The David Pakman Show - Casual Invasion Announcement Drops As Vance Defends The Worst

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump delivers rambling and contradictory remarks on Fox News boasting about Venezuela oil seizures and casually predicting Republican losses -- Trump announces plans to bomb ...Mexico over cartels while ignoring U.S. law international law and the reality of immediate retaliation -- David responds to a serious viewer argument about civil unrest personal safety gun regulation and the risks of asymmetric political violence -- JD Vance defends a deadly ICE operation attacks the media and recycles administration talking points while ignoring clear contradictions -- Jessica Tarlov confronts Fox News hosts by dismantling false claims about the killing of Renee Good and exposes the network's narrative collapse -- Tulsi Gabbard's credibility collapses after Donald Trump openly embraces regime change contradicting her confident public assurances -- Rand Paul dismantles Fox News justifications for Trump's foreign policy and exposes incoherent Republican standards on live television -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: the FBI shuts down the Minnesota assassination investigation, CBS News chief Bari Weiss stalls another anti-Trump 60 Minutes report, and Jesse Ventura attacks Donald Trump while hinting at a run for governor 🚀 Rocket Money: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions at https://rocketmoney.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman -- 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 (01:31) Trump brags on Fox, predicts losses (14:08) Trump threatens Mexico bombing over cartels (21:04) Civil unrest fears, guns, and safety debate (27:06) JD Vance spins deadly ICE operation (33:51) Jessica Tarlov shreds Fox's Renee Good story (39:33) Tulsi Gabbard crumbles on regime change (46:24) Rand Paul exposes GOP standards chaos (54:56) Friday feedback  

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Donald Trump sat down for what was supposed to be a softball Fox News interview to talk about how great everything he's doing in Venezuela is. And it did not go well. Hannity allowed him to brag about taking oil from Venezuela. He talked about bombing Mexico soon, rambled about sliding down a helicopter rope, the likes of which you would normally hear. I don't know, from someone screaming on a subway platform, not the president of the United States. and then says, oh, Republicans are probably getting crushed in November. At least he's historically right about that. We then get to something pretty serious.
Starting point is 00:00:37 Someone on our subreddit argued that we are closer to civil unrest than maybe people want to acknowledge and that I personally, me, David Packman, should have guns. I am going to weigh in on this. And then we will look at Vice President J.D. Vance doing what he does best. He doesn't do much well. The one thing he does do well is attempt to defend the indefensible with the sanitization of violence and lecturing the media as if they are always the problem. So we've got an example of that. And then what about Tulsi Gabbard?
Starting point is 00:01:12 Well, we're going to bring up a name not much mentioned by Donald Trump. That's for sure, despite the fact that she works for him. What is she up to and how does it relate to what has taken place in Venezuela? All of that and more. Well, it was supposed to be an easy interview with a friend of Donald Trump's to make everything that Trump is doing seem really great and cool and awesome and legal and constitutional. And it did not go well. You know, there have been adversarial interviews that don't go well for the president.
Starting point is 00:01:50 But sometimes it's the ones you aren't prepared for because they are friendly where you end up kind of with all the rope you could ever want with. to hang yourself. And that is exactly what Donald Trump did. Trump starting off by straight up bragging about the attack and invasion of Venezuela during which the president, Nicholas Maduro, was kidnapped. And Trump says straight up, we have taken over a whole country and we are taking billions of oil and are going to take even more. He's kind of giving up the game. And for everybody who's been wondering, is this regime change or is this about oil? Well, I have a thought about that. Let's listen first to what Donald Trump had to say.
Starting point is 00:02:31 Back and Obama should have done it. They all should have done it. Clinton should have done it. Obama went the other way. I mean, Obama decided to go with Iran. I mean, he was, I don't know how Jewish people can vote for Biden and Obama. They were absolutely on the side of Iran. They were against Jewish people. Well, we're going to find out. Your favorite mayor. Well, I have a very nice relationship, but I thought it would take at least maybe a month or two months before. before he went after me. He hit me on the attack on Venezuela, which is pretty unusual because not too many people have hit us.
Starting point is 00:03:06 That was a perfect attack. There's never been a better attack. Think of what we've done. We've taken over a whole country. We're going to make the country strong and good. We're going to ultimately be able to vote and put somebody in that they like the oil. We've taken $4 billion worth of oil in one day. And that'll increase.
Starting point is 00:03:29 We're going to have it rebuilt. All the big oil companies are coming in. They're going to make a lot of money. And Venezuela is going to get some of that money. And we're going to get some of that money. And we brought stability to the region. We brought stability and much lower oil prices. You know, we have gasoline down to, in many cases, $1.99 a gallon.
Starting point is 00:03:50 So listen, there are a whole bunch of problems here with what Donald Trump is saying. He says the oil companies are going to rush in. They're not exactly rushing in because they are worried that this is actually going to be a quagmire in Venezuela. But Donald Trump is making a number of important admissions here, which is we are running the entire country. We are taking all of the oil. And if you were wondering, is it regime change or is it really about getting oil?
Starting point is 00:04:18 Why not both? It increasingly seems like it is stupid regime change for oil, even though the regime hasn't change. They've taken one person out of it, but the vice president becomes the acting president. There's no election in sight. The generals are still in charge. The regime overall is still in charge. Plainly ridiculous stuff. And then we get to, well, who is going to be in charge there? You may recall that for now, it's the former VP, a former VP, Delci Rodriguez, who has been made interim president, which is just another figurehead from the exact same regime. Well, what about Maria Karina Machado? the opposition leader of Venezuela who won the Nobel Peace Prize so coveted by Donald Trump,
Starting point is 00:05:01 they didn't give it to him like a dog, but Trump wants that Nobel Peace Prize. I mentioned previously, Trump is not going to want Machado in charge because he believes he is the rightful recipient of that Nobel Peace Prize. Well, in unspeakably pathetic stuff, Donald Trump says to Sean Hannity, he would be honored to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Prize awarded to Maria Karina Machado if she wants to give it to him. And you know what? If that happened, maybe Trump would be supportive of her taking up the leadership of Venezuela.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Listen to this. Let me ask you about Maria Karina Machado. I've had her on TV this week. Yeah, she's a very nice person. Okay. She won the Nobel Peace Prize. When she accepted that peace prize, she dedicated it to you. She said to me this week, both on TV and radio.
