The David Pakman Show - A major shift is happening right now

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump gradually loses control over his base and party as voters and allies begin questioning his leadership and distancing themselves -- Senator Mike Lee admits he does not know how many illegal votes exist while still pushing election fraud claims to justify stricter voting laws -- Analysts highlight Donald Trump’s weak approval ratings and explain how poor polling with independents signals likely midterm losses -- A strong anti-corruption platform targets insider profit and forces Republican leaders to defend or oppose reforms that appeal to their own voters -- Tucker Carlson is building a loyal media-driven base that mirrors modern political power while publicly downplaying any interest in running for president -- Donald Trump and allies repeatedly make false claims without consequences, as political incentives reward confidence and attention over accuracy -- Mike Pence claims Donald Trump did not reshape the Republican Party despite clear evidence that loyalty to Trump now defines party identity -- Repeated scandals and extreme rhetoric desensitize the public to behavior that used to end careers -- On the Bonus Show: Kristi Noem’s husband is caught up in a cross-dressing scandal, the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk cannot be affirmatively matched to the alleged rifle, Pete Hegseth will not investigate why Army helicopters flew near Kid Rock’s house, and much more… 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/david 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:23) Trump is losing support within his own base (09:17) Mike Lee cannot quantify alleged voter fraud (19:39) Trump polling shows weakness ahead of midterms (27:07) An anti-corruption platform could reshape political alignment (35:57) Tucker Carlson’s audience positions him for a presidential run (43:54) Accuracy takes a backseat to attention in today's politics (51:17) Mike Pence misreads Trump’s impact on the GOP (59:33) Political controversies no longer drive lasting outrage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's something bigger going on right now that a lot of people are missing that I will be talking about today. And it is not about any one statement from any one administration official or it's not another claim that has fallen apart on TV. The system around this administration and around MAGA has started to change in some very real ways where people in the base are questioning Trump. Republican politicians are pushing narratives. They can't even defend when asked basic questions. and polling that historically points to major election trouble ahead. Now, at the same time, you've got a political environment where being completely wrong no longer really matters anymore.

You can just be wrong and then everybody moves on. And when a political movement loses internal confidence while acting in a way that there's never a demand for accountability, things get quickly unstable. We also are going to hear from Mike Pence trying to pretend that the Republican party is no longer the party of Trump and is sort of like the old Republican party. That is very much not true. And unless Republicans face that reality, they are going to get crushed in November. So today, we're going to look at all of it. Donald Trump is losing control.

I believe everybody knows it. And we have seen, you know, we've covered the individual Trump melt. He doesn't get his way about something and he posts some insane screed on truth social or he glitches again and again and again and falls asleep again and again and you've seen those stories. This is not about an acute Trump meltdown. This is kind of it's kind of a sad thing actually if you are still a MAGA. What we are seeing right now is Trump gradually losing control of his own party and his own movement. And you can see it in what Trump says. You can see it in what Trump does. But maybe the

most important place that you see it is actually not in Trump, but it's in the people around him. The clearest signal right now about the sun setting or maybe it's sundowning of Trump. The suns setting of Trump isn't coming from Democrats or liberals or anarchists or communists or socialist or LGBTQ. It's coming from the MAGA base. I could please. I'll play dozens of clips here for you. I don't need to. I'm not going to do that because I want to focus on the analysis, but I'm going to give you a couple of examples of this from the last month.

CPAC wasn't that long ago. And CPAC attendees admitted the Republican base is crumbling. And here is a CPAC attendee who said he believes that the MAGA movement and Republicans are going to get crushed, crushed in a. November, that election, of course, coming up very soon. I think they would get destroyed the midterms. I just, I get the vibe. A lot of people I knew who just voted for Trump because they thought it was cool in like high school or just now just being like, I can't stand the guy.

That is a CPAC attendee. That's not a no king's protester. It's not someone at a Kamala rally. You get the point. This is Trump's political home turf or at least it's supposed to be. to be, although as we covered at the time, CPAC was pretty divided about Iran, certainly. And what they are now saying out loud is that a lot of people who voted for Trump because they thought it was cool, funny to think that now, are starting to turn on him.

And it's not a single scandal, although the Iran fiasco is a part of it for a lot of these voters. It's not a single glitch or a single nap in public. It's because the entire thing has kind of lost its appeal and it feels extraordinarily unstable, which of course it is. Prices will go down, but they're up. We're not going to do new wars, but he does. And so when you hear that from inside the base, it usually means one thing. There is a shift that has already taken place.

We're hearing about it on a delay. This is a really common thing. Now, in extreme authoritarian movements, it sort of happens instantly. Like, if you asked the North Korean people, although there is a certain level of brainwashing there, but if you ask the North Korean people, is life good? If they're honest, a long time ago, they would have said, of course, life isn't good under this regime. But they're not willing to admit it publicly in North Korea because they would probably be killed.

In the United States, it's not that you'll be killed if you turn on Trump, although he might send you into a war where you will be killed, but you would be ostracized by the movement, by family members who still support him, whatever. And so the point I'm trying to make is when we start hearing from people, this is a mess. A lot of us can't stand the guy anymore. We're going to get crushed. That realization happened a long time prior, and it takes a while for them to start being willing to say it publicly. Just one other example of this. Again, this is a CPAC attendee from a few weeks ago. This is a CPAC attendee. This is a CPAC attendee. just laying into Trump over the war in Iran, which has been a very, very controversial issue

for Trump. Oh, man, you know, realistic foreign policy. So I'm just hoping we can get it all wrapped up soon. This isn't, you know, what I voted for. What I voted for was domestic policy change at home and, you know, realistic foreign policy. So I'm just hoping we can get it all wrapped up soon. All right. This is sort of like the rotten core of how Trump is losing control and losing influence.

