreement of shared defense.
If a NATO country is attacked, then attack one, you are attacking all and we will all come
to the defense.
Donald Trump was asked, do you think NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if
they enter their airspace?
And Trump says, yeah.
But then he was asked, would the U.S. help out?
Trump is a little less clear on that.
Do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?
Yes, I do.
Would you back up NATO allies?
You said that you thought that they should shoot down the Russian aircraft.
Would you back them up?
Would the United States help them out in some way?
Depends on the circumstance, but, you know, we're very strong toward NATO.
Now, I actually don't have a problem with this answer in a lot of ways.
I am not one of these warmongers who goes, oh, the second anything happens.
to any NATO country.
I want the president deploying the troop.
I don't want that.
I'm actually anti-war as a general principle with the understanding that sometimes war is inevitable
or war could be necessary.
But I'm the last person to go, no, Trump should be saying, we're going to go get them.
But the theme always, there's actually two themes.
One, Trump's not really that big on NATO.
And while he says we're strong toward NATO, Trump's actually,
Trump's actually a really weak defender of NATO.
And Trump is really a weak defender of any kind of international treaty or arrangement.
And Trump sees them as existing at the pleasure of the president.
And this is why after Obama did the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump just didn't like it.
He didn't like that it was working.
He didn't like that it had Obama's name on it.
So Trump just backed out of the Iran nuclear deal.
And of course, Iran did what's logical if you're Iran.
You go, well, they kicked us out of the deal.
If they ended the deal, the treaty, we'll go back to doing our nuclear enrichment research.
why wouldn't we? That gives us both something that could be useful and it gives us something
that can be a negotiating point in the future. So Trump doesn't really respect international
treaties and agreements. So that's one theme. The other theme is he's always softer on Putin
than just about anybody else. I can assure you that there are other countries where if Trump
was asked, you know, if X country made some kind of incursion, is the U.S. going to be there to
help out? And Trump would go, oh, we would be there with fire and with fury. Absolutely.
Finally, Trump, as is almost always the case, clueless and late to the game, uninvolved
in his own presidency, asked about the drone incursions in Denmark.
These had taken place well before, well before Trump was asked about this.
Trump's, huh?
Why?
Who?
Mr. President, I've been briefed on the latest alleged drone
in terms of Denmark.
What do you think of that?
Where are they?
To Denmark.
Copenhagen.
Denmark is saying that there are some drones.
What's your response?
What's your response to that?
Possibly Russian sabotage.
What's your response to that?
Will you guys have a matured?
Well, I have no response until I find out exactly what happened.
I know about it, but they haven't.
They don't know what happened, but we're going to find out very soon.
Translation, Trump doesn't know what happened because he apparently has not been briefed about it.
He just has no idea what's going on.
And again, it's the double standard.
We never had situations with President Biden.
President Biden had a lot of faults.
President Biden should not have run for re-election.
President Biden was clearly declining, but you didn't have situations where Biden so often,
and this has happened with the incident in Lithuania, now this would, it's dozens of incidents
where Trump goes, huh, what?
Didn't happen with Biden.
We might not have all agreed on Biden's perspective or his response, but Biden was clearly
being briefed and despite claims that he had no involvement in his administration, he clearly
did. But this is just acceptable with Donald Trump. Disaster meeting with Zelensky, much like every
other meeting that Trump seems to have lately. Republicans are now jumping fully on the escalator
and teleprompter conspiracy theory. Don't know what this one is. I envy you. I envy you if you don't
know what this is. When Donald Trump spoke at the UN earlier this week, when he and Melania got
on to the escalator, the escalator stopped.
I know. And many on the Trump right have alleged that it was a deliberate plan maybe to hurt
Trump. You know, Malani, a good thing she was holding the handrail. She could have fallen a few
inches down from that step. It's a miracle Trump even made it up the stairs, to quote Tim Walls.
Then Trump's teleprompter stopped working. But of course, we learned that it was the Trump
White House controlling Trump's teleprompter. Anyway, Maria Bartaromo on Fox News, she's doing the full
lip service. She says that this is really a very, very dangerous thing. Listen to this.
Happened this week at the UN. I want to get your take on this because President Trump says
the Secret Service is investigating what he is calling triple sabotage after his time at the United
Nations on Tuesday. The president wants answers after the escalator stopped as soon as he and the
first lady stepped on it. Look how great Melania was. She's- Melania was so great, guys. It's just
what she was able to do in this incredible situation. Arguably, she deserves that purple heart
Trump's been waiting on. This might be how she and Trump get one. How great Melania was. She is
unfazed. She walks on it. It stopped. She turns around to the president and she just leads the
president up and walks. So she was unfazed by it. It was incredible leadership. I mean,
what is wrong with Maria Barteroma? Dear God, it was incredible leadership that Melania showed
when the escalator became stairs, because at the end of the day, that's what happens.
When an escalator breaks, it's basically now a staircase.
Melania was able to discern that you could use the power of bipedal locomotion, homo sapiens
having the ability of bipedal locomotion to continue stepping forward.