Starting point is 00:05:54 that she wants to give the Nobel Prize, her Nobel Peace Prize, to you for liberating her country. In 2023, she won over 92% of the vote to be the leader of the opposition. Maduro kept her off the ballot. Do you have any plans to meet with her? And would you accept the Nobel Prize she wants to hand to you?
Starting point is 00:06:18 Well, I understand she's coming in next week sometime. And I look forward to saying hello to her. I've heard that she wants to do that. That would be a great honor. I did put out eight wars. Eight in a quarter. He put him out like peeing on a fire. Because you know, Thailand and Cambodia started going at it against.
Starting point is 00:06:36 I'll put the list up if you were. So it's, you put the list out as a hell of a list. But we, I've stopped eight wars. And I think, you know, it's been a major embarrassment to Norway. Listen, this is not satire. Trump would be honored to have Maria Karina Machado give him the peace. prize that she was awarded. Now, there's a couple of things just to inject a little bit of reality here. First of all, Alfred Nobel stated that once the prize has been awarded, it can't be changed.
Starting point is 00:07:05 That is it. And so the idea that she would give it or share it with Trump is hilarious. I hate to tell Trump this, but if someone says, I give my prize to someone else, that doesn't change anything as far as the Nobel committee is concerned. It's sort of like, imagine, you know, Anthony Hopkins, the great actor, one best actor for his role in the father. Imagine that he were to say, I share this Oscar with Donald Trump. I give this Oscar to Donald Trump for whatever reason. You think the Oscar committee or what of the academy, whatever they call themselves, are he's going to say, well, we've got to amend our records to show that it was Hopkins and Trump who co-won best actor in whatever year that was. Of course not. Of course not. This is.
Starting point is 00:07:53 It quite frankly, this is increasingly like what was happening with Donald Trump's father as he was increasingly adult with dementia at the end of his life where they set up an office with a phone that he built, that Trump's dad believed could make real phone calls, but it just went to a receptionist in the next room and they would put paperwork in front of him for him to sign. He thought that there was a real job going on and he wasn't really doing anything. It's sort of like placating Trump in the same way. Yes, here, take my Nobel Peace Prize. And of course, it shows up nowhere in the records.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Maybe most delusionally, like this is the sort of stuff you'd hear. Sadly, in a memory unit of an assisted living facility, Donald Trump's been wondering whether he could slide down a rope like SEAL Team 6 did. Very interesting. But the safe house wasn't safe because they had blow torches that go through steel like it's butter. They didn't have to use them. But we have, these are great people.
Starting point is 00:08:48 These are really brave people. Even coming down those ropes, you know, they're coming down ropes off the house. helicopter and they run them. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if I could do that. I can have to give it a try sometime, but they do it like it's a like it's a stairway. I say Trump should try it. I would love to see Trump slide down a rope and let's just see what happened. Now, these were the parts of the interview where Trump was saying things that were crazy, but at least we understood the subject matter. Trump did eventually get into the part of the interview where he is incoherently rambling and we don't know what it is that he is trying to say.
Starting point is 00:09:24 Pola Ali Khamani is now has a plan B to go to Russia. Or someplace, yeah. He's looking to go. Do you believe that Iran, you think the country's on the verge of collapsing? Well, it could be. I mean, what they've done is they start in the past. It could be in the sense that I might invade and try to collapse it. They've started shooting the hell out of people and all of a sudden people without any weapons
Starting point is 00:09:47 whatsoever standing there and you have machine guns, gunning them down. or they take them to prisons and then hang them and kill them. So they played rough. And I said, if they do that, we're going to hit them very hard. Well, we're going to hit them hard. If they do that, we're going to hit them hard. And so far, for the most part, there's been some of it. But for the most part, they have.
Starting point is 00:10:08 There have been people killed. Some of them, the crowds are so big that some of them have had really, like, were stomped on. Literally, it was terrible. Now, by the way, just as a brief interjection, I know when Donald Trump's appearance is as it is in this interview, many of you write in and you say, David, why are Trump's eyes, especially his right eye, almost completely swollen shut? Why is he seemingly unable to open his right eye? I don't have an answer for you. I just want to, I want to acknowledge it. I want to give space for that because I know it will be in the comments. I'm aware of it. I just have no clue why. Crowds are just, they're massive. The enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible. But there's been people killed, but it's more from death by, it's literally stomping. It's people running in a certain direction.
Starting point is 00:11:05 So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. They know, though, that it's a stampede is, I guess the best word. They have like a stampede. So anyway, Trump sort of saying things could go say. in Iran. And then in an incredible moment, Trump says, now that DC is really safe, when people come from great places like Iowa and Indiana, not shithole states and cities, but good places like Iowa
Starting point is 00:11:32 and Indiana, they can be very safe in Washington, D.C., thanks to me. Now all of a sudden, when I came here, I was hearing stories about the kind of crime that they had here. People come in from Iowa and from Indiana and great places and they end up calling the the parents that your son has been killed doesn't happen anymore. We have a very safe Washington DC is a very safe city. We put our national guard there. They're all central casting.
Starting point is 00:11:58 You take a look at these guys. It's great. We won the case on merit based on merit from the Supreme Court, a great victory, a courageous victory actually. But we're- So it's finally safe in Washington, D.C. again. And of course, Donald Trump mixing and matching a lot of different things. He attributes DC safety to the deployment of the national. Guard, but the reality is that D.C. has gotten safer for a long time correlated with national
Starting point is 00:12:25 crime trends where crime has been declining, so there's no evidence. It has anything to do with Donald Trump. It's all a complete mess. Finally, Trump does predict possible disaster for Republicans in November, but he makes the argument that it would have nothing to do with him. This is just the way these cycles work. And when a president wins, their party. tends to not do well in the immediate midterm, which is generally true. Generally true. And we've done great everywhere. It's amazing. It's an amazing phenomena that on two or three occasions, I don't know, it depends on how far you want to go back. But if you go back a long way, the sitting president, whether it's Democrat or Republican, always loses the midterm. Uh-oh.
