The David Pakman Show - Epstein Docs Accuse Trump As Economy In Holding Pattern

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

-- On the Show -- Newly released Justice Department and FBI records include a rape allegation naming Donald J. Trump document his repeated association with Jeffrey Epstein -- Newly released Justice Department flight records directly contradict Donald Trump's claim that he was never on Jeffrey Epstein's plane -- A leaked succession blueprint shows Trump allies planning a long-term pipeline of JD Vance, Charlie Kirk, and Donald Trump Jr to preserve Trumpism -- Donald Trump posts overnight Truth Social messages threatening media critics and suggesting punishment for unfavorable coverage -- The White House releases a heavily edited Christmas card image that appears to conceal visible bruising on Donald Trump's hand -- Donald Trump hosts the Kennedy Center Honors after reshaping its leadership, turning a national arts ceremony into a self-centered spectacle -- Trump allies selectively credit Donald Trump for positive economic data while blaming Joe Biden for inflation and negative indicators -- A Fox News segment sees Jessica Tarlov center Epstein survivor Maria Farmer, exposing fractures inside Fox's audience -- Measles cases surge among unvaccinated populations as years of anti-vaccine rhetoric linked to Trump's political movement collide with public health consequences -- On the Bonus Show: A holiday sendoff from David, and much more... 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:16) DOJ files name Trump (07:46) Epstein jet records contradict Trump (17:10) Trumpism succession plan leaks (24:09) Trump threatens critical media (29:10) Edited Christmas card scrutiny (34:23) Trump politicizes Kennedy Center (40:46) Selective credit for economy (46:11) Fox News spotlights Epstein survivor (52:00) Measles surge and anti-vax fallout  

Another day and again the Epstein files get worse for Donald Trump. New documents include an FBI file referencing a rape allegation involving Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It is not a verdict, but it is an official federal record that contradicts years of Trump's denials. And we now have documentation showing that Donald Trump did fly on Epstein's jet at least eight times after he said he never did. We're also going to break down a leaked MAGA succession plan that looks at what happens to the Republican Party after Donald Trump. And then we will look at Christmas Eve Eve for Donald Trump spiraling on truth social, threatening media critics and floating the idea of pulling broadcast licenses. Plus the White House Christmas card raises even more health concerns. And we'll also have a rare Fox News moment for you where a liberal host breaks through.

on Epstein and we'll explain why Fox News is struggling to keep the audience together. And finally, measles exploding again. Yes, yet again in 2025. Newly released Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein, this is tough stuff, include an allegation involving President Donald Trump that we can't ignore. Now I want to be clear about what this is and what this is not. And I don't know that everybody is necessarily doing a good job about explaining. what these documents do and don't mean.

The Department of Justice has released thousands of additional Epstein-related documents. Many of these are heavily redacted. Now in the middle of this, there's an FBI case file from October of 2020, which references an allegation of rape involving Donald Trump. The document does not identify the accuser. It does not conclude wrongdoing. It is not an adjudication of guilt. the language is extraordinarily explicit and disturbing.

Now I'm going to tell you why I'm telling you about this document and not another one that many of you have written to me about in a moment. According to this document, an unnamed individual alleges that Donald Trump raped her and that this occurred alongside Jeffrey Epstein. The phrase he raped me is in the file referring to Donald Trump and the statement continues with a description of being taken into a fancy hotel or building. Some of the text here is as Blank talked about his time meeting Donald Trump, Blank immediately, blank demeanor went to stone cold.

As blank stated, he raped me. Blank said what? As blank replied, Donald J. Trump had raped her along with Jeffrey Epstein. Blank noted some girl with a funny name, took me into a fancy hotel or building. That's how it happened. There is more to the document. We're publishing a link to it. You can check it out.

Now, this is not a court ruling. This is not an adjudicated finding or a court verdict. This is an allegation recorded in an FBI file, now made public by the DOJ. The same file references a separate account from a limo driver who described a very concerning phone call involving Trump in 1995, according to that document. according to that document, Donald Trump repeatedly mentioned Jeffrey during the call and made references to abusing some girl. The driver's name and other details have been redacted. Now, in addition to the rape allegation, these new documents raise concerns and questions about Trump's relationship with Epstein because we have that internal DOJ email we looked at yesterday, which states, actually Trump traveled on Epstein's plane a whole bunch of times more than had been previously reported.