He didn't run on I will start new wars. He ran on ending wars and keeping us out of stupid wars. He told us hundreds of times, is it thousands? It was certainly hundreds during his various campaigns. He ran as the guy who was going to stop sending Americans into foreign conflicts that would get people killed for no real reason. Endless entanglements in the Middle East were part of the central pitch of what he wouldn't do. Hillary would get us into four wars.

Biden would get us into four wars. Kamala Harris would get us into four, seven wars maybe. And people voted for him some on the basis that he wouldn't. And now he did. And his voters are saying, this isn't what I voted for. So we've got two things happening at once that are fascinating. And Republicans are going to have to figure out what on earth to do in advance of the 2026 midterms.

You've got voters peeling away. And you have the reason why they're peeling away becoming clearer and clearer. And this is how it looks in politics when you lose control. It's not overnight. It's quiet. It's people slowly reconsidering and saying maybe I'm not getting exactly what I voted for and it's not looking right. I'm going to disconnect from this movement for some period of time.

Now let me mention one other layer that is arguably even more important. When a political leader loses control like this, especially when it's an aging political leader, we've seen this in authoritarian countries before. Something happens behind the scenes, which is that the people around them. start planning for what comes next. There's a succession planning that takes place out of earshot of the dear leader. We know this from authoritarian systems. The leader starts to look weak.

The coalition is fracturing and the decisions are erratic and the leaders doing the opposite of what they promised. The inner circle changes its behavior and starts thinking not about loyalty to Trump, which is like what they've mostly been thinking about. They start to think about survival. How do they survive as individuals after Trump? Where do they fit in, if at all? And what happens to the movement and the party after Trump is gone?

How do I position myself for the post-Trump era? And once that starts, it's really hard to reverse. The same people who used to protect you start hedging and distancing and building relationships that don't depend on you. So they have something to go to once you're gone. And so for those of us kind of waiting. for the dramatic break. He does shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and lo and behold, he loses support. And it's just not the way it happens. You've got people quietly preparing for the post-Trump world.

And the signs are everywhere. You've got Republicans warning about midterm losses. Voters are questioning the decisions made by Trump. His allies are defending him less and less aggressively and more selectively. And Trump's political power was never about policy. It was always about control, people wanting to be part of a cool kid sort of group, controlling the base, controlling the party, controlling the narrative. It's all slipping. Trump is slipping and that control is slipping. And so what we are seeing is the classic slow realization that we're on a horse that can't

get us anywhere anymore. And so once enough people believe that, the system's going to move on. And we are seeing it in real time. How many people voted illegally in 2020? How about how many people voted illegally in 2024? Would you be shocked if the real number were millions of illegal votes? I would too. It makes no sense.

That'd be idiotic. It's not that number. Would you be shocked if the real number of so-called illegal votes was 14? Well, listen, one of the biggest proponents of the wacky theory that tons of people voted illegally is Senator Mike Lee. He appeared on Fox News and he was asked a good question by Maria Vardo. How many people do you estimate voted illegally in 2020 or 2024? Now, Mike Lee does respond honestly. He says, I don't know. But that doesn't stop him from wildly speculating and from arguing that we do have a ton of people voting illegally, even though he doesn't.

really know. Let's take a listen. You, Senator, how big of an issue do you think this really is in terms of secure elections? For example, how many people do you estimate voted in 2020 and in 2024 that were not legal? I don't know those numbers. But what I do believe is that there are at least tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands by the time all the research is done. I believe is doing some heavy lifting here. of people who have registered to vote in elections in one state or another,

and regardless of how many of those have voted in the past, we have to remember that there are 30 million plus non-citizens in this country, 10 or 15 million of whom came into this country illegally between 2021 and 24 alone. So regardless of how many may have voted in the past, what you have to look for is how many have registered and how many could register if we don't close this gap. Do you see how that, that that is some incredible, incredible propaganda. How many voted illegally?

I don't know, but I believe and feel that millions registered to vote and there are millions that could register to vote. So how many voted illegally? I don't know. But I feel that many registered. Guys. Guys, this is the guy pushing for stricter voting laws, raising alarms about election integrity, going on TV.

Sure that there's a massive problem we urgently need to fix and it requires all sorts of legislation. But he just told you he doesn't have any clue. This is the scam and this is how it works. You start with the conclusion. There must be widespread fraud. And then you work backwards. You fill in the gaps going backwards.

I have some vibes and a suspicion. I have conjecture and speculation. And maybe I can find an anecdote. And when someone, even Maria Bartaromo in this case, asks you the obvious question, well, how many people did vote illegally? The answer is, I don't know, but I feel. I thought facts didn't care about your feelings. Now, if you're going to go out there and justify making it harder to vote, stricter

laws, purging voter rolls, limiting early voting, you would hope that at minimum, you've got evidence that this is a real problem. And not it could be I feel people are saying they might have registered. Every time they are pressed on this, it falls apart. We've had audits. We've had recounts. We've had investigations. We've had them in red states. We've had them in blue states. We've had court cases. And they keep finding the same thing. You might find some tiny number of people that voted under the wrong name. And then most of the time, it's like a jewell. Junior voted for senior and senior is dead, but it was still just one vote. Not exactly a reason to like upend an entire election system for.