Starting point is 00:13:11 Even if they've done well, almost always. And you know, you think it would be like a 50-50 deal. even if the president's done a great job, I think we've done a great job. We've done maybe the best job ever in the first year. But they always seem to lose the midterm. There's something down deep psychologically with the voters that they want maybe a check or something. I don't know what it is exactly. But why would voters possibly want a check or a balance on what the president does? So, Trump's sort of previewing. We may not do well in November, but I've done everything great. The best presidency that we've ever had. Now, some of you may be saying, wait a second, David, missing from your analysis of this interview
Starting point is 00:13:54 gone wrong is the fact that Donald Trump casually mentioned he's going to start bombing another country. And you're right. That was a moment so outrageous from this interview that it deserves its own discussion. Let's talk about that right now. During his interview gone wrong with Sean Hannity, Donald Trump casually announced that the United States is going to start bombing Mexico. He does not use hypothetical language. He does not suggest that this is a mere thought experiment. It is not some people are saying. He says, we are now going to start hitting land in Mexico with regard to the cartels. We will talk about the legality, the political consequences,
Starting point is 00:14:41 and all of it. But here is Donald Trump very casually. You know, are we going into Colombia, maybe are we going into Cuba sure are we going to try to take Greenland by force yeah maybe but we're going to start going into Mexico and hitting land and we are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels the cartels are running Mexico it's very very sad to watch and see what's happened to that country but the cartels are running and they're killing 250 300,000 people in our country every single year the drugs it's horrible it's devastated families, you lose a child or a parent. I mean, parents are dying too with drugs. You know, we've talked about the difficulty of when you say, where is the headquarters of Antifa?
Starting point is 00:15:29 Because it is really not an organization. It's this free form, you know, kind of loose thing. We've talked about the difficulties of fighting Hamas in Gaza because you're talking about a population that is intermixed with civilians, just in random. random buildings and the difficulty of it. How are you going to bomb cartels? How do you know who are the members of cartels for the purposes of bombing? But that's only like a mere technical detail. There's sort of like a few overarching elements to this.
Starting point is 00:16:01 First of all, the legality. In the normal world order, you don't just get to bomb a sovereign country because you feel like it. Mexico is not an enemy state. There's no declaration of war. There's no authorization for the use of military force. There's no congressional approval. and just saying cartels, cartels, that doesn't magically make the entire thing legal. If the standard is criminal organizations operate there, that describes half the planet.
Starting point is 00:16:26 That doesn't mean that the United States would be justified in starting to bomb. Now, secondly, there's the kind of like alliance issue with Mexico. Mexico is not a random country. Trump can bully for applause, although that also I would be against, but it's a different scenario. Mexico is one of our closest trading partners. Trump did his whole USMCA thing, which involves Canada and Mexico. Mexico is deeply integrated into the American economy. We are highly dependent on Mexico for supply chains, manufacturing, agriculture, even energy.
Starting point is 00:16:56 And Mexico has a president, and that is President Claudia Scheinbaum. You don't bomb your ally and then act shocked when the cooperation is pulled overnight, which would be devastating to the American economy. Now, this is maybe the most dangerous part because Trump doesn't seem to understand it. Cartels are not governments. They are not an army with a uniform. They are not static targets. If the U.S. starts bombing inside of Mexico, the cartels are not going to complain by filing
Starting point is 00:17:32 a grievance with the United Nations. The cartels are going to respond by kidnapping Americans, by killing Americans, by targeting American tourists and business people and aid workers and journalists and they are going to do it immediately. That is how criminal organizations operate. Trump talks about this like a video game. We're going to start dropping bombs and win problem solved. It would almost certainly escalate violence on both sides of the border.
Starting point is 00:18:00 It'll destabilize Mexico. It'll poison our diplomatic relations for years. And it'll put American civilians in the crosshairs. Americans will die if Donald Trump does that. And why? because he wants to sound tough on TV. He wants to have stuff to brag to Sean Hannity about. And this is the logical and predictable end result
Starting point is 00:18:18 when someone doesn't understand international law and doesn't care about it, doesn't understand alliances and doesn't care about them. And basic cause and effect does not compute in his brain. Reckless, of course, dangerous, of course. But this is the way that this guy operates. And we have limited time to put a stop to it. Staying focused while your work can be difficult, especially for folks with ADHD.
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Starting point is 00:20:15 I want to say thank you to our two newest members, Justin Fryer and Felicia Berrera, who signed up at join packman.com. Thanks to both of you. You can sign up today and get instant access to the bonus show. We're also doing a huge one-day membership special on January 20th. January 20th will mark the one-year-old. anniversary of Donald Trump's second term, and it will mean three years left until he finally leaves office.
Starting point is 00:20:45 If you want to take advantage of a heavily discounted membership, heavy, heavy discount on January 20th, simply get on my newsletter at substack. dat davidpack.com the 20th in the morning. You'll get a beautiful email, perfect email, they say, which will tell you exactly how to avail yourself of this discounted membership. All right. But someone posted this to my subreddit and I want to talk about it because it's serious. It's clearly written in good faith.
Starting point is 00:21:10 It reflects something a lot of people are thinking, but maybe aren't sure how to say. The post is not calling for violence. The author is clear about that. The author is warning against using guns to coerce political change. But the author of this subreddit post is saying, shouldn't I, shouldn't David Packman have guns? The user is I'm Pink Snail and wrote on the subreddit. why David Packman should buy a gun and why you should too. Now, I'm not going to read the entire thing, but we will link to it.
Starting point is 00:21:42 But the argument that's being made here is that circumstances are getting to the point that as I mentioned yesterday could be setting the stage for something like a civil war. And the article, the post acknowledges that I've touched on how that would develop, that it wouldn't be well organized sides to the civil war with organized leadership and a a precise target list, that it is going to be a complete and total mess. And essentially, what this person is suggesting is that we, you and I, all of us, take proactive steps to manage the risk and being mindful about when we are in public at protests and all of these things, but shouldn't I and maybe others have firearms? Now, let's dig into this because this is something I've
Starting point is 00:22:29 alluded to before and I've talked about with friends a lot and I think is important to to address. By the way, the post is not advocating against gun safety regulations. It's not saying it should be easier to get guns. It's just saying, hey, we don't necessarily want just these right wing nuts being the ones with the gun. So let me be like super clear. I have made it a point. I've said, I don't discuss whether I do or don't own firearms.
Starting point is 00:22:54 I've decided there is no advantage or upside for me to say, oh, I don't have guns or I would never have them or I do have guns and here's the guns I have. I've just decided that that doesn't seem to have any upside. Broadcasting that may give people, first of all, it's information people don't really need. And it may impact people's perception of my views on gun safety regulations or whatever the case may be. Now, what I will say is, any gun safety regulation I support should apply to me. I should not be exempted from any gun safety regulations. And so when I say, I support licensing, training, safe storage requirements, red flag laws, I would love to see mandatory insurance, all of this stuff. I should be subject
Starting point is 00:23:39 to it as well. No exceptions. Otherwise, these positions don't hold water. Now, secondly, there are places where you don't just go and get guns. There are parts of this country where you have to demonstrate a credible concern for your safety. And as uncomfortable, a reality as that is, I'm a public commentator that gets a lot of threats. I would almost certainly meet that standard. And that doesn't make me special. It just reflects the environment that we are in with regard to safety and firearms. Now, let me get to maybe what is the most important part here.
