The David Pakman Show - BONUS: Judge halts Trump's shutdown firings, swastika found in rep's office, US revokes six visas over Charlie Kirk comments

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

-- On the Bonus Show: A judge halts Trump's shutdown layoffs, Capitol Police investigate a swastika found in a representative's office, the US revokes the visas of six foreigners over Charlie Kirk comments, and much more... Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership  Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com/  Buy David's book: https://davidpakman.com/book 

Hey, everybody, David here. What you're about to hear is an episode of the bonus show. We do a bonus show every day for our members. And for a limited time, we will release one of the week's bonus shows on Saturdays exclusively for our audio podcast listeners. If you'd like to get access to all of the bonus shows, simply sign up at join packman.com. Here is that bonus show episode. Welcome to the bonus show. As we know, Republicans and Trump have had this plan of firing, laying off and firing on a permanent basis federal government workers during the shutdown. We knew when we set up front, there really isn't any additional power that Donald Trump has

to do that during a shutdown, but that doesn't mean that he won't try. And we now have a federal judge who has said, uh-uh, can't do it against the law. and has effectively halted the layoffs of 4,100 federal workers. Now, of course, MAGA is doing the expected saying, this is a liberal San Francisco judge, and she's a woman, if you can believe it, Pat. But what we really care about is the substance and the law. Now, the judge is an appointee of former president Bill Clinton. She says that she sees evidence suggesting the administration has taken advantage.

of a lapse in government spending and functioning to assume that all bets are off and the laws don't apply to them, but that politically motivated layoffs are illegal no matter whether the government is functioning or not. And I think that that's sort of like one of the most interesting practical things here, which is it's really common that these conversations, it's sort of like the horse is out of the barn. They're going to lay off workers. And then we kind of slow down and we say, wait a second. Why would you be allowed to do things when government is closed that you're not allowed to do when

government is open? It's not like the rule of law goes away. It's not martial law or a police state just because government is nominally closed. And then you realize, wait a second, if anything, you probably can do fewer things when government is closed by virtue of the fact that government is closed. This judge happens to agree. It's going to be appealed. We'll see where it goes.

But at least this decision seems to be based on everything we were told by legal experts, the right decision. Absolutely. It doesn't make sense that the president would have more authority now, but he throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. And sometimes these courts move rather slowly. And so he figures, okay, if I do 10 authoritarian actions, maybe eight of them will get overturned, but two of the things I'll get my way on.

And he knows that he has a whole bunch of allies in the courts with this judge saying, no, you can't do this. It doesn't mean that the next judge or judges that they appeal to and an appeals court won't reverse the decision. So they know that it's politically advantageous for them to at least try. There's not going to be a whole bunch of blowback if it fails. And what I love about this story, too, is that there's a layer of incompetence added on to it. The Trump administration wanted to fire just 982 staffers at the Department of Health and Human

Services, but they actually sent out notices to 1,760 employees, so nearly twice as many employees as we're supposed to get fired. And of course, they had to issue corrections later on. How stressful would that be if you think that you're one of these workers who's going to get laid off and then an email sent your way saying, oh, just kidding, your friend, your coworker, they're getting fired, but not you actually. And then the courts reversed the decision days later. It's just crazy.

Completely just unbelievably stressful. The incompetence is stunning. And now the question is, is this all going to, are we going to see the, are we going to see law abided by. That's really the question. The other thing, by the way, that's happening in the meantime is, I guess they're kind of having recruiting problems in ICE. Who can imagine why? And there are reports that white nationalist and extremist memes and images are being used as part of the recruitment effort. And like the funny thing about that is we might say that's so stupid. They're so dumb. But if that works to convince people to apply to ICE, it actually

is terrifying in what it would signify. Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, I could see how there would be a whole bunch of people at the beginning of Trump's term that would be excited about it because he was able to rally the base around this immigration issue. But as time has gone on, we know that this issue has not been so favorable for Trump. And we see a lot of these ICE officers, agents trying to hide their faces. So that suggests that not a whole bunch of people want to become ICE officers at this

point because they know the type of blowback they're going to get. I've seen these ICE commercials, these ICE recruitment videos, and they talk about how as an ICE official, you're going to go after the worst of the worst, you're going to go after murderers and child traffickers. But we know just from watching the news, no, you're just going to go after everyday people who are trying to live their lives, who are abiding by the law. And the idea is that they can trick people by saying you're going to go after the worst harding criminals. But really, you're just going after day laborers and people who don't deserve to be. thrown in these vans and shipped off to whoever knows where. No. And if you zoom out and you kind of take this to its logical conclusion, imagine a department recruited by teasing them with white nationalist memes to go and round up workers at a home depot and deport them. I mean, it's just like a dark, disgusting state of existence. Right. And is that really the type of career that you want long term? Do you think that this is going to be something that works for you, especially because this is a pet issue?