Sometimes it's errors made in the tallying of the votes, but nothing that could swing even a single precinct, never mind an election. Now, I think it is important when we talk about this to remember that there are a lot of things they point fingers at, which are not actually against the law. So for example, they love to talk about dead voters. Here's someone who voted, but they were dead by election day. Well, you got to look into those cases. If you vote early and then you die by election day or if you submit an absentee ballot before

election day and then you die by election day for the most part, your votes not supposed to count, but it's not your fault if it's counted. It's not the Democrats fault. It's not Joe Biden's fault or Obama or whoever. It's that they didn't get caught by the election system. And there's no evidence that that's happening more with Democrats than with Republicans. The vote by most state laws is only supposed to count if you're alive on election day. If you submitted it early and died, it's certainly not your fault.

And sometimes the systems are a little slow catching up. These are tiny numbers of people. There's nothing illegal that the voter is doing. There's nothing illegal that the party is doing. I'll give you another example. We found someone registered in two places. One of the people we found registered in two places in the prior election, 2020, I believe, was Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump.

It's not illegal to be registered in two places. You can only vote in one, and the one that you can vote in is the one that is your actual current residence. As I've said before, I've moved a bunch of times. I never called my old place and said, please deregister me. I have no idea, but I assume it took a while for these systems to catch up. There were probably periods of time when I was registered in two places, but I only voted once and I voted where I actually lived.

That's not a crime, but they keep pushing this crap over and over and over again. They don't really want to solve a problem. They want to create doubt because if you can convince people that the system is rigged, even if you have no evidence, they are more willing to let you do whatever you want to do to fix the rigging, but the rigging doesn't really exist. And so if they want to justify restricting access, if you believe well, the system has a lot of problems. It's fraud. It's all. You'll go, go ahead and do it, I guess. And Mike Lee gives the game away by saying the quiet part out loud. I don't know. Now, if you appreciate the attack on our voting

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It's as simple as giving us a like on any platform you see our content, making sure you're following us or subscribed on whatever platforms you use, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, snapchats, all that sort of stuff. Really appreciate everybody who has been actively working to get us out of this algorithmic. They're treating us so unfairly. I wish it weren't true. There is a clip going around right now where CNN analyst Harry Enten is reacting to new polling on the administration, on Trump, and the reaction basically is this is brutal.

Now, we can get more sophisticated than that. We can get into more detail. But you will see headlines or captions saying things like Trump is down 48 points, which certainly sounds like a complete and total political collapse. But we've got to understand what these numbers mean and what these numbers don't mean, especially in the context of the upcoming midterm election. So let's take a second. Let's watch the video.

Let's then unpack it because there are two different things mixed together here that are important to disaggregate if we can. He's the leader of the pack or less in the pack when it comes to 21st century presidents and how Americans are viewing them on the economy, at least among independence. Look at this. 21st century presence, economic net approval ratings at this point in term two among independents. Trump is 48 points underwater, just one in five independents, excuse me, just one in four independents, say that they approve of the job that he is doing when it comes to the economy.

His net approval rating on the economy among independence twice as bad as Barack Obama's was at this point, who was 25 points underwater and double digits worse than George W. Bush was among independence, according to CBS News, at this point when it comes to the economy. Look, these are numbers that if I were a Republican running for Congress, I would be shaking in place because there's- I would be shaking in my boots. Okay, so now let's kind of take this piece by piss, piece by piss. Yeah, let's take it by piss today.

First and foremost, we're talking about approval among independence on the issue of the economy. Okay, so this is a very specific statistic. the underlying or overarching takeaway that this is a disaster for Trump is true. These numbers by historical standards are extraordinarily weak, consistently worse than where most presidents have been at comparable points in their presidencies. And that is that is very important. And that is real. If you go back and look, presidents who win comfortably or whose parties do well in the midterms,

they have at least decent approval in general and decent approval on the economy. It might not be amazing, but it's like somewhere in the 50 range, or at least they're not deeply underwater. Trump has been sitting well below that for a while and it's getting worse. We're talking about approval numbers that have been as low as 34 into, I guess, the mid-40s, but sometimes worse and disapproval pushing into the mid-to-high 50s, even like 60 in a couple of polls. So that's a major problem for Donald Trump.

It's it you almost always have a disastrous next election when you go into it with those sorts of numbers. The next election happens to be a midterm where Trump is not on the ballot, but it is a referendum of sorts on the sitting president. Now, there's another aspect to this that I do think is really important to consider, which is that the worse these numbers get on the one hand, the more likely it is Republicans get absolutely destroyed in the midterms, which would be great. But the more Trump will be incentivized to pull out all the stops to try to force his way into Republicans not getting crushed that badly. And we, I mean, listen, I, we've done so many segments on the techniques that they're trying to use. And I believe there will be an election the whole, he'll cancel the election.

He may want to cancel the election. And he may even allude to, well, we've got an emergency, this or the, I believe the election. will happen because the way it works is that states run their elections and therefore, I just I think legally it would be really difficult for Trump to cancel them. But the worse, the numbers look, and the more embarrassing the defeat Trump is worried about, the more he's going to go out of his way to try to, to deregister people, reduce voting hours, all of the things that we've been tracking now for 15 years. It is also the case, Trump's defenders will say it, that there is still a really strong base of support for Trump.

And I don't mean that the number of people supporting him hasn't shrunk. It has. But the people who do support him, especially within the Republican Party and those who consider themselves MAGA, the MAGA people still almost overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. That is not the group that tends to decide the midterm. So both things can be true. Midterms are decided at the margins. Independence play a major role. Who decides to vote plays a major role.

Moderate voters and, you know, people who might lean one way or the other. But Trump's hardcore base of support still does exist. So the pattern here is that Trump's numbers keep getting worse and his willingness to try to figure out a way to save the midterms seems to grow. The other thing I think is relevant. historically is that weakness outside of your base and no real path to expanding your midterm electorate, which is where Trump is right now, tends to lead to completed total disaster. And if that trend continues, everything will become difficult for Trump.