Starting point is 00:24:15 And this is the part that a lot of times people tend to avoid talking about. I would rather live in a country with far fewer guns. I would rather it be way more difficult to get firearms. That is my preference. We don't live in that country right now. And one of the things that I and my liberal friends have talked about a lot is that it's bad enough to be in a country with so many guns and with it being so easy to get guns. But being in a situation where the people who are armed are primarily the right-wing extremists
Starting point is 00:24:49 and militias and the political fantasists and the separatists and the civil war people and the whatever, that is not a good thing either. Only the nuts will have the guns isn't a safety plan. It's a vulnerability. That doesn't mean everybody should be armed. Far from it. It doesn't mean escalation is good. By the way, it doesn't mean that were there, had there been more guns at any of these incidents
Starting point is 00:25:13 involving ice, at no king's protests, at whatever, it almost certainly would be worse. If I have argued many times, rarely is there a scenario. We're just introducing a bunch more guns is a good thing. So I am an advocate for fewer guns in this country. We aren't going in that direction. And so I understand the argument that many of my liberal friends make about asymmetric armament not being a great thing. Ignoring reality won't make it disappear.
Starting point is 00:25:45 So am I suggesting anybody in my audience going get a gun? Far from it, far from it. And it is a completely logical, sane and fact-based belief to say, hey, you know what? I worry that owning a gun or introducing a gun into any scenario raises the risk that that gun is involved in an accidental shooting or gets me in trouble or all of that stuff makes sense. The point I'm making here is the situation we have with guns in this country is an absolute and total disaster. And it is up to other individuals to evaluate what do they need their relationship to firearms
Starting point is 00:26:24 to be. And to be perfectly honest, I feel far safer when I travel to, you know, as many of you know, I've spent a lot of time in London, spent a lot of time in Paris and other places. I find it much more reassuring to know, almost no civilians in this country have guns. Then it's really easy to get them. And I can arm myself in some kind of potentially fantasy land self-defense against all of the other nuts with the guns. That's not very reassuring. I am far more reassured when I'm in a country where I know almost nobody here has a weapon. I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts about this? J.D. Vance spoke to the press briefing room about what took place in Minneapolis and the killing. Some are using the term the murder. Some are using the term assassination.
Starting point is 00:27:19 Those are not legally accurate terms right now, but socially and colloquially, those are terms that are being applied of a 37-year-old Renee Good as she was shot through her window and windshield of her car as she was attempting to drive away. J.D. Vance, of course, just a completely disgusting person, lacking all gravitas and charisma and says, listen, this was a legitimate law enforcement operation. And it's very important to understand that saying that does not actually confirm anything one way or the other about the shooting. So listen to what he says, and then I'm going to explain what I mean. Or has he been placed on leave, on administrative leave? And what really was the target of the operation
Starting point is 00:28:04 on Wednesday? Of the ICE operation on Wednesday? Well, first of all, it was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States of America. Because if you come to our country illegally in violation of our immigration laws, then we have the mandate. And in fact, we have the legal duty to enforce those immigration laws. Whether he's been placed on administrative leave, I don't know the answer to that question. I'd refer to the Department of Homeland Security and they can follow up. I will say, look, I would appreciate everybody saying a prayer for that agent.
Starting point is 00:28:33 Look, in the past six months, he has been hit twice by a motor vehicle. One time, the first time, it led to over 30 stitches and very serious injuries to his legs. This is a guy who's actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America. He's been assaulted. He's been attacked. Yeah. Okay. So the officer who killed Renee Good is the victim, of course, in all. of this. Couple different things. Number one, J.D. Bant says this was a legitimate law enforcement operation. Unfortunately, that says nothing about the underlying legality of the shooting. I'll give you an example. A traffic stop executed by a police officer can be completely legitimate. They observed
Starting point is 00:29:08 an individual allegedly committing a traffic violation. They lit them up, pulled them over, and asked for ID. It's a legitimate traffic stop. That doesn't mean every single thing the officer does or might do during the traffic stop would be legal. For example, you can't. You can't unreasonably detain people during a traffic stop for hours for no real reason. Even if you want to get a drug dog out to sniff around the car, there is some limited time that you have to do that. And so the traffic stop could be legitimate, but it doesn't mean everything you do during the traffic stop is legitimate. Similarly, the law enforcement operation being carried out in Minneapolis could very well be legitimate, although I'm going to come back to that. That doesn't
Starting point is 00:29:48 mean that any action undertaken by any involved officer is de facto legitimate, like, for example, shooting Renee Good through the window and then windshield of her vehicle. Second, is the operation legitimate? And what I mean by that is, J.D. says they were going door to door looking for illegal aliens. Is that actually a legitimate law enforcement operation? Mast men are going door to door and looking to seize people with no warrant or proof of criminality. Is it a legitimate law enforcement operation? We're not going to adjudicate that here, but I raise it only as a question. I do not have higher hopes for J.D. Vance.
Starting point is 00:30:30 He is one of the most deplorable and disgusting people that I have ever seen involved with government. But even the basics of what he is saying here really leave a lot to be desired. Now, J.D. Vance also never misses an opportunity to attack the media. And that is exactly what he did during this appearance in the White House press briefing room. Being part of that network justify being shot. Well, being part of the network doesn't justify being shot, but ramming an ICE officer with your car, that's what justifies being shot. It's not a good thing, by the way, but when you. Now, remember that the ICE officer was not rammed with the car. We have the video. They are rewriting history. somebody to engage in self-defense. It's almost a preposterous question. How could it be self-defense if the guy wasn't hit by the car and refused medical treatment saying that he was fine?
Starting point is 00:31:19 I'm not saying that funding some of this stuff justifies capital punishment. Nobody would suggest that. The reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car and that guy acted in self-defense. Understand that the video does not suggest that she was trying to ram. anybody. That is why she lost her life and that is the tragedy. Now, there may be other violations of the law and other penalties that are associated with those violations of the law. For example, if you are funding violence against our law enforcement officers, I'm not a prosecutor. My guess is that's- Anyway, that has nothing to do with this incident. Now he's talking about other hypotheticals. Finally from JD, he makes a statement that is so, dare I say,
Starting point is 00:32:07 Kafkaesque that it really strains credulity. In the red tie, yeah. Vice President Vance, I wanted to ask, what's your message to far leftist agitators who feel emboldened to obstruct ice activity in Minnesota and around the country? Well, I think they shouldn't feel emboldened because now they have an assistant attorney general who is going to prosecute and investigate their fraud and their violence more aggressively than it has ever been investigated in the United States of America. We are doing so much to try to find the financing networks and the domestic terror.
