The David Pakman Show - Bonus Sandwich Thrower Stands Trial Mexican President Sexually Assaulted White House Ordered To Use Asl Interpreters

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

-- On the Bonus Show: The man who threw a sandwich at a border officer stands trial, Mexico's president takes legal action following a sexual assault, a judge orders the White House to provide ASL interpreters at press briefings, 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. This is a wild show. story. A U.S. immigration agent has testified that despite wearing a ballistic vest, when that infamous sandwich was thrown at him by a DC protester, he could feel it. And that the sandwich exploded and that the smell of onion and mustard pervaded his uniform. You know, Pat, when we

covered this incident to begin with, I said, I am not in favor of going and assaulting officers. Right. And even if it's a sandwich, it is still an assault and I am against it. But describing this as an explosion, it the testimony is sort of funny. I have to admit. Absolutely. I mean, crimes are almost never funny. But I feel like this is the exception because we know that nobody got hurt here. It's just the officer's ego that got assaulted here. And that's what this story is over. The fact that this guy was humiliated because he had a sandwich thrown at him. and the Trump administration more broadly has been humiliated by this incident. I understand why the grand jury refused to return an indictment for a felony charges against

this man. And this is just now being prosecuted as a misdemeanor. But there's a whole bunch of interesting details to it, including how this guy had to testify about the smell and how they did a reenactment in court about the incident, even though why would we need a reenactment when there's video clear as day as to what happened. It's just a bizarre story, but, you know, you can't be throwing sandwiches at people. I think that is true. You can't the, the reenactment despite having video is a really funny thing.

Also, can you imagine if that sandwich had had hot peppers on it? We would be talking about a whole. Then it probably would be a felony. May have created some third degree burns for that officer. Honestly, if there's a crime that took place here, a serious crime, it's the fact that that that guy decided to spend money on Subway in the first place. Now, maybe he bought that sandwich knowing he wasn't going to eat. it because he was going to throw it at someone, in which case, okay, that's a little bit more acceptable.

But if he purchased that sandwich from Subway intending to eat it later, I think that's a crime in and of itself. There's another aspect to this, which is, thank goodness that even though Subway markets the footlong sandwich as being a foot long, they're reportedly only 11 inches or sometimes 11 and a half, depending on how much compression the bread is experienced or stretching. This was far less dangerous because it was not a full foot long. Oh, if it was a full foot long sandwich, it likely would have punctured the officer's bulletproof vest.

Yes, exactly. Then felony charges would have been warranted. Anyway, I think if we zoom out to be serious for a second, you know, I, one of the things that we always say is let's not give them any opportunities to frame the protests as violent when they are not. This was not no Kings. This was like an acute incident when ICE officers were, you know, out there carrying out whatever sort of task that they were trying to carry out. It, I still am of the mind that like, we don't want to give them anything. This is just so cartoonishly funny that it just does feel less serious. But it still is. We still need to take the same position,

which is like this only diminishes the more the, the, the, the perspective of those of us who are against this presence. You just shouldn't do it. Yeah, I'm with you there. But if there was one instance of someone going over the top and doing the type of thing that we don't want to see our side engaging in, this would be the way to do it, right? The sandwich throw because it is funny and no one got hurt. All right. This I don't know if you saw this video, Pat.

I saw it on TikTok. Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum was groped. There is a bizarre video. And honestly, I don't know how this happens. And I know that presidential security is different in different kinds. countries and sometimes you're sort of like allowed to get closer than in other places. She was standing there talking to people on the street and a guy walks up right behind her and sort of like I don't want to call it an embrace because an embrace makes it sound consensual.

He non consensually kind of puts his arms around her and she kind of like repels him and then security swoops in and a couple of things are going on. Number one, she's pressing charges. She says that it's important as a woman who, you know, would people do this to a male president? I think it's a fair question. I mean, part of part of this even being something that occurs to people, I do think is because she is a woman. She said it's important because this is a guy who was completely drunk and behaved inappropriately

and I've got to do that. This is also raising major questions about her security, which of course is being tightened. But apparently I am not the only one, Pat, wondering how on earth did this person even get up to her? Well, it's because in part her predecessor. Amlo, Lopez Obrador, decided to get rid of the presidential guard in a gesture to make him look like more of a man of the people. And to show that government wasn't wasting money on things like this.

But you got to protect the president, right? It's a very vulnerable situation that she was in. And I don't think that it would be this big waste of money or whatever to have some protection around her and defend the head of state. I think that makes all the sense in the world. I think you can still appear to be a person of the people and you can still engage in those crowds and that sort of thing while still having security. So I think that is an important thing to gather from this that that would make a lot of sense,

especially in this case. Also, I'm wondering what the hell was this guy thinking, right? Because, you know, obviously it's terrible to do this in any instance, but against the president of a country and you thought that you were going to get away with it, was this guy so drunk? he wasn't thinking through that or is he so used to groping strangers that he felt emboldened to do it to even the president? Like what the hell was going through this guy's mind? Yeah, I keep thinking of this thing of, you know, when Mel Gibson was pulled over drunk

and by a Beverly Hills police or was it out, I think it was Beverly Hills police and then started saying to the officer, are you Jewish and started yelling about Jews and all this different stuff? And later it was like, oh, it was the alcohol acting. And we talked about. this number of times Pat where it's like if certain things aren't deep down inside of you, you're not going to say them no matter how drunk you are. In fact, you would probably pass out from drinking before you start using the N word, for example. Like there's no amount of alcohol I could have where I'm going to start using the N word. It's not part of my vocabulary. With this stuff, is this the same or is it different? Because some are saying the alcohol is really not relevant.

there are certain types of people who would go and touch individuals, even without a sign that they want to be touched. And the alcohol might disinhibit them, but it doesn't create that. Whereas on the other hand, there are some who go, no, you know, this sort of embrace, it's completely inappropriate and unwanted. But there are people who are just huggers who with the alcohol might think that the hug is appropriate in a situation when it's when it's not. It's not like he would have actually attempted, you know, forcible sexual assault. But so I don't know. Some people say this is different from like I was drunk. So I said the N word type of stuff.