And then if he does lose control of the House, the rest of Trump's presidency is going to be in the toilet. The political narrative will shift. It's going to be damage control. It's going to be investigations and subpoenas and oversight. And when the president is as uninterested in really the role of the presidency, and what I mean by that is, Trump doesn't like work. Trump wants to get prizes. And he's found a lot of people more than willing to give him bogus and meaningless prizes.

Trump likes adulation. He likes rallies where people are cheering for him. the FIFA Peace Prize and the America First Prize and the Disney big boy president prize and whatever else. Trump doesn't like doing the work. And so if he loses the house in November, he is effectively retiring. Now, of course, he'll show up to stuff and still, he'll still post the truth social. But any real shot at true legislative changes will go away because it's just not going to happen.

and I believe that Trump's presidency will be effectively over. Now, the warning to those on the left and Democrats and people who are sort of like, we're going to crush, it's going to be great. Things can change quickly. Events can shift things. Imagine if Trump gets out of Iran and gas prices go back down and jobs numbers improve. I don't know. And then Trump's polling improves.

All of a sudden, we could be looking at a different situation in November. So the point is, all of this only sets the table. We still have to show up and do the cooking. How's that analogy? And then and only if we do that, will this translate into electoral consequences for Donald Trump, which it should. What could finally shake awake some of these magas and Republicans into saying to themselves, Damn, my party is offering me nothing. I'm going to think about voting for a Democrat next election.

Is there something that could tempt Magapitanians to come over and vote against the MAGA agenda? Well, I have an idea. One area that could completely shift the political landscape would be an aggressive, central anti-corruption platform. Oh, David, that's so boring. I don't think so. Let me explain. Republican voters disagree with Democratic voters on a lot of issues.

If you bring up what should the top tax rate be, or maybe it's abortion or maybe it's religion or there's a lot of areas where Democrats and Republicans genuinely disagree. But what about focusing on anti-corruption? And the underlying reality is that most Americans, regardless of party, worry and believe that there is a lot of corruption in our political system, that it's rigged by insiders, that people with positions of power or access to positions of power are getting everything set up for them. To the extent that Republicans believe this, they're not wrong, although they often blame the wrong people. Sometimes when Republicans do express concern about corruption from those in power, et cetera, they are redirected by Republican elected officials to blaming cultural issues, men and women's sports and no prayer in schools and all this crap.

Instead of actually focusing on the people profiting from the status quo, which includes their dear leader Donald Trump and his family. So you've got the social and cultural issues. You have real economic issues, wages and health care. These are vital. My idea is that corruption cuts across the aisle in a way almost nothing else does. And many MAGA voters are already seeing that the system is broken. They don't see the current Democratic Party as the solution, but they see that the system is broken.

To create real doubt that the Republican Party is the best thing for them and to try to draw some of these voters, anti-corruption needs to be front and center. It can't be a footnote. It can't be. Here's what we're going to do on taxes, health care, crime, immigration, social issues. And by the way, like we're going to do some stuff on corruption. We need to send a clear message. Public service is not a business. We're going to ban politicians from profiting from their offices, no stock trading, no more

lawmakers beating the market while they write the rules. We need full blind trusts with the ability to enforce penalties if they are violated. You've got to end self-dealing. You can't steer contracts to donors or to friends. Now you might say, well, how will we make sure that that stuff doesn't happen? We need an appropriate infrastructure for independent audits and public tracking of every single taxpayer dollar. It has to be transparent if it's going to be effective.

We've got to require that every donation be disclosed in real time. We need a lifetime lobbying ban for top elected officials. You leave office, you can't cash in by selling access. I personally know of people who have bought access from recently retired elected officials. They tell me that they're doing it. It's good. They're not admitting to any crime. It's perfectly legal.

No consulting loopholes. You can't rebrand these things. You serve and you move on. Now to make sure that these aren't empty promises, we have to have an independent anti-corruption watchdog. Their funding must be protected. It can't be subject to political whims. They have to have the authority to investigate anyone they want without political interference.

And we also need to establish fast-track corruption courts with specific timelines. You can't let this stuff kind of draw out for years. order to do that, you've got to support whistleblowers. The whistleblower protections must be stronger. And then the sort of final point I would add on how I would set this up is that we have to protect the rule of law to the highest level. So presidential self-pardons should be banned. Questionable pardons should be reviewed by an independent pardon group.

Now you might say, well, the president's pardon power is absolutely. salute. Yeah, we got to change some of this stuff. Okay. We need mechanisms to ensure independent prosecutors when there are political figures involved. If Democrats make this the singular undeluded message, it's going to force a choice. A lot of these Republican voters know the system is rigged. That belief drives MAGA. But MAGA redirects that anger at the wrong people or at other issues and they don't fix the problem if we present a concrete plan to stop elected officials from enriching themselves you're going to force republican leaders into a corner either they agree creating internal pressure or they oppose it and they reveal they are

actually for the corruption at the end of the day and if you're a voter who has felt abandoned by the system this could be your entry point it's impossible to dodge the message we will make it illegal for politicians to profit from you and your taxpayer dollars. If you block it, you're going to have to explain why. And what I believe is just as important as the platform itself is not falling for the same old crap that kills these initiatives. Don't wrap it in partisan packaging. The moment this is framed as a progressive anti-corruption plan, you're going to lose the

people you're trying to reach. It can't be about owning the other side. It's got to be, listen, we are the people. We represent the people. There's insiders who are protected. They shouldn't be. And so the language has to shift away from moralizing and lecturing and this sort of thing. We're not reeducating people.