Starting point is 00:32:37 networks that legitimate this violence, that fund this violence, and that of course, engage in the violence. These people should not feel emboldened because they have for the first time, maybe in American history, an administration that is not going to tolerate political violence of any kind from anywhere. For the first time in American history, J.D. says, we are in, we have an administration that won't tolerate political violence of any kind from anybody. They pardoned 1,500 January 6th, rioters, you are quite literally saying, we tolerate political violence and we tolerate a lot of it. You know, the more I think about J.D. Vance as a potential 2028 candidate, forget for a second.
Starting point is 00:33:22 I don't know how many of you saw. Clavicular pointed out that the with facial width to height ratio of J.D. Vance's face is a disaster and that that'll really hurt him if he tries to run. He really is a an intellectual smurf and is going to be, I believe, completely unable to properly articulate why anybody should vote for him. So I increasingly think he is unlikely to successfully be a presidential candidate. The lone Fox News liberal Jessica Tarlov once again left her co-hosts speechless employing two little things called logic and reason to silence the mayo-brained people that sit alongside. her. The topic was indeed this killing that took place in Minneapolis by an ice officer of
Starting point is 00:34:13 37 year old Renee Good. She brought receipts. She was ready. So, Jesse, you just said this woman is in severe crisis. She was boxed in. If you watch the whole video. Not she was boxed. That's what she was boxed. No, I said the team was boxed. Okay. The team was boxed by once she moved over, she pulled to the side and then she actually waves another ICE officer past her, right? So she's in such severe crisis that she can be polite in traffic and say, you go ahead. And then you hear her actually audibly saying, I'm pulling out, right? She signals exactly what she's doing. She starts to move forward.
Starting point is 00:34:53 And everyone should go and watch the New York Times has about three and a half minutes of footage coming from every angle. And this is what they brought up to President Trump when they were. And by the way, I'm sorry to interrupt. One of the things about this incident that actually helps is that the claims being made by this administration are flatly rejectable based on publicly available video. When JD Vance talks about self-defense and when J.D. Vance talks about the guy getting hit by the car and all of this stuff, the video is out there.
Starting point is 00:35:24 If you're willing to just look at the video, you know that what they are saying did not happen. We're meeting with him last night when he said, you know, the officer, the brave officer, and after he tweeted, it's hard to believe that the officer is alive when he walked away completely unscathed. We can see that on video as well. But the footage contradicts the administration on almost every level of what they've said. René Good, waving the vehicle by. The officer was to the side of the car when he drew the gun. He leaned over the hood for the first shot.
Starting point is 00:35:53 You can see that on the angle, too. But he fired two more shots at arm's length on a 90-degree angle. And it almost doesn't matter, actually, what she was doing because she didn't have another weapon, according to DOJ policy, which they should be in compliance with. It says, deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect. Firearms must be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person is threatening deadly force by other means than the vehicle. And no other means of defense exists, including moving out of the path. He could clearly move out of the path. Because he did.
Starting point is 00:36:28 Because he did. And that's why he was unscathed in this. I don't know why it wasn't good enough for Secretary Nome or the president or the vice president to say, this is a tragedy. We need to investigate this. And not only do we need to investigate it, we need the FBI to work with local officials on the ground in Minnesota, which apparently they do not want to do. And Governor Walls was talking about that as well.
Starting point is 00:36:51 That would have been the responsible thing to do here. And talking as if there is no potential that this officer is at fault with what happened, It feels like you're getting a little bit ahead of your skis, especially when there is so much footage that contradicts the story that the- You know, unfortunately, I like Tim Walls, am unsure whether we are going to get a proper adjudication of what took place here. It is difficult to imagine that if the evidence was presented to a grand jury, the grand jury would not say you got to charge this guy. Now, I know people love to say, everything that gets to brought to a grand jury is because
Starting point is 00:37:25 prosecutors already know the grand jury is going to go for it. You can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, blah, blah, blah. It is true that things get brought to a grand jury when they have already passed some minimum level of requirements. You are not going to get cases got brought to grand juries that are terrible. But I don't even think we're going to see that. We already see the FBI blocking a proper investigation into this shooting. And although everything, everything that Jessica Tarlov said there is correct, I'm worried.
Starting point is 00:37:55 we are not going to get a proper investigation and that we are not going to see even the potential, the potential for accountability here. On the bonus show, we are going to talk about the blocked investigation more. Good for Jessica Tarlov sitting up there with these people every single day who refuse to even accept what is on video. It's got to be tough. One challenge in covering politics today is that even when outlets are reporting the same facts, they often are framing the stories really differently.
Starting point is 00:38:25 And our sponsor Ground News is a website and app that makes those differences easy to see. What Ground News does is gather coverage of the same story from across the political spectrum and shows you where the reporting is coming from. You can see which outlets lean left, right or center, and you can also see how reliable they are and who owns them. What I find most useful is the side-by-side headline comparison. You're looking at the same underlying facts, but it's clear how different outlets will emphasize one angle or a narrative or another.
Starting point is 00:38:58 Ground news gives you a transparent way to understand bias without being told what to think. They also offer a blind spot feed, which will highlight stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum. And that helps surface items that I might otherwise miss or not even hear about. You can also personalize your feed by interest. And that makes it easier to follow issues you personally care about. Go to ground. news slash Pacman to get 40% off the ground news vantage plan and you can also gift a subscription to a friend.