Yeah. My sense is when it comes to this case, this guy probably does this sort of thing, whether or not he's drunk. Because it's a type of thing that honestly is a huge problem in Mexico City with people groping women on subways and just feeling as though they can get away with it because there's just not a lot of attention paid to it. There's not a lot of resources to go after the crime. So this could be the type of thing that this guy does on a daily basis, honestly. And yeah, maybe he was drunk in this instance. And that is what led him to attack the president.

Maybe he otherwise wouldn't have attack the presidents if he wasn't drunk. But this is certainly something that seems to be part of this guy's behavior. And the alcohol just inhibited him that much more. And all of a sudden, we have this attack. And I think it's great that she's pressing charges, by the way, because, you know, you want to send a message that this is not acceptable and this is the type of thing that presidents need to take the lead on. A federal judge is ordering the White House to immediately start providing American sign language interpretation at its press briefings when Trump is speaking or when Caroline Levitt is speaking. The White House stopped doing it when Trump's term began.

This is really, you know, here's one of these things, Pat. This has become, we have a mishmash. of what is just basic accessibility and what is sort of like political virtue signaling of sorts? DEI, exactly. American sign language interpretation to me has nothing to do with DEI, wokeness, like, you can debate that stuff. I'm not even taking a position.

This is just a basic issue of accessibility. Many countries do it. I guess part of the thing, you might be. saying, well, why can't they just do close captions? There, there is some reason why. I don't actually remember what it is when these live press conference press briefings are going on. I don't remember what the explanation is. Or maybe it's just that it's much simpler to have someone doing the ASL. But like the anti-DI stuff has really gone too far where the Trump administration is like, we're not even going to do ASL. And a court has said, no, you've got to do it. These are

government communications at the end of the day. Right. These are completely different things. Maybe it's because we've seen the growth of ASL on TV in that bottom corner around the same time that people started to complain about DEI. Yeah. Because they came up at the same time, people started to associate the two things. Also, funny enough, like you could say in a sense that ASL would fall under the DEI category because it's inclusion, right? You're trying to include people who are hard of hearing.

So it's sort of one of those things where conservatives are obviously going way over the top. when it comes to this, but it also goes to show why we should have inclusion, why we should have policies like this. Well, it's sort of like if there are, if there are handicapped parking spots in a parking lot, is that DEI? I mean, like, it is inclusion, but it's not a political thing in the way that some of these Republicans are arguing. Right.

But people are used to those handicapped parking spots by now, right? We've had them for a generation or two, however long. Whereas when it comes to ASL, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it was commonplace to see some ASL interpreter in the bottom part of the screen 20 plus years ago, right? That's something that's come up more recently. So people just aren't used to it. They see the change and they think it must be woke. This is an example of when leveling the playing field to some is seen as simply helping

others in a way that is unfair, right? It's sort of like putting everybody at the starting line looks like it's unfair when you're used to standing way ahead of the starting line. And, and it's just so idiotic that this is something that they have a problem with. But they do. And I think that this is going to manifest in other ways. You know, is a is a wheelchair access ramp or what about at TSA allowing people in wheelchairs to go to the front of the line or like it's not DEI in the sense that they are using the term. Absolutely. It's just common courtesy for people. And it's something that we used to all be able to get behind. But now with everything being so political, everything being so.

polarize in our country. This is the type of thing that people take issue with. I'd be interested to see if in an ironic twist, the ASL interpreters who now have to show up at the White House revolt in their own way, if they maybe start their own lawsuits because they're going to have to interpret the terrible things that Trump and Caroline Levitt say, and those things are often incoherent. That's going to make it a very difficult job for those people who have that role. I still laugh all the time about when that, when Obama was in South Africa, I think it was when the nonsense sign language interpreter got up there and was signing nothing. He was just making random hand gestures. It kind of links two stories from today. Someone that wasn't properly

vetted getting close to a president and also the ASL stuff. That is just wild, wild stuff. Can we perhaps tie it in with the sandwich story as well, which is that it's like something that he shouldn't have done. But it's also not so egregious. And there's a funny aspect to it that yes. Want to laugh it off. Yes. Yes. I think. that that is another way. It really ties together all three of the stories. So listen, the White House is being ordered to do this. This is also a question of, do we have the power to enforce that in the sense of a court has now ruled this? Are they actually going to do it? Because sometimes Trump just goes, yeah, we're not going to do that. It doesn't seem like the battle that you want to

fight if you're the White House, right? Pick a different battle. But who knows with this White House, I'm sure they'll try to delay delay as much as possible on this. All right. Slightly shorter bonus show today as I've got to get to the airport. Wish me luck. A lot of chaos at airports these days. We'll have a new show and a new bonus show for you tomorrow.