We're just going, hey, we've identified a problem. We're the only ones with a plan here. Finally, this is tough for the left. Okay. We can't let the anti-corruption message get watered down with a laundry list of other proposals. So it's got to be, we're going to deal with the corruption. They feel like, well, we're going to deal with the corruption with some climate tax credits. There's a, there's a place for that. But that's not, that's not here. Okay. We're going to do the corruption thing with

health care subpol. No, we got to fix health care. That's not the point of this. You're going to shield the corrupt politicians from going, well, I can't support it because of this thing about climate. It's a clean anti-corruption platform. I believe it is the best shot. Democrats have at winning over some of the skeptical magas. What do you think? I want to hear from you. Let me know in the comments. Send me an email info at David Pakman.com.

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Sometimes it's kind of half joking. But it's increasingly being taken seriously. Could Tucker Carlson actually run for president at some point, maybe 2028, and could he win? Now, there's a couple aspects to this question. If you look at the trajectory of media figures getting into politics, it's not fringe. It's basically a pattern. We've got a reality TV show host president. We've seen podcasters and influencers become major political power brokers without ever holding

office. We've seen a magosphere content creators get official positions. So when people bring up Tucker Carlson, it's not really a question of would it be weird anymore. It's more like does it fit the direction that Tucker wants to go? Now, Tucker Carlson has been asked about running for president. And he responded in a way that I think is completely inaccurate. Let's listen to what he had to say.

This is someone that could be president of the United States one day. Does that ever cross your mind? Literally not for one second. I couldn't get elected to an empty congressional seat in an uncontested election. election in North Dakota. I am not suited for that. My brain doesn't work that way. I don't want that.

If I wanted it, if I was a sort of person who looked in the mirror and said out of 350 million Americans, I'm the most qualified to lead. I hope my wife would shoot me and make it look like an accident. Because I just find that so disgusting.

I am not qualified to be present. Let me say it again. I'm not qualified to be president. I was not qualified to host a show on Fox News. It turned out. So listen, Is this false humility or not? I don't know.

But a lot of what he's saying is flatly untrue. A media figure like Tucker Carlson would easily win an empty congressional seat. A media figure like Tucker Carlson would not even have a difficult time winning a contested congressional seat. You've just got to pick the right one. But I've had extensive conversations with people in media management, people from agencies, creators. it is absolutely doable and not even that much of a stretch for someone with a strong, independent media base to win a congressional seat. Now, the presidency is a different thing.

I do believe the bigger question with Tucker is more about whether he would want to. And I understand not wanting this. I mean, you know, look at Donald Trump. It is completely upturned his life. You think Trump would be a convicted felon if he hadn't gotten into politics? No. You think Trump would be estranged from his wife if he hadn't gotten into politics? Maybe, but maybe not. I mean, I think the political decision has ruined Donald Trump's marriage, among other things. Tucker has built something that looks less like a traditional media career and more like a political

base. I just think he hasn't activated it yet because he speaks to this very large loyal audience. They trust him. They trust him not only as a commentator, but as someone who kind of gets it. Tucker understands what's really going on. I think it's crap, but this is what a lot of people believe. And that's kind of the relationship that a lot of modern political campaigns are built on. Trump wasn't in think back to 2015, 2016. Trump wasn't about policy papers and, you know, serious understanding of policy nuance. It was like emotional alignment and identity. I know trade. China has screwed you. I will fix it. I know immigration. Mexicans have screwed you. Many of them rapists, I will fix it with a wall that they will pay for. None of this crap happens, but it was the

sort of scaffolding that is much more Tucker style than someone with like a deep policy knowledge. Now, at the same time, there's a big counterpoint here, which is, yeah, Tucker has suggested a lot that he doesn't want to run for office. He's hinted that he doesn't want the job, that he doesn't want the lifestyle or the constraints, which I understand. And then he has also argued he couldn't possibly win. In modern politics, saying you don't want to run is kind of part of the script. So I don't even know that we can listen to that. When people say no, no, no, I never could or never would or then it becomes, listen, if I became convinced that I could do it, if I became convinced that I was the person for the moment or something like that, we have seen so many people

say, I'm not running right up until the moment when suddenly they are running. Now, sometimes they genuinely aren't thinking about it and something changes their mind. Sometimes it's about avoiding any scrutiny until the timing is appropriate to announce. So for me, Tucker's saying I'm not interested, it doesn't really mean anything to me. It does make it a little less immediate. And then the final question is, is Tucker more powerful where he is right now? A lot of the large creators that I've talked to, conversations come up about running. And usually the hesitation is, number one, a lot of creators don't want their finances analyzed in the way that they get analyzed when you run for office.

Now, you could do the Trump, which is just like, I'm just not going to show it to you. I don't know that most people can get away with that. So a lot of creators say, I don't need that grief. A lot of creators say, I don't want the pay cut. And then a lot of creators also say that I talk to, I have a lot of soft power right now. All these governors and senators and members of Congress, they come to me. They want me to interview them. I have a lot of power right now.

Why would I trade all of that soft power for a little bit of more formal power? Now, member of Congress is one thing. Senator is another thing. President is a different thing altogether. And that is a different calculus. But that doesn't change that as a media figure, Tucker can mostly do whatever he wants. He can shape narratives. He influences millions.