And it was an incredible leadership.
It was better than the Be Best campaign, for sure, just as courageous and heroic.
And we are really lucky to have a first lady so skilled.
But this was, this could have been a massive, massive issue.
And, you know, the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable.
Yes.
Trump stopped walking for three seconds.
Same morning, the teleprompter goes dark in the middle of his speeches.
And then, you know, in the middle of his address, rather.
And then the president also said that the sound was off during his remarks.
And only the people with it's sabotage.
Interpreters speaking into earpieces could actually hear his address.
The U.N. reports that they've had, they ordered a thorough investigation and are, quote,
ready to cooperate in full transparency with relevant U.S. authorities.
Congressman, do you know if we're going to get answers on this?
I surely hope so.
And if the Secret Service has opened up an investigation and the U.N. is doing an investigation.
Obviously, all of those things could not be a coincidence.
No, it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
In fact, I think that this is the biggest political crime since Obamagate.
By the way, does anyone know what Obamagate is?
I still don't know.
This is delusional.
This is completely delusional.
The only way you could take this further into absurdity would be, you know, to have brought in like EMTs to check over Trump and Melania after the escalator stopped.
Greg Stuby weighed in further on this saying, we really, we should we should be very thankful that they were holding on to the handrails.
Congressman, do you know if we're going to get answers on this?
Oh, let me skip ahead.
Obviously, all of those things could not be a coincidence.
And thankfully, the First Lady and the President had their hands on the rails.
They were going up the escalator.
God forbid.
Or you likely would have fallen down and injured themselves.
It seems to be intentional.
Let's hope it wasn't.
But it seems to be that that was the case.
Look, nothing's worked at the U.N.
I don't know why we're still part of the U.N.
The president has been able to do the job of the U.N.
since he's been president anyway you get it it's all terrible donald trump ranted about this as well
all i got from the united nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle
if the first by the way he was up he was like six inches up it wasn't the middle lady wasn't in
great shape she would have fallen but she's in great shape we're both in good shape we both
And then a teleprompter that didn't work.
This is, these are the two things I got from the United Nations.
So anyway, we got a reality check from Furnush Amiri, who's the United Nations correspondent
for the Associated Press, who said a UN official said the UN understand someone from
the president's party who ran ahead triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator.
Also, the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump.
There is literally no story here, and nothing says alpha more than spending four days complaining and conspiracy theorizing about an escalator and a teleprompter.
Donald Trump suffered an acute meltdown on truth social as the nightmare of this final term in office continues to build.
Donald Trump saying, quote, the Democrats want illegal aliens, many of them,
criminals to receive free health care.
The Democrats want $500 million to help radical left news outfits.
The Democrats want to leave dead people on Medicaid and Social Security roles so that criminals
can continue to be allowed to receive that payment and steal their money.
The Democrats want to cut billions of dollars from our once vulnerable rural hospitals,
which we fixed by giving them the largest cash infusion ever.
the Democrats want men playing in women's sports. Transgender for everybody, open borders,
and perhaps most importantly of all, a five-letter word, crime. They like it, and we don't.
And so many other things that will destroy America, we cannot let this happen. This is classic
Trump, you know, fear and outrage, lump several unrelated claims together, criminals, healthcare,
dead people 500 million bucks radical left media he finishes it with a we're all going to die if we
don't stop them today it didn't happen under Biden the way he said it would it's fear mongering
and I wish it didn't work as well as it did I really do but this stuff works Trump then with
another one going after Kamala Harris Kamala Harris who is dumb as a rock it's going around and
using as a standard part of her speech on why she lost the election that 2024 was the
closest presidential election in the 21st century.
Everyone knows this is a lie and was covered as such by Fox News.
I won the Electoral College, 312 to 226, a landslide counties nationwide, 2,600 to 525,
a landslide, all seven swing states, a landslide.
And despite the fact that California's fake mail and ballots came in at ridiculous numbers,
it was rigged.
I still won the popular vote by millions.
Bush, as an example, won the election by 500.
37 votes. Many other elections were close. Kamala's closest in the 21st century soundbite
was like everything else in the Democrat Party, a total lie. I expect an apology. Thank you for
your attention to this matter. Classic Trump. Personal insult. Kamala's dumb as a rock. Revision
is framing of 2024. So it's trash the messenger and then claim the election wasn't close. So
everything's a lie. Standard Trump playbook. Now, Trump did claim a pretty sizable electoral college
margin. He's not wrong about that. He doesn't sound that confident. He sounds self-conscious,
but he's not wrong about that. But the truth is that this came down to relatively few votes
in key swing states. That's kind of always the case. It's just the way American elections
work with the electoral college, urban, rural divide, red and blue states, just kind of the way
it is. It comes down to relatively few votes in relatively few states. That was no different.
And then Trump finally exploding. A real disgrace took place at the United Nations yesterday.
Not one, not two, but three very sinister events.
First, there should be spooky music playing here.
First, the escalator going up to the main speaking floor came to a screeching halt.
It stopped on a dime.