Starting point is 00:39:31 The link is in the description. Tulsi Gabbard is hilariously and tragically the director of national intelligence in the United States and she is in absolute shambles. And this one is particularly embarrassing because it is completely self-inflicted. Now, a couple of months ago, Tulsi Gabbard was out there. confidently assuring everybody. Donald Trump, who she works for, would never pursue regime change or interfere in foreign governments. It's not just that it's unlikely. He would never do it ever, ever, ever. She said it flatly. She said it with certainty. She said it like someone who
Starting point is 00:40:10 had special insight into Trump's worldview. He would never do this. Take a listen to what she said. The old Washington way of thinking is something. Something we hope is in the rear view mirror and something that has held us back for too long. For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building. It was a one-size-fits-all approach of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervene in conflicts that were barely understood and walk away with more enemies than allies. The results, trillions spent, countless lives lost, and in many cases, a creation
Starting point is 00:41:00 of greater security threats, the rise of Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS. President Trump was elected by the American people to put an end to this. And from day one, he has showed a very different way to conduct foreign policy. Oh, boy, you know, Tulsi, when she ran said she is the only real anti-war, anti-regime change candidate. And of course, a lot of people fell for that. And then when she came around from the Democratic Party to supporting Trump and sucking up to Trump and ultimately getting a job offer from Trump, she insisted Trump is the anti-regime change guy. And it turns out, and we know that Tulsi just waves in the wind, whichever way the wind blows Tulsi goes with. Tulsi didn't just get something wrong. She staked her credibility on a claim that has completely
Starting point is 00:41:56 collapsed. The core problem with Tulsi Gabbard's political evolution is that she presented herself as this anti-war truth teller who can identify those who are really anti-war and against regime change because she has a special eye for it. She saw it through the Democratic Party. She saw it through the Republican Party. But what she's doing in practice is she is laundering right wing narratives with the tone of a moral authority that she simply doesn't have. And then she's shocked when people behave exactly the way they always have and exactly the way we've been saying they're going to behave.
Starting point is 00:42:34 Trump has always flirted with regime change. This is the thing that's important to understand. He escalated tensions with Iran and he assassinated Soleimani. and tore up diplomatic agreements and replace them with bravado. You've got to understand that while Trump says, I will keep us out of wars, Hillary will start three wars, Biden will start three wars, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then Trump's the one who's actually flirting with it. And none of this is new.
Starting point is 00:43:01 What's new is that Tulsi Gabbard started to pretend Trump's really different. He's totally different. He's especially not only is Trump different from Democrats and Republicans who are all four these regime change things. But Tulsi even argued that in his second term compared to the first, Trump was going to be calmer and wiser and more restrained. But every single bit of evidence we had suggested that Trump would be completely unrestrained in his autocratic authoritarian aspirations in the second term. In fact, Tulsi's presence working for Trump is part of Trump putting in these loyal above all else non thinkers who are in way over their head. And maybe the most
Starting point is 00:43:49 humiliating part for Tulsi Gabbard is that Trump at multiple points has started to sort of isolate her. You'll remember when the Iran strikes happened. And Tulsi had come out and said, we don't have evidence that they're really doing any of the stuff that Trump says they're doing with regard to their nuclear program. Trump just sidelined her. All of a sudden, she was gone. And she's basically been gone ever since that, even though she's trying to work her way kind of back into Donald Trump's good graces.
Starting point is 00:44:20 So Tulsi Gabbard keeps trying to position herself as the serious foreign policy realist here, the adult in the room. Every single time, she ties herself to Trump with some claim. She ends up exposed. Not as a principled independent thinker. She ends up exposed as someone who misreads power, ignores history, mistakes proximity to authoritarian politics for having some kind of insight. And if this is at the end of the day, if anti-intervention is what Trump has done in Venezuela,
Starting point is 00:44:53 Iran, Yemen is threatening to do in Colombia and Cuba, it's not just like Tulsi kind of miscalculated. This is a full-blown humiliation and total reversal on everything she said Trump was. and everything Trump said that he was. The thing I keep coming back to is, how do these people who are presumably closer to power than I am? How do they keep falling for things that we all know are untrue? I have no special access. Many of you who wrote to me and said, how is Tulsi falling for this crap?
Starting point is 00:45:29 You don't have special access. How do all of us with no special access realize Trump's bullshitting about this anti-regime change thing? Tulsi falls for it. And the answer may be that being closer to power doesn't give you better insight. It allows you to be blinded by that itch to be close to power itself. And so to some degree, maybe we actually have the more accurate view, not thinking to ourselves, what can I say to Trump to maybe get him to give me a job? Trump's not going to give me a job. It was obvious he was lying about the anti-war, anti-regime change stuff. Tulsi wanted to be there. She wanted to be next to the cool kid or whatever. She wanted to be invited to the party. And so I guess it depended on her not
Starting point is 00:46:20 acknowledging these very obvious lies that Donald Trump was telling. I've got a very interesting exchange where Senator Rand Paul, a Republican, a libertarian Republican, appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartaromo and explained to Maria, none of these justifications. for what Donald Trump did in Venezuela are making any sense. It's a sort of devastating exchange precisely because of how small and calm it is. Maria Bartaroma was trying to run interference for Trump. And she does it with a familiar script. This is about fentanyl, or as they like to call it fentanyl and human trafficking.
Starting point is 00:47:00 But Rand Paul knows that that's not true. And he goes, Venezuela is not producing fentanyl. And it goes down. hill from there. This is very interesting. I think bombing at another nation's capital and removing their president is an act of war. Anybody who argues otherwise, I think, has a very difficult argument. So yes, the Constitution indicates this should go to Congress first. Well, I mean, you know, in that soundbite, we played, you were arguing that, look, you know, I mean, are we going to go and remove somebody in Saudi Arabia? I mean, with all due respect, I think the goal here is to
Starting point is 00:47:30 stop the drug and human trafficking into America. And I don't think Saudi Arabia is sending fentanyl into America? Well, neither is Venezuela. Venezuela doesn't export any fentanyl at all. In fact, their main product. What about cocaine? There is some argument, yes, on the cocaine front, that there are people within that country. There are also people within several countries in South America that are producing cocaine. What I would say is, look, there is no love lost for Maduro. I've written a book, The Case Against Socialism. I'm glad he's gone. I've described how teenagers are scrounging for food in Venezuela. Socialism is bad. But there's a bigger picture here also between us making this decision. For 30 years, from 1970 to 2000, the Venezuelan people kept voting in socialists. In the initial
Starting point is 00:48:16 elections, they actually voted in Chavez, and most people think the initial elections were likely legitimate. But this is the end result of socialism. This is state-sponsored violence that occurred there. But what has to happen now is the people of Venezuela need to choose better. They need to realize that it wasn't just getting a bad person, that this is a bad economic system. So the oil companies have been owned by the Venezuelan government since 1976, the gas companies since 1971. This is not a new thing. So there's a bigger, broader debate we should be having here. And I don't think telling the people of Venezuela, we're coming, the green goes are coming, we're going to run your country. Oil companies will come in and run you like we did in the 19th century.