He can do it without being tied down by the government schedule, the accountability, the compromise. And there's no doubt that running for office would limit some of Tucker Carlson's freedom and force him into this kind of system where he has to give up a lot of that soft power and exchange it for concrete decisions and take positions that can be challenged. So listen, I don't really know whether Tucker's intent is to run or not. American politics used to draw kind of a sharper line between who could or couldn't do this. And there would be a point where we would say, oh, someone with Tucker's profile couldn't possibly do it. I don't know that he couldn't.

I think it's more likely that he could. And the skills that make you successful in media often are translating through digital media and in other ways to candidacies, messaging, emotional resonance, the ability to get and keep attention. Tucker has those skills. And so ultimately, the question of whether Tucker could be a future presidential candidate, I don't think it's inevitable based on what he says. It's not a crazy question. It ultimately just comes down to, is this something that Tucker Carlson wants to do?

I don't know that he could win a Republican primary. He might be able to. He might not. Depends who else runs. But the fact that there is so much conversation happening about Tucker for president, if anything is proof in and of itself that it's completely plausible. If Tucker wants to make it happen, let me know what you think. Could he, would he, do you believe that he will?

Do you remember when being wrong mattered? It doesn't matter anymore. It is very common right now that people in the public space make predictions, their claims collapse, things are said with complete and total confidence. They get it all wrong and nothing happens. No corrections. Zero accountability, zero consequences for their careers. And the cleanest example of this is the Trump administration and everything surrounding

it. Think about how many certainty level claims have been made. Definitive statements about what was guaranteed to happen. We're going to get this election turned over. This was rigged by Joe Biden in 2020. We're going to get it turned over. The mass fraud is going to be proven and arrests are currently. coming. It's all going to happen. And it never happened. And Trump still has his base. The economy is

about to boom like never before. Obama care will be replaced with something better and it's all imminent and I'm going to make it happen. And then it doesn't happen. It's not like it kind of happened. It doesn't happen in any form. It's not delayed. It's not two weeks away. It's just not happening. Mexico is going to pay for a wall we will build across the entire U.S. Mexico border. The wall never gets built and Mexico pays for nothing. What were the consequences of those failed predictions? None. The people making the claims, and this is bigger than Trump, I'm talking about media people

as well, they didn't come back and go, I got it wrong, didn't happen. Oh, you know, it was misunderstood. I'm going to change my approach. They just move on to the next claim, the next prediction, the next confident assertion. That is the system right now. There is zero accountability. There is no moment where the audience is expected to compare what was said with what happened and then say, hey, you know what?

They didn't tell me the truth. Or they got it very wrong. It's just like you can hit the reset button on your video game anytime you want. New claim replaces the old one. New prediction takes its place. and then there's no consequences for getting it wrong again and again. What matters today is not accuracy. It's can you keep people's attention?

And so this is why it doesn't matter when you get every prediction wrong. If the predictions get attention and then you get, you have more predictions and those get attention again, confidence and attention beat correctness right now. If you say something clearly and forcefully, it spreads and it gets shared and clipped and repeated regardless of whether it holds up. And when the truth catches up to you, the conversation has moved on. Now, I've talked before. I could get a lot of clicks by just hair on fire. There will be no 2026 election stuff. I don't believe it. And I don't say things on this show that I don't believe. But I absolutely could weaponize that for clicks and attention. And then I would be wrong

because there's going to be a 2026 election. But would there be consequences for me getting that wrong? I don't think so. And you can always off ramp and go, well, Trump decided he didn't need to cancel it. I don't do this sort of thing. But the truth is that most people aren't tracking every prediction. They're not keeping a tally of who was right and who was wrong. And audiences also aren't punishing people, elected officials nor media figures for getting it wrong again and again and again. Again, if a claim aligns with their beliefs, they are even less likely to hold people accountable for whether it actually happened. So where we are ending up is a very sad place where a system allows being wrong with no

cost. And sometimes it even rewards you. When you were the first to make wrong predictions boldly and confidently, you get the clicks, you get the audience. The media environment moves really fast. And then when it doesn't happen, everybody's forgotten about it. Now, the Trump era didn't create this. It did expose it, though.

You can make endless prediction again and again and again. You get it all wrong and your audience doesn't care. There's no mechanism to force a reckoning with what people get wrong. And so the result that is terrifying societally is that the standard for truth has basically gone away. You get everything wrong all the time. There's no penalty. People who hedge and wait for evidence, if anything, are punished because they're not being fast enough in getting you their opinions and they're not being loud and confident enough. They're saying, well, we need more information about this. So what we have developed and kind of encouraged here is an informational

environment that is driven by repetition more than it is by accuracy. What would fix it? I mean, listen, at some kind of basic level, you need to rebuild an accountability loop. And it has to be part of normal political media. If someone makes a prediction, you've got to revisit it. If someone makes a claim, we have to go back and compare it to what actually happened. And then when people get it wrong, we've got to make it visible. We're not doing gotchas. It's called having standards.

In any other field, if you were wrong as often of some of these political people are, trust in you would decline. Your ability to earn an income with your predictions would decline. In politics, especially in the Trump era, it has no consequences. And in fact, it often is rewarded. Say whatever gets attention right now and then you never have to look back. I don't believe in just blaming the average person, but it takes two to tango. And if audiences don't hold their elected officials or media figures to some kind of standard of truth, then it follows naturally that they would keep doing it because they keep getting

away with it. So we have to do our part as audience members. And I say that as someone who consumes content, I have to do my part as a content creator, But we do need to push for truth to matter and for getting it wrong to destroy people's credibility. Now, if you are analyzing something thoughtfully and you say, hey, listen, I'm, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be.