So there is a lot here and the allegations are growing. Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about this document in the context of one that I'm not talking about. Some of you sent me a document that is in the files, which is an allegation from 2020, a tip received by the FBI that Donald Trump in 1984, in 1984 was on board a yacht in Mona Lake Michigan. Mona Lake is this tiny little offshoot of Lake Michigan. Trump was on Epstein's yacht and that a baby was. was killed and disposed of while Trump was on board. I am not bringing that to you as a credible allegation. Why? It doesn't really make any sense. If you look at that document, first and foremost, it claims that this took place in 1984, a time during which I believe Trump and Epstein didn't even know each other. The person who submitted that tip in 20, 36 years later, mind you, claims that they previously

had just shortly before reported it to. police and had a conversation with the detective, but they don't remember exactly where the detective works or the detective's name. That doesn't really make sense. The idea that Epstein had a yacht in Mona Lake that would have been of a size that would have been suitable to Epstein, but wouldn't have needed such depth of water that it could have transited from Mona Lake to Lake Michigan. Like, none of that one makes sense to me.

So I'm not reporting on that today, even though about a dozen of you wrote to me. This document actually mirrors prior claims that had been made about Epstein and Trump together committing sexual assault. Those claims were later recanted, recanted rather, but it is in the ballpark of the sorts of allegations that we've seen before. So needless to say, what I'm telling you is this is an allegation. It's in the files. It is not proof of anything. Now, of course, Trump has denied wrongdoing. He dismisses it all as a hoax.

and it says that it's really only Democrats who have anything to worry about here. The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is the following. No one tip proves guilt. But what we are increasingly seeing is that allegations involving Donald Trump exist in federal files. And those are allegations that were never disclosed to the public until right now. That's the significance. And at minimum, it directly.

contradicts years of claims that Trump's name appears nowhere in any serious Epstein-related allegations. It those, these claims do exist in black and white. It's in DOJ records. It's in FBI records. And the American public is now seeing information that was previously hidden. And of course, we're entitled to ask questions and to say that more information is necessary here.

Questions about the specific allegations, questions about transparency, questions about the cover up of these documents and about why the materials are only coming out right now. So is this document proof that Trump raped someone? It is not. Is this document yet another data point of that type of allegation that we've seen before? Yes. Is the document a reminder that we were lied to about what was and was not in the Epstein files? Yes.

Is the document another confirmation that once you consider, Trump was told by Pam Bondi, you're in the files? Certainly the nature of that involvement in the files must have been part of that conversation. And therefore, Trump certainly knew what would come out if the full files were released. What we now need to go to is the reality that many of us already knew, that we cannot believe anything Trump says about Epstein because he has now been provably caught lying. Let's discuss that next. Back in 2024, when Donald Trump put up a truth social post about never having been on Jeffrey

Epstein's plane, Trump didn't hedge or use squishy language. He didn't qualify. He didn't say, to the best of my knowledge, I've never been on Epstein's plane. Or as far as I can remember sitting here today, I've never been on Epstein's plane. What Trump said previously about this is, quote, this is what the Democrats, to do to their Republican opponent, who is leading them by a lot in the polls. This is AI, and it is very dangerous for our country. Also, I was never on Epstein's plane or at his stupid island.

Strong laws ought to be developed against AI. It will be a big and very dangerous problem in the future. Trump said clearly, I have never been on Epstein's plane. plane. That statement is now definitively false. In the newly released Justice Department records related to Jeffrey Epstein, there's the 2020 email we looked at yesterday. It is from a prosecutor stating flight logs show Trump has been on Epstein's plane at least eight times, including flights with Jelaine Maxwell. We learned about this because of the letter from the Epstein files, which we looked at yesterday. It is up on the screen. And the email written on January 7th, 2020, says,

Your situational awareness wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported or that we were aware. Including during the period, we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case. In particular, he is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 93 and 96, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present. He is listed as having traveled with, among others, at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany and his son, Eric.

On one flight in 93, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers. On another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then 20-year-old, name redacted. On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who could be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case. So, this matters for a very simple reason. Trump didn't deny wrongdoing on the flights. He denied ever being on the plane. And the denial was not ambiguous. It was a categorical. I have never been on Epstein's plane. He didn't say the number of flights I took is exaggerated. He didn't say the photos are misleading. He didn't say the stories are distorted. He said very simply, Never been on Epstein's plane.

We now have official documents indicating he was on it at least eight times. So Trump has been caught lying about the nature of his interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. Now, to be very clear, and I believe that this is important to restate, none of this is an allegation that Trump committed a crime. The email from the prosecutor doesn't accuse Trump of a legal conduct. The DOJ said in an attempt to sort of clean this up for Trump that some of the claims in the Epstein files are unverified or unfounded. And I think when it comes to some of these tips that the FBI received, that is absolutely important to acknowledge.