It's amazing that Melania and I didn't fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps face first.
It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or it would have been a disaster.
This was absolutely sabotage, as noted by a day's earlier post.
in the London Times that said UN workers joked about turning off an escalator.
Okay, remember, we already figured out one of Trump's people triggered the stop.
Trump continues, the people that did it should be arrested.
Well, it's Trump's staffer who did it.
Trump continues.
Then as I stood before a television crowd of millions of people all over the world and important
leaders in the hall, my teleprompter didn't work.
It was stone cold, dark.
I immediately thought to myself, wow, first the escalator event, now a bad teleprompter.
What kind of a place is this?
Remember that we learned that it was the Trump White House that was in control of the teleprompter.
And also Trump has claimed for years, he doesn't need teleprompters for speeches.
Why would it be such a big deal that the teleprompter stop working?
Trump said, I proceeded to make a speech without a prompter, which kicked in 15 minutes later.
Good news is the speech got fantastic reviews.
Maybe they appreciated the fact that very people could have done, very few people could have done what I did.
And third, after making the speech, I was told that the sound was completely off in the auditorium,
where the speech was made.
World leaders, unless they were using interpreter pieces, couldn't hear a thing.
All right, anyway, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but he continues with the woe is me sort of stuff.
Immediate accusations of sabotage.
It's all dramatic.
It's all personal.
It's punitive.
He's calling for arrests.
It's tailored to portray Trump as a victim of a global conspiracy to make him look bad,
to delegitimize the United Nation.
And so Trump's pattern is always, while claiming to be this impenetrable force of male alpha male energy,
He takes minor technical problems, some at least the direct responsibility of his own staff,
and he turns them into criminal malevolence by unnamed actors.
All of this is meant to generate outrage.
It's meant to simplify complex or procedural matters into a moral panic.
And everybody is malicious.
Everybody's out to get Trump.
He's the biggest victim, despite leading a life of incredible privilege.
for all of this time. I want to hear from you. Does anyone in my audience think the escalator was
sabotaged on purpose? Does anyone in my audience think Trump's audio was sabotaged on purpose?
Does anybody think that Trump's teleprompter was sabotaged on purpose? Leave a comment and a like.
I would love a like or send me an email info at David Pakman.com. You know, it's not that the system
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Charlie Kirk has been killed.
It is shocking.
It is wrong.
And it's part of a bigger problem that we kind of keep pretending that we don't have.
And so I want to talk about solving political violence today.
violence is not new in the United States of America.
The question is, are we finally ready to stop it?
I worry the answer is no, but we have pretty good information about how we would do it.
Political violence doesn't mean you yelled at somebody at a rally, right?
We're talking about using force or threats of force to scare, punish, or control for political
reasons, using physical acts, assassination, bombing, armed plots, kidnapping,
kidnappings, attacks meant to send a political message.
And what the numbers say is that in the United States, over the last 10 to 15 years, the
overwhelming political violence has come from the right.
That's not my opinion.
That's what the government and independent researchers have found.
Anti-government militias, white supremacist violence, January 6th, which was Trump supporters.
Again and again, the number show the same thing.
Now, politically motivated killings are a slice of all murders.
And since the mid-70s, there have been a few thousand terrorism deaths in the United States,
less than 1% of all homicides.
But that 1% really matter more than the number suggests because those are attacks aimed
at democracy itself.
They're meant to scare people out of politics.
They're meant to scare people out of activism.
In some cases, they're meant to scare people out of even voting or expressing their political
opinions.
So why does it keep happening in the United States?
For one, the country is flooded with guns.
Every argument can turn deadly.
The information space is toxic.
Other countries have political disagreements.
But if you get into a political disagreement with someone in a bar in France or London, you
are significantly confident that there's not going to be an endpoint.
where one party pulls out a gun because they're angry, because most people don't have guns.
It's just a mathematical reality.
Propaganda then tells people, some people, that violence is patriotic.
The president back during his first term, Donald Trump, said that knocking people around and all of
this stuff is okay to do.
And so then you see election workers harassed, school board members harassed, judges
harassed without any kind of hesitation because.
too many people in the country have come to believe that that is valid and reasonable to do.
And then you also have a leader, a lot of leaders who kind of wink at it. You know, they don't go,
let's go shoot people, but they will talk about second amendment solutions. What do you think that
means? They won't call out violence when their side does it. And so if leaders treat violence
like a political tool or at least don't denounce it, of course their supporters are going to
do the exact same thing. Now other countries have faced political violence and they've been
able to pull back from this kind of dangerous edge.
If you look at Northern Ireland, there were decades of shootings and bombings.
And the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 did not just sign a piece.
It changed the system.
Police were rebuilt with oversight and community trust.
People stopped seeing them as a political army, but rather more like neutral protectors.
Violence went down significantly.
So the lesson was really simple.
And law enforcement is trusted, violence can lose some of the fuel, not all of it, but some of the fuel.
You look at Spain.
They spent decades fighting the separatist group ETA, ETA.