Starting point is 00:48:57 I think that even our friends will resist that. And so, Rand Paul on this issue is essentially correct. And the premise here completely and totally collapses. Maria Barteromo actually admits the real standard, which is we do not apply the logic consistently. Saudi Arabia gets a pass because they're allies. Venezuela gets targeted because they're weak and politically inconvenient, politically convenient, in the sense of doing this inconvenient to leave alone.
Starting point is 00:49:29 Now, I don't want to totally redirect the segment, but I want to take a brief pit stop just to remind, and I talked about this on Tuesday, nowhere in this when we talk about we're getting this drug is cocaine from Colombia and then there's meth and then there's fentanyl and then there's fentanyl and then there's fentanyl and they're bringing nowhere in this is. Wait a second. Isn't the drug going to find its way here no matter what if there is demand? for it. If there is a market, you know, free markets and capitalism don't work for some things and do work for other things. And one of the areas where free markets and capitalism do
Starting point is 00:50:07 work is that they tell us that when there is massive demand for something, the market will figure out a way to supply it. It might be more expensive, but it's going to figure out a way to supply it. And why aren't we talking about the reason that there's this much desire to ship these drugs into the United States? Because there is massive demand. This is not a pro or anti drug comment. It's just the reality they don't want to talk about that. Okay. Back to Rand Paul. When he points out that the justification here, if we're saying, oh, but these drugs aren't coming from X, well, there's no fentanyl coming from Venezuela. And yet that was cited as one of the reasons that Trump did what he did. Fox has nowhere to go. Maria has nowhere to go. There's no follow up.
Starting point is 00:50:47 No correction, no counter argument. It's it just has to pivot to something else. And what makes it especially brutal for Trump is that it's not coming from the left. It's coming from a Republican that Trump says is a rhino, a Republican in name only. But it is a Republican senator explaining that this justification for what was done is fake. And he's doing it on right wing media. Funny bonus Rand Paul clip. He was speaking to a reporter about Lindsey Graham saying, let's go get Cuba. And Rand Paul says Lindsey Graham should not be going to the White House for meetings with Trump. Right. I'm wondering how worried you are about Lindsey Graham talking about. Talk to their president.
Starting point is 00:51:23 You should be a law. There should be a law that Lindsay Graham can only go to the White House every other week. And that he's only to meet with under, you know, mid-level people, not the president. And no more golf outings. If I could pass the law saying no more golf outings. He was on the U.S. And he's pushing Cuba. He's saying Cuba's days are no.
Starting point is 00:51:45 It's always been an anomaly because Lindsay Graham has been diametrically opposed to everything Donald Trump has ever said on regime change. For years and years and years and yet it's it's probably the quintessential political maneuvering beyond all political maneuvering that a person is so diametrically opposed to everything that MAGA stands for as infiltrated MAGA and is pulling MAGA over towards regime change. Yeah, I think that that's a really interesting analysis from Rand Paul where in theory, right, We were told that MAGA is different than the neocons because they are against new new wars and regime change and meddling overseas and all of this. But somehow Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and they're agitating for let's not stop with
Starting point is 00:52:39 Venezuela. Let's go to Colombia and we're going to Cuba and we're going to Greenland, right, right? It's this building list of places. And it really confirms what is becoming increasingly obvious, which is there is no coherent MAGA ideology. When it was useful to vote for Trump, they said this is the anti-war guy. When it's useful to defend Trump's reign, it's of course we're going to go in and take out this narco trafficker and then get Greenland, which why does Denmark have it anyway and bu, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:53:11 You might say what is the glue holding it together? Is it anti-interventionism? Is it neoconservatism? Is it energy being as cheap as possible? What's the, there is no glue. The only thing holding it together is Trump. Do I find a way to support Trump or don't I? And you've got Republican senators now mocking each other.
Starting point is 00:53:33 Fox hosts getting corrected on air by Republican senators and the entire foreign policy rationale has collapsed because there is no coherent ideology. A lot of people think they have a handle on their findings. Then they look at the numbers and realize something's not adding up. And that is where our sponsor, Rocket Money comes in. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that shows you the full financial picture in one place spending, subscriptions, upcoming bills, pay days. So things don't slip through the cracks.
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Starting point is 00:54:39 their 10 million members saves up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps premium. Features, cancel unwanted subscriptions, and reach your financial goals faster. Go to rocketmoney.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Let's get into Friday feedback for the week. Of course, you can always email me info at David Pakman.com, but we will pick up comments, replies, et cetera, from Instagram and Spotify and YouTube and TikTok and all of these different platforms.
Starting point is 00:55:10 We start with a really beautiful, inspiring message of people. peace and love and a reminder that even in 2026, the homophobia has not abated. No, he won in. No one in says David Packman is a girly man. Just a reminder. We think about issues and we say, you know, I think we might be able to get some more of these political opponents on our side on health care. if we just explain to them the nuances of the healthcare delivery system and how health insurance
Starting point is 00:55:49 works. And then you realize this is the argument that some of them are making. David Pacman is a girly man. And it's an unfortunate reminder. Listen, if one of these people is in your family and you want to sit down with them at the Thanksgiving table and argue, have at it. Be my guest. But I don't believe that we are going to start winning, regaining power and being able to actually do things to improve the lives of people. by one-on-one arguing with people who say crap like this. I'm sorry. As an exercise in curiosity, go and argue with them and see if you can change their minds.
Starting point is 00:56:25 But I believe that we need to win by making people like this guy irrelevant, not by arguing. Well, what do you mean? David Packman's a girly man. And what's your position on this, on that? I think it's a loss cost in practical terms. Have fun at Thanksgiving, but I don't think it's going to be how we win elections. All right. Hodge wrote in on Facebook and said, David, if the Senate changes hands in 2026, why would Trump
Starting point is 00:56:50 not get convicted on impeachment? What is the Senate percentage to allow a conviction to pass? This is a good question. We have talked, listen, seven days after Trump was sworn in a second time, I came to you with my hat in my hands and I said Trump has already earned himself impeachment just on the basis of the first seven days of this second term. And when I would revisit the topic, I would say, the House of Representatives, I believe, has a duty to impeach if the president has done something impeachable, even if you are not going to get a
Starting point is 00:57:22 conviction in the Senate. Now, the reason why, even if Democrats take the Senate, there is not going to be an ability to get a conviction on impeachment of Donald Trump, it's because it requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. And in the best case scenario where Democrats do take the Senate, which is not looking super likely, it's possible, but not likely. If Democrats do take the Senate, they are not going to get 66 senators. They'll be lucky to be in the low 50s.