And as I told you earlier in the show, there was a document in there that is of a tip the FBI received in 2020 that I don't think has any credibility. And I told you that at the top of the show. But this is an official document here. And the DOJ says Trump was. on the plane at least eight times. So the point is, when Trump was confronted with documented associations with Epstein,

he responded and said, I was never on the plane. And that claim has now completely collapsed. Once you lie about something this specific, something verifiable, you have forfeited the benefit of the doubt on everything adjacent to it. If Trump lied about being on the plane, why would anyone trust his version of events as to why he was on the plane?

If he lied about contact with Epstein, why would anyone trust his timeline about contact with Epstein? And if he lied while accusing others of manufacturing evidence, why would we accept any future denial at all? This is the real danger here. Trump is laying the groundwork for a world where any inconvenient evidence can be dismissed as fake. Any contradiction can be blamed on technology, conspiracies, political enemies, AI.

It is an escape hatch that he's. he has put together. And once you have that escape hatch, the facts don't matter anymore. The records don't matter. Documents don't matter. The only thing that matters is loyalty. So this is not about assuming crimes. It's we are recognizing a pattern. Trump looked at the public metaphorically on truth social and he said something provably untrue. Either he has flown on Epstein's plane or he hasn't. He did, but claimed not to. So at this point, I don't believe we have any responsibility to treat his further Epstein denials as credible. We are not required to suspend judgment. We are not required to pretend it was just a misunderstanding, especially if Trump was on

Epstein's plane with family members. I forgot that I've flown with him multiple times, including with my own family. The records now prove him wrong. So from here on out, anything Trump says about Epstein evidence requires us to be extraordinarily skeptical. And we have moved beyond trust but verify we are at he has lied and we have caught him lying now i want it again and the reason i'm saying this is because i see some of my friends on the left going too far none of this proves that trump committed any specific crime he may have but we at this point cannot genuinely say that and i i continue to uh will express concern that there are those who are going beyond what the evidence suggests right now. Trump's been caught lying about his relationship

with Epstein. Could he have been downplaying the relationship because he did commit a crime? Yes, that is a possibility. Could he have been downplaying the relationship because he simply believes it would look bad for the scope of that relationship, even absent any Trump crimes, to be publicized? Yes, that could be the explanation. Could Trump be so deep in cognitive decline that he doesn't remember that he flew with Epstein? It's possible, right? I mean, if we believe that he is declining, we have to consider the possibility that he doesn't remember. But he has been caught saying something that is provably untrue and whether it's because of a memory

issue or because he's trying to participate in a proactive cover up, he cannot be trusted with regard to his relationship to Epstein and the value of the evidence. Now, after the break, we are going to look at what some of the fallout is of a lot of this stuff. And also, we have this leaked succession plan for MAGA that really reeks of the actual TV show succession. So all of that is coming up. It's Christmas Eve. We do have a Christmas message from the president.

We've got a Christmas card from the president. We'll have time for all of it. Glad you're with me today. Every time you Google your name, you will probably find dozens of sites that expose your personal information. This can include phone number, home address, family details. It's just sitting there waiting to be scraped or abused. Incogni is a privacy service.

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to someone else. And remember that the David Packman show store is now up. Merch now going out like tentacles all over the world. You can find the store at store. com. There is one question that is maybe the most consequential in American politics for the foreseeable future. That question is what happens to the Republican Party after Donald Trump. Second to that, a very close second is who's the Democratic nominee in 2026, right?

What does the Democratic Party choose as a direction for the next presidential race? But on the first question of what happens to the Republican Party after Trump, we have some fascinating new information. The succession plan that Trump and the people around him wanted has been revealed to the daily mail. It is even more dynastic and creepy and cult-like than you would expect. According to this report, MAGA power brokers mapped out a very long-term succession plan to try to keep Trumpism in control of the Republican Party for decades. We are talking more than 30 years of total reign. And here's how it was supposed to work.