The state cracked down really hard on violence, but it gave the Basque region more political autonomy.
And so they kind of marginalized ETA.
And we have seen a dissolution of that group and a significant decline in violence.
You've got examples in Germany.
You've got examples in Denmark where they build these programs for extremists.
They include counseling.
They include jobs.
We talk about how do people end up radicalize?
Well, it's often a combination.
You can combine sometimes bad economic circumstances, not feeling like active or productive
participants of society, isolation, access to guns makes what they're able to do even worse.
So you've got to start picking these different aspects and trying to work on each of them.
And so the lesson is off ramps prevention is not just police and prisons.
You need more than that.
Columbia is an interesting example where FARC fighters disarmed after a deal was signed.
And there was investment in rural areas, homicides dropped to very low levels, not perfect,
still problematic in Colombia, but a work in progress.
And the thread in all of these cases can
be so boring. It's political inclusion. It's credible policing. It's prevention programs. It's
leaders who really clearly say no to violence. And it's made clear that all of society will shun
you if you commit the violence. It can't be one side is kind of wink, wink at me that like,
yeah, violence is bad. But Trump goes, don't be too, uh, don't be too soft with the protesters.
You've got to really make it clear that every single leader is saying no violence. And society
will ostracize you for the violence.
There are better options than the violence.
So what it would look like here is first of all, I'm not going to say Republicans or Democrats.
Just every elected official needs to draw very bright line.
Violence is disqualifying, period.
There's no excuses.
There's no like half-hearted conditional condemnation.
Just it is disqualifying.
Second, police have to be credible, right?
You've got to protect protest rights.
But you also have to crack down on threats against officials and work.
workers and all of it.
And then number three, prevention has to be real.
You've got to build exit programs at scale and fund communities that can sort of pull people
back before they act on this stuff.
And you really have to protect the front line of democracy.
Election workers, judges, school board members.
We need to treat every threat against them seriously and many are not taken seriously.
And at some point, you know, maybe you deal with the informational mess of social media and
all of it. I don't know exactly how you do it, but you've got to consider that the lies and conspiracy
theories certainly are not helping. They fuel anger. They fuel retaliation. Officials need to move
quickly and with with facts and shut down the scapegoating. So none of this is complicated stuff,
but we don't seem to have the will to do it in the United States. Other countries treated
political violence like a disease and they said, we've got to cure this. The United States
treats it more like entertainment. And one killing is.
too many. When violence becomes normal, we're in a real problematic position. So we can't let the
extremists set the rules. We know what works. And I hate to say this, we could add hunger
overnight if there was the political will to do it. We know what works. But we don't seem
to have the political will in the United States. And if we don't have it to end political
violence, then you've got to start asking the question, who benefits from political violence
continuing? And that's a that's a heretical question to be asked.
asking. Donald Trump must be impeached again right now. I don't even really know how to open
the door to this topic, but Trump's been impeached twice, once for abusing power in Ukraine,
once for inciting an insurrection. Both of those were serious. Both of those were correct.
Both of those were historic. He was impeached, but not convicted, as you know. Now we're in 2025,
and we have something even more fundamental, which is Trump is waging war on the First Amendment.
By definition, I would argue that this is a high crime because it violates the Constitution.
The framers of the Constitution were really clear about this danger.
And if you look at the Federalist papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, impeachment exists to address the misconduct of public men abuses that violate the public trust and undermine the system itself.
They didn't want a king.
They wanted checks and balances.
And they gave Congress the tool of impeachment for moments, I would argue, exactly.
like this. This is not a policy disagreement. We're not going to impeach someone because of a disagreement
about the tax rate. Even if they think the tax rate should be zero or 100, we might disagree,
but we're not going to impeach them for that. We're talking about the first amendment. Your right
to speak. Your right to criticize the government. Your right to protest without being silenced.
And if a president can dismantle those protections without consequence, what is the, the constitution
no longer matters. All the people that, that pray to the constitution, borderline prey.
see it as a sacred text you're not actually defending it then what are we really doing here and
trump's doing it in broad daylight we've got the jimmy kimmel fiasco uh stephen cobert um had nothing
to do with ratings it wasn't about creative choices it was the white house made it clear
that mocking trump was unacceptable now kimmel's back because a bc was losing money but sinclair
and next star don't seem to be airing the show but then trump said maybe we will sue a bc for
for bringing Kimmel back.
This is a major impeachable problem.
You've then got Trump's lawsuits, media companies that are getting buried under legal attacks,
not because they fabricated stories, because they dared to allow comedy, to allow satire,
in some cases simply to report the truth about Trump.
The lawsuits aren't about correcting the record for Trump.
They're about intimidating.
And they're about making it so expensive and risky to challenge Trump that people start to sell
censor. And they say, ah, this is what I believe. This is what the truth is, but I'm not going to say
it. Doesn't stop with the press and comedy. Because then you look at protesters. Protesters are
facing unprecedented crackdowns. Permits are being denied. Rallies are being broken up.