This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. I'm like 60-40. I think this is more likely. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the confident this will happen. The election was rigged and it will be overturned. And of course, that was never going to happen. Those people should be held accountable for their failures. Let me know what you think. The David Packman Show is an audience supported program and the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other

great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. You know, there are people who have come around to Mike Pence isn't really that bad. Mike Pence, after all, did stand up to Trump in 2020, and he didn't let him steal the election. Mike Pence sees what has happened to the Republican Party. But I have a clip to show you that will blow up any of that idea. Let's look at the clip first and then discuss. Listen to what Mike Pence is arguing here about the Republican Party.

I think the Republican Party today is experiencing a skirm. scourge of some isms. We've seen protectionism, you know, show itself in unilateral tariffs that the Supreme Court of the United States recently turned back. We've seen some voices of isolationism that question our support for Israel that would leave allies like Ukraine defend for themselves. And also, I think that on the fringe and on the margins of voices of anti-Semitism and the party all need to be confronted.

because none of those things represent what conservatives believe. And I must tell you, as I travel around the country over these last five years, I'm convinced that while President Trump has changed some aspects of the agenda of the Republican Party, he hasn't really changed the Republican Party. And reminding people that Republicans believe in a strong national defense, American leadership in the world. We believe in free market economics and limited fiscally responsible government. We believe in the right to life and traditional values of that that it's been those principles

that have guided our party for more than a half a century. All right. So Mike Pence's point is the Republican Party really hasn't changed. It's still the same Republican Party. Now, before I analyze the clip, I should just mention Mike Pence isn't a great guy. he is still a hardcore social conservative with horrible policies. It is true. He didn't try to help Trump steal the 2020 election.

I guess we give him some credit for that. He also didn't really have the power to steal it. I know that Trump is convinced Pence could have just done all the. Pence recognized, hey, the Constitution doesn't let me steal this and I'm not going to try. Cool. But that's a very, very low bar. Now to his claim that Trump hasn't really changed the Republican Party, he couldn't be more wrong. I mean, it's just a completely incorrect, flat out wrong analysis based on what we've all

been watching happen in real time. The Republican Party today is not the party he's talking about from, you know, call it 12 years ago before Trump. It's not the party of 2012. It's not even the party of 2016. The Republican Party of today has been reshaped around Trump. It's been reshaped to Trump's style. It's been reshaped to Trump's priorities. And it's been reshaped by loyalty to Donald Trump. You don't have to guess about that. I mean, just look at what Republican voters respond to now. Look at who Republican voters respond to now. Traditional conservatism does not titillate and arouse the Republican Party today. Small government. Remember when small government was like, we love small government. Deficit reduction. Like, it's about grievance.

It's about culture war. It's about are you with Trump or against him? Now, even if we separate that from Trump, he has still changed the Republican Party. The voices that are now in control of that party are not the voices of people like John McCain, Mitt Romney, you know, William F. Buckley, forget about it. That's too long ago. But the point here is even Trump aside, this is a completely different party. Now look at what has happened to the Republicans who don't go along with this new version

of the party. Senator Jeff Flake during Trump's first term basically saw where things were going and he got out. Liz Cheney lost a primary in Wyoming after Donald Trump weaponized the party against her. Liz Cheney's wing of the party has been pushed out in any meaningful sense. Adam Kinzinger, who I spoke to, has said he might come back to politics as a Democrat. Think about that. A Republican congressman saying, I think my only future would be in the Democratic Party. Now, I know that there are some in the audience who will go, that's because the Democratic

Party has moved so far to the right. No, I don't see evidence of that on policy. It's that the Republican Party has narrowed what is even acceptable. And the only place that's left if you disagree on details, but respect the rule of law and the Constitution, there's only one place left for that. And it's the Democratic Party. Then you've got, you know, someone like a Mitt Romney, former Republican presidential nominee, who at this point, he's barely even treated as a real Republican in maga circles.

So that is a party that has changed. They've completely redefined what it means to be a Republican. Now, why would Mike Pence say otherwise? Why would Pence be incentivized to say, oh, the Republican Party is still basically there? He has a stake in that being true because Pence represents the old version of the Republican Party. If the old version of the Republican Party is still what dominates underneath Trump, then Pence might have a role in that party.

If the party today is not the traditional, conservative policy focus, whatever, then Pence is dead as a politician. His entire political future depends on a Republican party that does want to go back to that, that there's going to be some reset after Donald Trump, that voters will go, okay, you know, that was a phase. It lasted what will ultimately be 12 and a half years. Let's go back to something like the Pence style republicanism. I don't see any evidence that that's going to happen.

And if anything, the evidence points in the other direction. The base of the party wants the Trump style. They reward it. They have come to expect it. In primaries, it's a lot of those people that are being elevated. And the people who move away from Trump tend to struggle. Now this may be changing, but it would be changing because the electorate is realizing I actually need to consider the Democratic Party, not because they are saying we are desperate for the

Penn style Republican Party. So when I hear Mike Pence go, no, the Republican Party really hasn't changed. To me, it sounds like wishful thinking. It's what you say when your relevance depends on a version of the party that really doesn't exist anymore. And there's a bigger point here. Political parties don't just snap back after a shift like this. When a party gets reshaped, the change tends to stick.

I'll give you an example. In 2010, during Barack Obama's first term, we had the rise of the Tea Party movement. It wasn't like, okay, a bunch of Tea Partiers won in 2010, and then their influence was gone by 2012. What happened is that the views of the Tea Party were integrated into the Republican Party. They stopped being as relevant as this separate entity, but they simply became part of what the Republican Party was. And then that evolves again.

And then in 2016, in comes Trump and there's another evolution. The point is, you never rewind. You go forward based on where you are right now. In the entire time, I've been following politics, there has never been a return to some previous version of the parties. And so is it possible that people like Pence can reintegrate themselves into the party and shape it again? Sure.