First phase is in 2028, J.D. Vance runs for president. Who was supposed to be his vice president? Charlie Kirk, the now deceased Charlie Kirk. After eight years of a Vance presidency, the plan was for Charlie Kirk to become president himself with Donald Trump Jr. as his vice president. That is coming directly from Turning Point USA board member Mike Miller, long time Trump ally and described the plan in an interview. In his words, it was supposed to be JD and Charlie for eight years after Trump and then

Charlie and then after that, probably Donald Trump Jr. This was not about voters deciding anything organically or about Republican. insiders or Republican voters, better said, deciding on the direction of the party. This was an internal grooming pipeline, a handpicked MAGA sort of royal line of sorts, more akin to the British royal family than American democracy. And the reporting makes it really clear that this is not a new plan. Shortly after Charlie Kirk was introduced to the Trump family, Trump Jr. praised Kirk and said he's brilliant, and this is someone who could be president.

J.D. Vance has since confirmed that Charlie Kirk played a major role in introducing him to Donald Trump and helping him rise politically and ultimately in J.D. Vance becoming vice president of the United States. And Vance even gives credit to Charlie Kirk, not just with winning the 2024 election, but staffing the entire government. So that is not campaigning for anything. That is ideological capture. Now, obviously, Charlie Kirk is dead. So the plan as written can't be carried out anymore. But the takeaway is that the thinking was there. The mindset is there. And they are not just going to abandon all of this because Charlie Kirk is no longer alive. Trumpism is not supposed to end with Trump. We now know that. We've figured it out. It was designed to outlive Trump for a long

time to be sort of inherited like you would your, your parents' estate and be passed down through series of loyalists and family members and ideological enforcers. And if you look at history, this is how a political movement turns into an authoritarian political dynasty. It's not because they win debates and people really love their policy. It's because insiders are deciding who gets power next. The real takeaway here is the fact that there was a plan. Like, okay, Charlie Kirk was in it.

Charlie Kirk was killed. He can't be part of the plan anymore. The fact that there was a multi-decade plan is the takeaway. Since Charlie Kirk was killed, the lineup would have to be different. But they are thinking of some version of this. And the speculation about Don Jr. At some point in the future has been floated around before. If anything, my expectation is that the death of Charlie Kirk probably accelerates the

scramble. Without him, there's this vacuum at the top. The influencer to power pipeline now needs to be tweaked. And that is not going to lead to a more moderate Republican Party if this line of succession were to succeed. Now, what hasn't changed is that J.D. Vance is very obviously positioned as the next standard bearer. And I'm of two minds on this.

On the one hand, I acknowledge and I am aware that never does the natural nominee three years out become the nominee. It just doesn't happen. It's always somebody else. at someone who comes up and is noticed later. The difference is that this time they're actually planning ahead in a more proactive and specific way. So maybe that is going to be the next generation.

And they're just going to have to figure out who fills the Charlie Kirk slot. Is it a different right-wing influencer? Is it a media personality? Is it some other Trump family member that steps forward sooner? What we know here is that Trump world isn't thinking about this in terms of winning the hearts and minds of voters and the will of the people. They were thinking about it as how can we decide who gets to have the power. Now, think about the timeline.

Vance 2028, Vance 2032. Charlie Kirk, 2036. Charlie Kirk, 2040. Don Jr. 24. Don Jr. 24. That would mean that from 2016 onwards in some form with a four-year break there for Joe Biden or from 2024 on in consecutive fashion, they have an idea of continuing this for 30 years. Think about other dynasties that operate this way. The Kim family in North Korea. They didn't start with

forever rule on day one. The castros in Cuba. There are other examples. The early phase is about consolidating power around a dominant figure and conferring enough power to the dominant figure that they then can decide who succeeds them. And then the final phase is normalization. You just got to get people used to the idea that this is how leadership works now. And that's what's so striking about it. It is really not about winning the next election by convincing people that your ideas are better. It's can we lock in a lineage here and look at the ages? I mean, Don Jr. would be 71 by the time he finishes this hypothetical second term in this imaginary plan.

That is not a youthful movement breaking norms anymore. That is a strategy of long-term entrenchment designed to outlast Trump himself by a lot and to keep the family name in power. So when people say Trump will be gone eventually, this is the answer that Trump world has in mind. It is terrifying. It is disgusting. It is authoritarian.

But you know what? We have power here. We have influence and it is up to us to make it. damn sure that it does not happen. On Christmas Eve Eve, Donald Trump spent the night on truth social doing what he does best, spiraling publicly in authoritarian fashion and revealing how he believes power should work. The answer is he thinks he should have all the power. A beautiful message of unity and healing on Christmas, right?