Activists targeted with surveillance. The right to assemble and speak freely and hold your government
accountable. These are also under attack by the Trump administration. If a comedian can't joke
about the president, if a reporter can't investigate the president, if a citizen can't
protest the president. What is left of the First Amendment? And this is why impeachment exists.
The House doesn't have to invent any new rule. The House doesn't have to develop some novel
interpretation of the Constitution or of the duty of impeachment. The standard is really simple.
Measure what Trump is doing against the Constitution. Lay Trump's suppression of speech
alongside the First Amendment. And when you do it, there's only one conclusion. Impeachment isn't
just justified. It is man.
mandatory. The House must impeach Trump. Now, think about the consequences if the House just
kind of shrugs it off. If Trump is allowed to silence speech without any consequence, every
future president will know that they can do the same thing. So it might be comedians and journalists
now and maybe some protesters, but the next thing you know, it's anybody who dares to speak
up, even on social media. And we've seen this play out in authoritarian regimes. Journalists end up in
prison, comedians are driven into exile, movements are silenced. And if this country goes down
that road, I don't know that we come back. So this is beyond left or right. This is not about
whether you agree with Jimmy Kimmel's jokes or the editorial perspective of the Washington Post
versus the Wall Street Journal. This is simply, does the United States have a constitution
worth defending? And that's why this moment is so stark. So the House of Representatives has a
choice. It either enforces the Constitution or it admits the First Amendment.
Amendment is optional, which is a tragedy.
Once you cross that line, democracy is optional.
So that's the reality and that's the danger.
I don't believe that there is a political question here as to impeachment.
It is a constitutional obligation.
If abuse of power in Ukraine was impeachable, which it was, if the incitement of insurrection
was impeachable and it was, then Trump's assault on free speech has to be done.
It is the most impeachable act yet.
It's the line.
Cross it.
And the First Amendment is gone.
Cross it.
And I don't even know if we're still a democracy.
So Donald Trump must be impeached.
He must be impeached.
And it is the duty of the House of Representatives to do that.
Every interview with members of the House I do from this point forward, I'm going to ask them
about this.
And if they say, no, I will say, well, why not?
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.
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that the current administration and Donald Trump as a president are the most anti-business
that I can remember. The context is that Donald Trump loves to call himself the businessman president.
He makes deals. He has instincts. He gets it done. But if you look at his record, it's the opposite.
He has governed in ways that have really hurt businesses and scared investors and undermined free
markets, which he claims to support.
And this is why, as I told you earlier this week, CEOs behind closed doors straight up say
this is the most anti-business president in modern history.
You start with the tariffs, which were sold as a way to bring back American manufacturing.
But what's happening is higher prices for American companies and consumers.
Businesses that rely on parts from other countries are paying more, meaning they either have
to accept a lower profit or they pass the cost to consumers. They're mostly passing the cost
to consumers right now. You have supply chains rerouted overnight, delayed projects, companies
stuck playing a guessing game. And the next thing you know, instead of being more competitive,
the tariffs make the United States look weaker and less predictable. And then you look at how Trump
treats the Federal Reserve. Every business person knows the Fed's independence is sacred and it's important.
The point of monetary policy is not to be pushed around by political pressure, but Trump
has spent years attacking Fed leaders, demanding lower interest rates, threatening to replace
people who don't follow his orders.
And that does not create stability.
That creates fear.
And investors don't like fear.
They don't like uncertainty.
They wonder, is the United States a country with a currency that can still be trusted?
Because the monetary policy, rather than being about economics, which it should be, is becoming
more and more about politics.
This is not capitalism as we know it.
You know, Trump has really been moving towards a state directed capitalism where the government
takes equity stakes in private companies and forces revenue sharing agreements or blocks
mergers.
That is not letting the market decide, which is what they say they value.
That's the government picking winners and losers, which they said Obama was doing and shouldn't
be allowed.
And the winners always happened to be the ones that pledge loyalty to Donne.
Trump, not the ones who build the best businesses, which gets us to the policy whiplash.
The rules under Trump change all the time.
One week, there's a tariff.
The next week there isn't.
Then it's back.
Entire industries don't know, should we invest?
Should we be laying people off?
Should we wait?
Should we shut down altogether?
And if you think about yourself trying to build a factory, for example, or launch a product,
when the rules could flip, your source materials are going up and down and costs based
on tariffs that you can't even keep track of that sometimes change because of a post in the middle
of the night or whatever the case may be.
That's a form of economic sabotage.
And then we get to the inflation problem.
The tariffs drive up costs.
And at the same time, Trump wants fed rates to come down.
That is a recipe for stagflation, meaning higher prices and lower growth, weaker growth,
lower employment.
Businesses get squeezed because on the one hand, you've got the costs going up.
On the other hand, you've got fewer people who can afford your product, meaning demand goes
down.
That's very bad for growth.
And then it's also kind of destroying America's credibility as a safe place to invest because
investors from other countries go, well, I've got money.
Where do I invest it?
The United States, the tariffs are on or off.
The business cycle is being mutilated by this hairbrained scheme from Donald Trump.