right now for Trump, the people in power. But is this going to last a while? Probably not. So I could see some people being interested, inspired to join this ICE mafia, if we want to call it that. But I think plenty of people are going to be opposed to it at this point. Yeah. I would hope so. And we are going to see ultimately what happens with the layoffs. I know people personally affected by this who, as I mentioned last time, or either some were not working and not getting paid. One was not getting paid, but told. that he has to work anyway until a supervisor stepped in and said, do not log in, do not do do any work. I mean, it's just, it's crazy. And I see the level of stress that it, that it causes

for people, understandably so. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're living paycheck to paycheck or even if you have like a sound financial situation to go without those paychecks, to have to continue working to not be guaranteed back pay, it's assumed that they'll get back pay, but they don't know that for sure. It's a very stressful situation. And it's one reason why we shouldn't have these government shutdowns because it's not the politicians who are really paying the price for them. It's the workers who have to show up and not know if they're going to get their next paycheck. That's exactly right. All right.

Capital police have been called to investigate a swastika in a Republican congressional office. Now, I encourage people to find the image of this. This is related to Congressman Dave Taylor. There is a flag which is sort of, uh, it looks like it's on like almost. like a cubicle divider type thing where you can pin things up. And it's an American flag, except in the middle, the yellow of the yellow, the red bars of the American flag are shaped into a swastika. Now, one of the things, if I look closely, I don't think this matters, Pat necessarily for the story, but I just want to like give my, my opinion. To me, this looks

like something that was modified by hand in the sense that it looks like something white has been placed over red stripes to interrupt it, almost like a little piece of white paper. And then some of the white area has been filled in with red. And the reason I say that is the thickness. If we look at this swastika that was created, if you look at some of the red lines, they are thinner. So it looks like this was something that was modified by an individual, not an item that was purchased as is. I don't really think it matters, Pat, at the end of the day. And there is an investigation taking place here. But you see what I'm saying about the flag? I didn't notice that before,

but I think you are right. Also, I'll point out that the swastika is obvious from looking at the flag. It's not one of those things where it's subtle. And like, maybe the person who put it up just thought it was an American flag and didn't realize there was a swastika. It's certainly obvious. I think there may be some relevance to this idea that it was like homemade, because because maybe it was just a prank. Maybe that would let the person who put up the flag off the hook and it's actually the person who went in and changed it who would be responsible here. So that is kind of what Taylor is saying.

He said in a statement, he's aware of the image. It's vile and deeply inappropriate. The content doesn't reflect the values or standards of his office and he condemns it. He says he is directed an investigation and he says until the investigation is done, there won't be any further comment. So, I mean, listen, he says it's foul play or vandalism. I'll be honest, I believe that he didn't deliberately put up a swastika flag in his office. Like, like, I do think that it would be aside from whether he believes it, which I take

him at his word, that he doesn't believe that the swastika is a positive symbol that he does condemn it. It would be a really stupid thing to do because you would think inevitably it's going to become a problem. So I actually do think it's likely that this was some kind of prank or something. But I am fine reserving judgment until we get some kind of conclusion here. Yeah. My sense is that Dave Taylor, the congressman didn't have a direct influence on what happened

here, but it could very well be the responsibility of the employee who works at that cubicle and they've identified the employee, but that person's not responding to comment. To me, that sounds a bit suspicious, right? Like, why wouldn't you elaborate on what happens? Maybe he has to go through the chain of command, right? because, like, he's working for this congressman. And so what he says is going to reflect on that congressperson. So I understand how you would want to coordinate things.