First Donald Trump goes after Stephen Cobre, calls him a pathetic. train wreck says he's got no talent, says he's a dead man walking, and that CBS needs to put him to sleep. That is not Trump being crude or insulting. This is how it all works, where Trump says, quote, Stephen Colbert is a pathetic train wreck with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success. Now after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his non-existent ratings.

Stephen is running on hatred and fumes, a dead man walking. CBS should put him to sleep. Now it is the humanitarian thing to do. Now, you might say, oh, it's Trump being crude. It's Trump being insulting. He's using his elimination language. And he's talking about a media critic as if he's an animal that needs to be euthanized. And Trump has a history of this language towards enemies.

If it's a journalist, if it's a protester, if it's an immigrant from a human. country that Trump considers a shithole, and it's the same pattern. You dehumanize and then justify the punishment later. After all, they're not really human like us. And if you look at the 20th century, this is how authoritarian and dictators talk. They don't like to argue or debate. They delegitimize, they dehumanized, they frame their critics as diseased and subhuman and dangerous. And of course, it would be legitimate to silence somebody like that. Then comes Trump's next post, and this is even more serious. And it is another brutal attack on a free press.

Trump says, quote, if network newscasts and their late night shows are almost 100% negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA and the Republican Party, shouldn't their very valuable broadcast licenses be terminated? I say yes. The party of low regulation says, based on the opinions espoused by private media companies, the government might shut them down. Trump is saying if news broadcasts are negative about him, then their broadcast licenses should be terminated. And he says, yes, that is a direct threat to the free press. We really have gone very dark into a very deep into a dark hole is what I'm trying to say.

Broadcast licenses are not loyalty badges that you get to keep if you remain loyal to the dear leader. They are not contingent on praising the president. The government doesn't or shouldn't get to revoke media licenses because they have critical coverage of someone in power. This is explicitly unconstitutional. And what Donald Trump is suggesting here, not enough. a back room. He's doing it publicly. He's doing it loudly. And he's saying, yes, they should have their licenses revoked. What Trump is suggesting is state punishment of media outlets for unfavorable

coverage. It is not, we disagree on policy. This is plain dictatorial authoritarianism. And Trump, I believe, knows this. He is not confused about how the First Amendment works. He is testing these ideas in public, normalizing these ideas and seeing what might his followers accept. I believe they would accept any of it. Finally, after suggesting violence towards a TV host and floating the idea of revoking broadcast licenses from critical media, Trump posts one final message in this series of posts. Merry Christmas. Trump believes criticism should be punished. He believes media should serve power, not challenge it. He believes enemies should be silenced and not debated. And then in the middle of that,

It's Merry Christmas. Not exactly Jesus-like is it? This is Trump showing you how he thinks his second term should work. He has all the power. He gets to make all the decisions. And it should terrify every single one of us. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program. And the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at Join Packer's

You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. The health cover up of Donald Trump has now hit the White House Christmas card. Let me explain what is going on. The health cover up of Donald Trump was made particularly evident based on what the White House has released. And I will explain. We have been following for months now the obvious lack of transparency about the health of President

Donald Trump. We recently spoke to Sarah Matthews, former deputy press secretary for Trump during his first term, who confirmed that, yes, obviously there is some kind of health cover up going on. We don't know the full extent of Trump's health issues, but one visible aspect of this has been his hands. Now for months now, we've seen Trump with visibly bruised hands. At first, the bruises were just not covered. Then the bruises were covered with makeup that didn't match his skin tone and then after that was ridiculed Trump switched to using

Bandages and none of the explanations made sense Eventually very late in the game the white house press secretary Caroline Levitt said oh Trump's hands are bruised from shaking hands and that was very difficult to believe First of all Trump doesn't shake hands with his left hand so it doesn't make sense his left hand would be bruised from that and And maybe more importantly, if the president of the United States is so fragile that basic handshakes cause bruising, it raises even more questions about the state of his health. Like, maybe he should stop shaking hands if that's the case. Maybe he's not quite the alpha figure that his supporters insist he is if shaking hands bruises them so badly. So that brings us to the White House Christmas card. The White House released the official Christmas card featuring Donald and Melania Trump.

And there's one thing that immediately stands out. Trump's right hand shows no bruising at all. It shows no bandages. But it almost looks too perfect. And indeed, if you zoom in and look closely, the top of Trump's hand is completely flat and a single uniform color. That is not normal. For any hand, I mean, look, I put my hand up. And you can see that between the light and just, you know, my knuckles were just leaning against my other hand and hair on the back of my hand.