Starting point is 00:57:48 It's going to be a very small margin. And I don't see any way in which 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 Republican senators in 2027 are going to be willing to join Democrats to vote to convict Donald Trump on impeachment. I just don't see it. And if you see the math differently, then you let me. me know. Eve wrote in about Trump and Epstein and said, Trump never says he was on the plane. That was common knowledge.
Starting point is 00:58:22 He said he never went to the island. Now, this is written in such a grammatically abortive way that I'm going to have to clarify what Eve means before I can debunk it. I came to you last week and I explained. We now can't trust Trump on anything he says about Epstein. Why? he's been caught line. I played a video of Trump saying I was never on the plane. And then now we have records that Trump was on Epstein's plane at least eight times, meaning Trump lied about it. And my argument
Starting point is 00:58:50 was we now need to independently verify anything Trump says about Epstein. What Eve meant to say, and again, I know it's like inappropriate to say what is the first language of these magas who write in? And they're mostly American. And when I point this out, people write in, they go, David, that's you're being so rude and elitist about people who can't write. They never learned to write. Folks, I just, I'm trying to understand why do they always write in with these grammatical atrocities. Eve means to say Trump never denied being on the plane. Trump always acknowledged being on Epstein's plane, but he said he never went to the island.
Starting point is 00:59:25 Eve is wrong. I played the video of Trump saying I was never on Epstein's plane. That has been debunked as a lie. Okay. All right. Next message is from the subreddit. where unique lecture wrote in and said we should require all eligible voters to vote. This is an interesting one because there are arguments against compulsory voting, which
Starting point is 00:59:53 I will get to in a moment. But what unique lecture says is people died for your right to self-determination. And we waste it putting Trump in office just because Biden wasn't perfect. countries require their citizens to participate in the democratic process, maybe it's time we did as well. So listen, there are countries that have compulsory voting. My birth country of Argentina has that. You can make arguments in favor of it. Let me tell you the arguments against compulsory voting. One, if you believe that voting is a form of political expression, forcing voting violates the way in which you can express your opinion. One of the ways you can express your opinion is by not voting.
Starting point is 01:00:34 The counter is you can show up and vote a blank ballot. You can, you've participated, you sign your ballot or whatever, but you don't check any boxes. But one of the arguments is the freedom not to vote is part of what is important. Number two, compulsory voting can push people who don't care and are uninformed to vote anyway. Now, the interesting thing is unique lecture and others argue we could prevent people like Trump from winning if everybody was required to vote. assuming if everyone was required to vote, they wouldn't vote for Trump, but they might. Number three, a movement that says we will abstain from voting together as a political
Starting point is 01:01:14 statement can no longer do it if they are forced to vote. And to a lot of people, abstention is an important political statement. Number four, to enforce compulsory voting costs money and requires overhead and bureaucracy. Do we want more overhead and bureaucracy? I don't know. And then of course, the people who, depending on how it's organized, are more likely not to vote in a compulsory system. Are those who can't get to polling places.
Starting point is 01:01:42 They can't afford to take time off from work, et cetera. So you've got to be careful about is the enforcement going to disproportionately punish poorer people. And also there are sort of like better alternatives that we haven't done that we should try before we make voting mandatory, in my opinion. We don't have automatic voter registration. We don't have an election holiday, like election day is not a holiday. We don't, we need to do even more easier mail in and early voting and do better civic education. There are so many things I think we could do before just saying you are legally required to vote.
Starting point is 01:02:17 That's my view. That's my view. Okay. Tim wrote in and said if the Epstein files are becoming an issue, then what better way to avoid scrutiny that to start a war? How many times has the toddler in chief resorted to this playbook? This is sort of the, this is a distraction from that thing that often happens with Trump. And I heard from many of you about this and the gist of it was something like Trump did the
Starting point is 01:02:43 Maduro kidnapping to distract from the Epstein files. But then others wrote in and said, no, Trump did the Maduro kidnapping to distract from health care premiums doubling and tripling. And then others said, no, Trump did the Maduro thing to distract from the tariffs that are crushing the jobs market. I don't know how much of any of that we can really read into. I think there's no doubt that Trump understands the idea of just flooding the zone. That, that I think he gets. But the specific calculated nature of, okay, healthcare premiums are going to go nuts on January 1st. Let's take that first weekend of the year and go and kidnap Maduro. I don't think Trump's thinking like that,
Starting point is 01:03:24 But there may be people around him who are. Michael wrote in and said Trump will try to undermine the 2026 elections and maybe even stop them from taking place altogether. He might do this by creating a national emergency, issuing some kind of executive order, or even bringing in the military. What plans are in place or at least being developed to stop him from doing this? I'm going to be really honest with you guys. Okay.
Starting point is 01:03:52 I know this anger is some people in my audience. I believe we're going to have a 2026 election. I think we're going to have it. It's 10 months away. And I think I think we're going to have it. I don't disagree that Trump is going to pull some of the typical tricks that Republicans pull to suppress turnout. But I believe that we are going to have the 2026 election.
Starting point is 01:04:16 And if you disagree with me, we just we just have a disagreement. It's not a huge deal. Ronald wrote in and says brain injuries. My comment is that Pac-Man has brain injuries. What you want is that comatose Joe Biden to be in office. And of course, this is completely and totally whacked out. This person has no idea what they're talking about. They clearly know nothing about me.
Starting point is 01:04:47 And maybe this is the first time they've ever come across my show. So good luck to you, sir. James wrote in. I love this. James says, if we buy merchandise with your name on it, aren't we just advertising your show? If that's the case, shouldn't you be paying us then? You know, when you go and you buy Nike sneakers and they have a Nike logo on it, shouldn't Nike pay you? Because you're advertising Nike with the sneakers.
Starting point is 01:05:17 When you go and you buy a Toyota and it says on it Toyota and it has the toy. logo on it. Aren't you advertising for Toyota? Shouldn't they be paying you to drive their car? This is not a very serious criticism, but you're welcome to it. What I will tell you is that the merch really is flying off the shelves. I've got the, what is this thing called? This is the dad hat.
Starting point is 01:05:48 I don't remember. Anyway, I've got the David Packman show hat here in the studio. The hats, the shirts, people are loving all of it. Unfortunately, we are selling the stuff. We're not giving it away. But if James doesn't want it, well, you don't have to. All right, we will see everybody on the bonus show and then back here on Monday.

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