I'll take my money and I'm going to go elsewhere.
This is not the way it used to be.
The United States used to be a good business environment in that way.
Now, other countries have good business environments as well.
You know, people love to say Scandinavian countries in Northern Europe, they're terrible
for business.
Denmark has a great business environment.
But the United States business environment was also good.
But we now are sort of emblematic of the type of instability that a lot of companies try
to avoid.
Now, the last piece, which I talked about with you on Tuesday, is that CEOs know this.
They talk about it in private.
They talk about it amongst themselves.
They admit Trump is making things worse, but they're scared to say it publicly because they
know when you cross Trump, I'm going to get social media attacks or I'm going to get hit
with a boycott or a federal investigation will suddenly appear.
No one wants to risk that for their company.
So they smile in public and they show up and shake hands and go, what great leadership,
Mr. President.
And the irony is it's not great leadership.
The businessman president isn't a great businessman and he's not a great president.
either. Now, I think that he will be remembered for the tariffs if indeed those hold and do what we expect
them to do to the country. It's going to undermine the bullying of the Fed will undermine trust
in the dollar. And it's going to turn the economy into a de facto loyalty test, more emblematic
of the regimes that I thought we didn't like places like Russia as an example. So this is not how
a pro business president behaves. This is the record of what I believe is the most anti-business
president in American history. And this is, you know, they talk about trickle down taxes, cut taxes
for the rich and then it trickles down to everybody. Everybody gets wealthier. Doesn't happen.
Fabricated, debunked widely. What does trickle down is all of this is noticed by voters and it's
affecting Donald Trump's approval and hitting them where it arguably hurts him the most.
Donald Trump's approval rating is collapsing.
And at this point, it's kind of on life support.
The latest numbers are from the American research group.
They are brutal.
Only 37% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing, 58% disapprove.
This is the same floor that Trump hit back in 2017.
And we're at the exact same spot today.
the economy. Remember, we were told the economy is a strong point. This is nuts. 34% approve on the
economy. 63% disapprove. This is worse than overall jobs numbers among independents, those who arguably
decide elections. Only 31% approve of how Trump is handling the economy. Now, look at the history
on some of these numbers. At this point in his presidency, which was the,
second of two consecutive terms with Obama, of course. He was in his mid 40s. George W. Bush,
even after the disaster of the Iraq war, was still higher in terms of approval at this point
in his presidency than Trump is right now. So Trump is really an uncharted territory here, one of the
weakest incumbents, I guess we would say or one of one of the weakest presidents in modern
American history. But the really telling part is that among the 37 percent that say I do
approve of the job Trump is doing, almost half say in a year the economy is going to be worse.
There's no hope there. It's loyalty over hope. I approve, but I think the economy is going to get
even worse. It's loyalty with despair, you might be able to say. You can't govern a country
when your base believes things are going to get worse under you. And the economic pessimism is everywhere
right now. Sixty one percent of Americans think the economy will be worse a year from now overall.
80% say the economy is bad or very bad or terrible.
Household finances, 60% say our household finances are getting worse.
So this is more than just disapproval.
This is like Jimmy Carter level warning signs.
And what doesn't get enough attention is that Republicans are showing cracks.
Almost one in five Republicans disapprove of how Trump is handling the presidency.
More than a quarter of Republicans disagree with Trump's handling of the economy.
These are not like rounding errors on the edges.
This is a slice of Trump's own party breaking ranks.
What does this tell us that Trump is presiding over an economy that most Americans believe is going
down?
What we learned under Biden is that no matter what the statistics are, when people believe that
it's bad for your party, that's what Biden proved.
And Trump is arguably in a significantly worse situation because the job situation is worse
than under Biden.
Inflation's going up rather than down.
Independence have abandoned him.
Disatisfaction is bubbling up from within the Republican Party.
So the polling is bad, but it's an administration that is increasingly seen as illegitimate
and impotent.
If a presidency can survive on life support, maybe this one will.
But to use a medical analogy, the patient doesn't look very good right now.
And the ventilator keeping it alive is not the economy, it's not policy, it's not foreign policy
as he's doing so well on national security, it's the right wing media bubble combining with
cult style loyalty to keep Donald Trump at the 37% where he finds himself now.
Now, I know many of you will say, well, but David, what does it really matter?
This guy's not running again.
It matters because Trump still wants to be kingmaker.
It matters because there's a question as to whether MAGA will again rear its ugly head
in 2028 or not.
And it matters because the economy is actually declining fast enough that this might affect
Republicans' ability to even keep the House in 2026. And if Republicans lose the House in 26,
Trump's agenda is dead. That's it. Members of the House control the purse strings. They control the
money. If they can shut down everything Trump wants to do, now there will be two years of Republicans
doing nothing on which Democrats can run in 2028. Now, whether Democrats will run effectively,
that's sort of a different question. Sometimes the answer is no. Often the answer is no.
know, but at least it's going to set up a scenario where if Democrats get it together,
if Democrats get a winning message together, if Democrats can convince the average working class
person, actually this is better.