There's texture there. It's not all one color. We know that Trump's hands are not only bruised, but they are also irregular. He's almost 80 years old. Like most people his age, he's got veins and variations in skin tone and patches of discoloration, what are sometimes known as liver spots, which I don't think is the right. medical term, I forget exactly what it is. My dermatologist calls them, oh, what does he say? Wisdom, wisdom spots. All of that has been completely and very obviously airbrushed away. It's not done subtly. It is a bad job of photo and video manipulation, but that makes the point

even clearer. They're aware of this issue. They know we need to cover it up because otherwise it's going to become an even bigger issue. And of course, in this case, the cover-up is becoming the bigger issue. And maybe the larger problem for Trump and the larger problem for the country is that as we approach 2026, with Trump about to turn 80 years old in about six months, we still don't really know the status of his health. We really don't have an explanation that we feel confident in about the MRIs or the hand bruising or anything. And now we are shown images that pretty clearly seem like they've been edited in terms of showing us Trump's underlying physical state.

And this only reinforces that there is very much something here that they don't want you to see. Now, I want to go back to something we talked about last week just briefly. We hear all of these discussions about, oh, Trump 2028, could there be some novel interpretation of what it means to serve two terms? or, you know, this kind of crazy ban and stuff, even though Trump has said, no, no, no, they say I can't do it. Missing from the conversation and we need to re-inject it anytime they talk about it. When you see one of these, you know, we are the first to endorse Trump for 2028, our response, I believe, shouldn't even take the legal part seriously because I believe that it's settled and they would fail on it.

It should be, guys, Trump's down to working 12 to 5, slurring. out of energy constantly, photoshopping his hands so they don't look as decrepit as they are, this guy couldn't make it through a third term. Forget about the legal part, which is completely settled. This guy's going to be lucky to have the energy to remain president through the end of this term, never mind the third term. So a very merry Christmas, I guess, with some very obvious photoshopping of Donald Trump's hand and still no real answers.

as to what it is that is going on here. A neon orange, Donald Trump hosted the Kennedy Center honors dinner, the president of the United States in a tuxedo playing awards show host at a black tie arts gala, not normal, not presidential when we have so many people struggling in this country. And this is Trump turning the presidency into a live action reality show. And that's really. the through line here. We're going to look at a clip of this. Trump has kind of become the star of his own version of the Truman Show. I don't know at this point how many in our audience know what the Truman Show film is. It's an excellent movie. Jim Carrey is in it. And the idea is that life, unbeknownst to Jim Carrey's character, is actually a script, semi-scripted reality show. So it would

be like if when you go to work and when you're on the subway and when you're at your doctor, office, you believe this is your real life. Everybody else knows that they are keeping you in a fake world. They are actors, that your doctor might not really be a doctor. It's just an actor and it's unbeknownst to you. And in a sense, that's what's going on here with Donald Trump. Everything exists to center Donald Trump. He took control of the Kennedy Center board.

The board he installed then floats the idea of, oh, what about renaming the Kennedy Center after Donald Trump, something they can't even legally do? And then shockingly, they've asked Trump to host the event. The difference is the Jim Carrey character in the Truman Show didn't set up this fake world. Trump has set it up for himself. And if Trump hadn't stacked the board, none of this would be going on, right? The adoration, the hosting, none of it. So here is Trump opening the 48th Trump Kennedy Center honors.

And everything about this is so out of touch. It's so pathetic. It's so ridiculous. But this is where Trump has seated himself in the context of this second term. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. A very big hello and welcome to a very special evening. And one of the most important evenings in the American cultural realm.

Notice that the Kennedy's Center was meaningless when they were, I guess, not including enough right-wing recipients. Now that Trump's taking control of it, it's awesome. Kennedy Center is so important. I'm going to be very special and the Kennedy Center is very special. And we're bringing this building back to life like nobody ever thought was even possible. The camera, just by the way, if you're watching, cuts to the members of the band Kiss, who are big supporters of scrumps.

And then on the right of your screen, you see Sylvester Stallone, I believe sitting next to Malania. And tonight we're here to congratulate the Kennedy Center honorees. This is our nation's highest recognition for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. And each of the incredible 2025 Kennedy Center honorees has earned the distinction many, many times over. They're really amazing, amazing people. AKA we have found right-wingers. They're among the greatest artists and actors, performers, musicians, singers, and songwriters

ever to walk the face of the earth. Personally, I love them all, and I know that America loves them also, and that's why this is such an exciting evening. So we are going to begin tonight with Sylvester Stallone and some of the fantastic things that he's done. And Sly, you've been my friend for a long time. How long that could be a very bad thing to be identified as a longtime friend of Trump's at this point. And a very special friend in so many different ways. When I needed help, I knew not to go to Sly

because I don't think he would have been there for me. But now he would. But after tonight, I think he will. And we love you, Sly. This is a big honor. And congratulations to you. you and Jennifer and the family. So you get the point, okay? Trump even joked during this that he's very busy being president. And yet this is where he is. As 40% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $400 expense without going into debt. Groceries are expensive.