But to just stay silent about it, that to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And then this also kind of ties into that group chat that we learned about yesterday, having to do with the young Republicans who are saying things like, I love Hitler and all these racist things in their group chat. Well, it sort of reflects on David Taylor to a degree because if he's hiring people who have viewpoint, like this, well, he's putting himself in some territory where he shouldn't be, right, because these types of things could possibly happen. It doesn't mean he's directly responsible, but this is just what these viewpoints have led

to in this country. Just as a note of trivia, the district that is represented by Taylor, which is the second congressional district in Ohio, has not had a Democratic representative since the term. that ended in 1983. This is a deep, deep red part of the country. But I mentioned that only as a curiosity. I am not implying that, of course, whoever represents such a district would approve of a swastika.

We really don't have evidence of that. Right. And like, what if we find out we get to the bottom of all this and it was just a prank? The person who put up the swastika isn't actually a Nazi. They don't believe in these ultra far right viewpoints. They just wanted to get some lulls. Like, do you think that that would be excusable at all? Because to me, I think that would still be very much across the line.

And no, you got to fire that in a congressional office, right? I mean, that's crazy. The individual, I mean, listen, it might be an explanation, but I still think you've got to fire the person who did it if that's the explanation. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it would make it a little bit better, but it still wouldn't excuse the activity. And I also think that there are many young Republicans in particular who do these types of things and they act as if, oh, no, I was just joking, I was just joking.

But sometimes if you look underneath it all, they actually do believe in these things. They're trying to hide behind the possibility that maybe it was a joke. But if you peel through the layers a little bit, you find out actually, no, this is what they believe. All right. The United States has revoked visas for six foreigners over comments made about Charlie Kirk's death. The State Department said that these revocations are because the U.S. has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans. It's said that the home countries of the people with the revoked visas are South Africa,

Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Paraguay, and my birth country of Argentina. Oh, no. Apparently in Argentinian accused Charlie Kirk of spreading racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric, which, by the way, is not really saying that he deserved to die. You're just characterizing the rhetoric that he spread, which is a little bit dangerous to that's going to be worthy of a visa revocation. So here's my view on this, okay. As a personal opinion, I don't believe that these are good reasons for a country to revoke visas. In fact, to me, they scream of weakness. How strong are you if people just saying this makes the government

go and take action? To me, it only shows that they are weak rather than that they're weak rather than strong, even though they want to portray strength by doing this. At the same time, I recognize that when you're here on a visa, you are here in a sense at the pleasure of the government. And while I am against this in principle, I recognize that I don't think there's really a legal issue here. I think the government is well within its rights to say, we don't like what this person said and we are revoking the visa.

Like, I don't think there's a legal issue here. Yeah, I mean, I could imagine a scenario where someone who's here on a visa says something that wouldn't violate the law that would fall under free speech, but that the government took issue with and decided to revoke their visa over. Like, I can imagine such a scenario. But when you take a look at these comments, the one that you read that Charlie Kirk was spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynist rhetoric, how could you possibly say that that's worthy of revoking a visa

over. There's another comments here someone wrote in German when fascists die Democrats don't complain so they could argue that like that's rationalizing his death or celebrating his death but I think even that's a stretch to say that someone

should lose their visa status over something like that. They're not making a direct threat of violence or anything like that. So to say that this should be worthy of revoking a visa, to me it doesn't make sense and especially if this is coming from the supposed free speech party. Well, it's selective enforcement yet again from those people. Listen, they are not really for free speech. They are extreme snowflakes. And these are pathetic

reasons to revoke visas. And I think they have every right to do it unfortunately. And I don't even know about unfortunately. I mean, there's unfortunately in a casual sense. I'm not saying even the law should be different. Like any country has the right to do this. And sometimes, they do. And I don't know that that really should be changed. I just think we shouldn't vote for people that are going to apply it in such a snowflakey triggered way. I wonder what J.D. Vance would say about this because when speaking about the young Republicans controversy, he said that those people are just kids and we shouldn't hold them accountable for what they said. We shouldn't make it so that they can never get jobs again or that there's major punishments coming their way over what

they said. But when it comes to these visa revocations, I think he'd be totally fine with what happened, even though I'm sure in many of these cases, these are also young adults who are saying these things. All right. Let us know your thoughts. Should it be against the law to revoke visas in this situation? I think it's a difficult legal case to make because countries want discretion when it comes to foreign nationals to say, hey, you're not welcome here anymore.

I just think it's pathetic to apply it in this way. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you are going to the No Kings protests on Saturday. We've been hearing from a bunch of people who are. I'll be back tomorrow with a new bonus show and a new show.