It's not just Trump bad, but you do have something to offer, which is what I've been
begging elected officials to put together.
Every single interview, then maybe, maybe the scenario I laid out Tuesday about not winning
again for a long time won't come true.
That's my hope.
Let me know what you think.
Make sure to like this video on YouTube and leave a comment.
really useful to us. Plus, I want to see what you have to say. We'll take a quick break.
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It's time for Friday feedback.
You can email me any time.
info at david packman.com will feature some emails on friday will also include youtube comments
tic-tok replies spotify posts and messages the subreddit anything could show up here let's start
with rick the clipper reminding us that charlie kirk said the second amendment causes some deaths
but that is the price the u.s has to pay now he is part of the statistic well you know this
The tragedy of this, and I said this when Charlie Kirk was killed, Charlie Kirk had said some gun deaths are just the price we have to pay for the glory of the Second Amendment, for having the Second Amendment, which he believed was so, so important.
I wonder, as I said before, if we had gone to Charlie Kirk and said, hey, Charlie, on September 10th, 2025, you are going to be one of those deaths.
Is that worth it?
I wonder what he would have said.
I wonder if the people around him, family, people at turning point, et cetera, if they agreed
with his view that the gun deaths are just the price we pay for having the Second Amendment
and a worthwhile price at that, if we had said to them, well, Charlie is going to be one
of those deaths on September 10th, 2025.
Is that worth it?
What would they have said?
I don't know the answer.
You know, sometimes with some of these Republicans, once something hits them personally,
they do change their mind.
I don't know what they would have said.
But it's definitely a tragedy regardless.
And I don't think that that's worth it.
I don't think the gun deaths we have are a fair and worthwhile trade to maintain the Second
Amendment.
I just don't think so.
Call me crazy.
Okay.
Jaliel Carter, this is like a two-parter.
Jalil Carter says, yes, it's unfortunate what happened to Kirk, but it's over now.
Release the files, meaning the Epstein files, and stop dragging it out.
And similarly, Zayna Griffith said, Charlie Kirk wanted the Epstein files released.
Trump did not.
Coincidence, I think not.
So let me address these kind of together.
This second one is very conspiratorial.
And I've heard this conspiracy theory before.
We've heard a bunch of them.
Charlie was souring on Israel.
So Israel had Charlie killed.
There's no evidence of that.
This is a different version, which is Trump.
didn't want the Epstein files released and Charlie did. So he was killed by, I don't know, insert
your conspiracy here. We have no evidence of that, but Charlie Kirk did want the Epstein files
released. Now, the first one that I showed you here is sort of a different one, which is,
hey, now release the files and sort of a we're not getting distracted kind of thing. I don't
subscribe to the refrains we often hear about this is a.
calculated distraction from that. That's a calculated distraction from the other thing. I don't
think these people are competent enough to carefully time and pull off these distractions.
But I do think it's important that we not get distracted. And so we are dealing with an economy
with more and more cracks in the labor market. We're reeling from political violence and language
from the Trump world that is turning up the temperature even further when it comes to
political violence.
We're dealing with geopolitical conflict and RFK saying Tylenol causes autism.
You know, all we're dealing with all this stuff.
And so in so doing, we just want to remember there there are things we don't want to forget
about, which are we were promised the Epstein files.
We haven't gotten them.
Trump says the topic is over.
And yeah, but I mean, add his name to the list, Charlie Kirk also wanted the Epstein
files to be released.
So you don't have to believe that these.
are calculated distractions to just simply say, we've not forgotten about the Epstein files.
They should still be released.
All right.
On Spotify, Denise Ogan said, wait for Trump's war, guys.
It's only a matter of time for me, I guess, midterms.
I have no idea whether Donald Trump is going to start some kind of conflict on purpose.
We know at least generically that when the country is embroiled.
in a military engagement. It often helps the party in the Oval Office or the party who has pushed
for that engagement in elections. Arguably, we saw that with George W. Bush in 2004 when he
defeated John Kerry extraordinarily narrowly. But I don't think Trump is thinking, oh, I should
really start a war next September to help Republicans keep control of the House. However, Trump has proven
that is anti-war credentials are very shaky, very, very shaky.
And we've seen that he has an extraordinarily, extraordinary willingness to engage militarily,
whether it's with drones or other kinds of airstrikes or whatever the case may be,
if he believes that it will be politically advantageous.
And at the end of the day, Trump wants to be liked.
Do they like me is sort of Trump's highest calling in a sense.
And so I would not predict Trump will start a war next.
September to help them, but I would not be surprised if there is a major military engagement coming
up.
And look, I mean, he's talked about Mexico.
He's talked about Venezuela.
This could end up in any number of places.
I don't think any of them would surprise me.
Lumpy Dumpy Dumpur said via Spotify, David, sir, where do you stand on the Democratic Party pushing
for a government shutdown?