Rent is brutal. Credit card debt is going up. People, uh, delinquent on car loans increasing. And the president is back to pretending to be a TV show. host soaking in the applause at a black tie event for the true cultural elite. This is really the disconnect. This is the, it's the presidency as performance art. For Trump, being president and hosting the Kennedy Center honors is the same.

It's not that one is a performative awards thing for elites and the other is actually being president and governing and trying to help people. For Trump, it's all kind of the same. There's cameras pointed at him in the Oval Office and there's cameras pointed at him at the Kennedy Center. It's all kind of the same as long as Trump's in the middle of the frame. And meanwhile, the country struggles and the star of the show is just like, does my tuxedo look right? Is my shirt pressed?

Did you paint me the right orange color? When are they going to be clapping again? And maybe the most sort of like Trumpian part of all of it is that he didn't just show up to host the event. He has completely involved himself in this thing. He cast the board. He renamed the thing. And then he congratulates himself that they picked him to host the thing.

I don't think that this is landing with Americans. And it's probably at least part of the broader picture of why Trump's approval rating is at a record low. All right. Here's what I need you to understand. Yesterday's GDP numbers above 4%. That's because of Donald Trump. Inflation and grocery prices.

That's because of Joe Biden. Wait a second, David. How does that work? Well, I'm going to try to explain it to you here. Here is Kevin Hassett on CNN and he is asked now that you all are bragging about 4.3% GDP growth, is it Biden's economy or Trump's economy? Because up until very recently you were saying everything that's going on is still because of Joe Biden.

We need to blame him for all of the bad things that are going on. Well, let's see if Kevin Hassett can explain it to us. Go out and we talk to people. even Trump supporters, they're not feeling necessarily kind of what you're laying out there in terms of this rosy picture. And, you know, President Trump has blamed the stressors on the economy on President Biden. But there's this recent Winnipeak poll that found that 57% of Americans view President Trump as responsible for the current state of the economy versus 34%. And so whose economy is it? Because I hear, you know, sometimes when numbers aren't so great or favorable, it's Biden's economy.

And then when things are going great, like this GDP report, it's Trump's economy. Who owns it right now? Right. Right now, we're looking at data about today at 100% of the data, 4.3% GDP growth is happening because of President Trump's policies. But President Biden's policies did things like reduce real incomes by $3,000. They made it so that the typical person buying a new home had to increase their mortgage payment at an annual basis by $14,000 for the typical home.

And so that kind of stuff takes a while to repair. And if you look at the 4.3% GDP number, you can see that we're repairing it at record pace. I can remember being on CNN back in 2017 where I came out with President Trump, and we said we think we can get 3% GDP growth. And the story in the media back then was always, oh, we're in the new normal. We couldn't possibly grow 3%. And now here we are at 4. And when I talked to President Trump about the 4% growth, he said,

I think we should shoot for 20. Yeah, okay. So here's the bottom line, folks. Here's what you have to understand. Trump gets credit for anything good, but he doesn't get the blame for anything bad. Inflation is gone thanks to Trump, but we still have high prices thanks to Biden. GDP is up thanks to Trump. But consumer confidence is down because of Joe Biden.

The stock market is hitting record highs thanks to Trump. But markets are spooked because of Joe Biden. Layoffs are way up because of Joe Biden, but interest rates are down because of Donald Trump. This is what they want you to believe. And Kevin Hassett shows up with that creepy infuriating smirk and says it with the straightest face that he possibly can. And to be frank, I don't know that the hosts on CNN are really prepared to rebut this entire thing.

Now, either, either there is a lag time or there isn't when it comes to economies. And of course, the truth is that there's a, it's a much more complicated. If we wanted to take this seriously and do an analysis that was actually worth the time, we would say, okay, level setting. There are a lot of things that do not depend on a president at all. And then if we go beyond that, we have to say there are certain things presidents can do that will impact a particular metric and we should analyze whether they have done it. For example, on gas prices, for the most part, American presidents don't influence gas prices

very much. There are a few things that they can do. You can raise the gas tax, which will impact gas prices. You can go to war with an oil producing nation, which it might increase or lower oil prices. It actually sort of depends, like what the context is and how it's being carried out. You can release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which on a short to medium-turned basis can reduce gas prices by around 15, 20 cents per gallon, not a long-term reduction, but a short-to-medium term reduction.