But this idea of that old Republican Party is still, you know, if you pick up all of the wreckage of Trumpism, you've got this shiny, 2011 style Republican Party under there. No. So Pence is totally wrong. It's completely self-serving magical thinking. And quite frankly, I think it's obvious that Mike Pence's career is over. matter which version of the Republican Party resurfaces when Trump is gone. Let me ask you a question.

When you see a political headline these days, do you actually react or do you just kind of register it and keep scrolling? When you see headlines about anti-war Trump starts another war, thousands of ground troops deployed. Trump doesn't even understand how tariffs work. Trump falls asleep again. They gave Trump a bogus prize. Melania's at the robot with a robot at the White House.

When you see this stuff, how do you react? And have you not gotten desensitized to the insanity? Here's the point I want to make. Ten years ago, there were sort of trip wires in the political landscape. If a candidate was caught in a blatant, documented reputation-ruining lie, or they suffered visible confusion and mental lapses during high stakes interviews. It wasn't an hour of trending news. It dominated the news cycle and it ended people's careers.

That sort of stuff barely leaves a dent at this point in time. We've moved from a culture of consequence, like I said earlier when you're wrong, it doesn't matter anymore. We are now in a culture of, we could call it churn. Now, I want to call your attention back to, I guess it was 2004 when John Kerry was ultimately the Democratic nominee. There was a guy named Howard Dean, a medical doctor, a physician, who screamed once because he was excited.

It ended his primary race. Now, a lot of our younger voters are probably like, wait, someone screamed and it ended his primary race. Yes. Howard Dean had this moment. I wish I had the audio. I don't, but I'll recreate it for you. where after, I think he had won a primary.

He got up on stage and he sort of went, we're going to go to Iowa and New Hampshire and Kansas. It was sort of like a noise like that. Ra! That was it. It was over. He ended his primary race because of the scream. Now, some argued he eventually would have lost anyway. I think that's true.

But it wouldn't have been immediate. That seems impossible to imagine today. The baseline today clips of, you know, Trump mixing up the names of leaders of countries, forgetting what city he's in. And it's like, yeah, you know, whatever. We're kind of used to it. And we process these obvious contradictions now in such a different way. Even the perception of candidates changing their mind.

I mean, think back again to 2004, where John Kerry had this unfortunate line, something like, well, I voted for it before I voted against it, referring to the authorization to let George Bush go to war with Iraq. It destroyed him. Among a couple other things, it destroyed John Kerry's candidacy. Now, he's still almost won, by the way, came down to like 140,000 votes in Ohio, but it really did hurt him. Leaders now on the same, forget about on the same day, a couple weeks ago in a span of 10 minutes, Trump said, the Iran war is over and it's not. We want to ceasefire and we don't. I'm considering troops on the ground and I'm not. And it doesn't matter. Elected officials in the past would have needed to do a month long apology tour and then write a white

paper to explain how their view changed. Trump takes three positions a day on every issue at this point in time. And so it's that that has changed. The tone aspect has changed. Now, I'm not much for tone policing, but I do think there is value to speaking in a respectable way, treating other people with respect, not using dehumanizing language. There were times when referring to your opponents as enemies from within or vermin or this kind of thing. That was just not acceptable. It was a breakdown of the civil fabric. It's just normal now. No one cares. People do. care, but it's not enough to make a difference. And so the baseline for what's considered normal has been demolished.

What we count as normal now would have been like a strange fever dream back in 2012. This did not happen overnight. It's been a kind of war of attrition. It's one incident and then another and then a third incident. Each one kind of pushes the limits of what people are willing to tolerate. Grab them by the pussy. When you're rich, they let you do it. When you're famous, they let you do it.

And all of a sudden, it's less about people saying, I agree with grab them by the pussy. No, it's just like, eh, listen, I care about what are his policies. Do you even know what they are? No, but it doesn't matter. I don't care about that stuff. Oh, women said he sexually harassed. Maybe they're telling the truth.

Maybe they're not. But he's got the right policy on men and women's sports or whatever. So I think that this is extraordinarily dangerous. If behavior doesn't produce a reaction that has consequences, there's no incentive to behave any differently. And in fact, there's a huge incentive to just push further. If you can survive a scandal that would have sunk a senator 15 years ago, why would you stop? Test the next boundary.

Why not? Why not see if you can walk back a major military commitment or bypass some democratic norms without suffering any polling consequences? We are no longer in a moment where the behavior of our elected officials shocks people. And to a degree, I'm guilty of it. And I'll explain what I mean. I am so steeped in this stuff that I have to remind myself, hey, David, don't let this be normalized. This is not normal. Don't cover it like just another yawn fest.

This is really, really serious stuff. So what I believe we need to work towards is just because we've become familiar with something and we are very familiar with the insanity of the MAGA movement, we can't interpret it as normal. We have some standard that we should try to stick to. And when the line for the basic standards of decency blur, it's really hard to move them back. It's very hard to resensitize a country of 350 million people when you're in this blur that's lasted over a decade. We've got to try.

We've got to try. But this stuff would not have been acceptable at a point in the past. It's not about tone. It's not about being uptight. I mean, you know, when it comes to actual pop culture and comedy and whatever, I'm a like, do whatever, say whatever. But for our elected officials, when lives are on the line and so much is at stake and the economy of the country is at stake, I do think we have to have some standards.

Do I sound like the old guy yelling, get off my lawn, or does this make sense? I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Send me an email. We have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. sign up at join packman.com. We'll have the bonus show. And of course, we're going to be back with a new show on Monday.