Being someone who would be personally affected by such an event, I still wish.
that the Democratic Party would do something beyond just sending strongly worded letters. Well, you know,
I'm not sure that the Democratic Party is putting, pushing for a government shutdown. What,
what I can tell you is I've heard statements from Democratic elected officials about the different
ways that this could go. I was on a Zoom with Senator Cory Booker last week. He said,
I do not want a government shutdown. And I even sort of generically brought up like, you know,
know, there are those who say the government shutdown under Republicans would be good for Democrats,
but at the same time, if Democrats don't allow, and he just made it very clear, people suffer
during a government shutdown. I don't want that, period. So I think I'm kind of challenging Lumpy's
view that the Democratic Party is pushing for a government shutdown, although I'm willing to stand
corrected. Now, here's the, the tricky part about government shutdowns. We in the sort
of rational, empirical space, sometimes think to ourselves. Listen,
If Republicans shut down the government, and sometimes it's like allow the government to shut
down, you can use whatever language you want.
If Republicans are in power when the government shuts down, voters will hold Republicans
accountable.
We are sort of like sequential concrete thinkers in that way.
Doesn't always happen.
And we know that the American electorate is sometimes fickle and often assigns blame to the wrong
party.
And so I think there is a risk for the Democrats to say, let them shut it down.
They're going to get crushed next November because sometimes voters have a short attention
span or short memory.
And sometimes they blame the wrong people.
As a person myself, I tend to put the good of the people above the political good.
So for me, the priority would be, hey, people suffer when the government shuts down.
end up getting back pay, but not everybody, contractors and others.
So I don't want to shut down because I don't want to see people hurt, but to the comment,
I don't really see the Democratic Party pushing for a shutdown at this point.
IV 214 said on Spotify, Hey David, this is my favorite progressive podcast, mostly because you see more
level headed and aren't an alarmist. I remember when Trump won, you said you didn't think democracy
would end under Trump.
I'm just curious, has your opinion changed now?
Did you think all the checks and balances would erode this fast?
Are you surprised how easily corporations bowed to Trump?
Thanks, David.
Stay safe.
So listen, I believe we are going to have a 2028 election.
I do.
I believe Trump is going to leave.
But the amount of damage that Trump is going to be able to do to norms and institutions
and checks and balances between now and then is significant.
Am I surprised at how bad it is?
Not really.
Have I changed my mind that democracy is ending?
I think Trump is going to do every damn thing he can to erode democracy over the next three years,
three months and a little more than three weeks.
But I do think democracy will survive.
The question is in what form?
Will it be weakened and will half the country end up not really caring about whether the United
States remains a democracy?
a terrifying, terrifying element of it. Sharon Ottstadt said on Substack, I support you every
way I can, but I can't afford to pay even a dollar. This is upsetting. Fixed income, social
security, inflation. I'm not even sure I can afford food for the month. Our belts are already
tight, but love and peace to you, David. Keep going. We'll show you.
Sharon, I'm going to keep going.
And as many of you know, I've said before, less than 1% of our audience supports our show financially.
And I'm fine with that.
The whole point here is to spread the message as widely as possible.
We make the show available for free on every platform.
We subsidize that with about seven tenths of one percent of the audience subscribing to
directly, either on my website or on substack.
The whole point of that when people go, oh, what am I, you know, what do I get for my three
bucks a month?
Of course, you get the bonus show, you get the show commercial free, all of that stuff.
But every person that signs up is subsidizing the show being free for like 125 other people.
Like that's kind of the math of it, right?
So, I so appreciate this message from Sharon.
I so appreciate the folks who are in that seven-tenths of 1% and just imagine what we could
do if instead of having 0.7% of our audience supporting us, we had 1.5%.
We also do have free memberships available.
So Sharon, consider going to David Pakman.com slash free membership because you can request a free
membership there and we'll give those out as they are gifted.
All right, Lee 53 says on YouTube, David, you are always careful with your responses and don't
escalate or try to create drama.
This is a time when you seem to be getting more and more concerned and that tells me how
serious this is.
Yeah, you know, Lee is right.
One of the things I always try not to do on this show is go overboard in terms of how serious
something is, but I don't want to understate either.
And there are always people who say, David, you're overstating a threat or David,
you're understating a threat.
I am always trying to sort of keep as the North Star accurately and substantively reporting
to you.
Here's the level of risk.
And Lee is right.
I have never perceived the level of risk to be as high as it is right now.
Never, ever, ever to institutions, to free press, to the media from political violence.
And so Lee is right.
Your perception is correctly.
I have never been as worried as I am right now.
And there are a lot of different things we can do.
my segment earlier this week about we should really be out on the streets like every day all the time.
I do think the time for action is now.
I'm going to keep talking about that.
Finally, Richard Haley says, all the liberal Democrats did for eight years under Obama and four
years under Biden was attack the free press and limit free speech.
Now you complain, you reap what you sow.
Well, you know what, Richard, I don't remember spending those 12 years under Democrats attacking
the free press or limiting free speech. And as usual, Richard is light on the example. So, Richard,
right back in, give me some examples of the suppression of speech, nothing like what we are seeing
right now under Trump. Did we even remotely see, even remotely see during the Obama or Biden
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