You can do blanket tariffs. So there's a couple things. So then we would say, all right, for the most part, presidents don't impact gas prices. Has this president done any of the specific things that would? That would be a more serious conversation about how the economy works and identifying some of these different factors. If it's good, it's thanks to Trump, which is what we're hearing from the. this guy, Kevin Hassett, and if it's bad, it's because of Joe Biden, doesn't exactly meet

that standard. And my hope is, and I don't know if this is the case, my hope is that the American people start to realize this. If you only watch Fox, you usually wouldn't get that information, except in a few situations, one of which we will look at after this break. If you like this show, I would love for you to get my substack writing. Each day, I'll send you a rundown of what's on the show, what's happening, what matters why. It's free.

No spam. Substack is also the only place where we own our data. So if we get censored on social media or on any platform, substack's going to be the only way I can tell you what is going on. Sign up now at David Pakman.substack.com. I'm going to play a moment from Fox News for you that I think matters. for reasons that go way beyond just a liberal getting the better of the conservative co-hosts, even though that is an example of what this is.

We are right now watching Fox struggle to keep its audience together as the Epstein's story is growing increasingly complicated. It's getting more and more uncomfortable for the defenders of Donald Trump as the allegations continue to appear and appear and appear. So let's watch the clip and then discuss what goes on here. The DOJ Epstein file rollout has been a total disaster so far. And it exemplifies what many survivors have been saying for years according to Jessica Tarlov.

Let's listen to her explain it. And this is an important message for those in the Fox News audience to hear. Totally. 30,000 is a lot to get through. And the DOJ has been sitting on this for a long time. So you kind of would have thought that maybe they would have been better prepared for this moment since it has been impendent. at least since Donald Trump won re-election.

The Larry Nasser letter apparently is a fake as well. That got a lot of swirl today on social media. But I do think the Department of Justice and the Trump administration did themselves no favors by being so gleeful over Friday's documents with pictures of Bill Clinton, for instance, when they knew that more documents were going to come out, where Donald Trump's name has mentioned several times. Evidence that he was on Jeffrey Epstein's plane up to eight times between 1993 and 1996. Two things that stick out to me that I think are very important, and this isn't about Donald Trump.

This is about these victims getting their justice, that there were at least up to 10 co-conspirators who we don't know who they are and they haven't been charged. And the fact that Maria Farmer, one of the victims, made a complaint in 1996 that wasn't taken seriously, wasn't addressed. And who knows how many victims could have been saved from a terrible fate of being used by Jeffrey Epstein, Galeen, Max. If it had been taken seriously, those. There are really two Trump-aligned audiences that Fox has always tried to keep in the same coalition. There's a group that genuinely cares about the Epstein scandal. They've been told for years, Epstein represents elite corruption and trafficking and powerful

people being protected. And for them, Epstein isn't a side show. It's the show. It's the core story about how the system works. They want names. They want accountability. They don't accept this is old news. There's nothing to see here.

when the new documents come out. The other part of the Fox News audience is kind of more transactional. They're focused on prices, jobs, immigration, and cultural grievance. And so Epstein makes them uneasy. It is not what they wake up thinking about. Their preference isn't that Trump be proven innocent. It's just that the story go away and that it stopped being discussed. And Fox's sort of job has been, you've got to keep both of these groups satisfied at the

same time. It is getting very difficult to do that. And the reason is that the Epstein, files don't really fit Fox's usual defensive playbook. They're not coming from Democrats. They're not coming from activist journalists. They're coming from the Department of Justice. They're coming from FBI files, from court records, the same institutions that Fox tells viewers you should distrust except when they're useful or when Trump is involved. And so that is why Jessica Tarlov's intervention here lands differently than a normal Fox argument. She didn't speculate.

She didn't accuse Trump of crimes. She didn't moralize. She centered, number one, Maria Farmer, one of Epstein's earliest and maybe most ignored victims, and pointed out something that many Fox viewers already know, but rarely hear on Fox News, which is that the victims have maybe been telling the truth. And the framing here matters because Fox can dismiss partisan attacks. It struggles to dismiss survivors who were proven right decades later. And once you introduce that point on their air, it starts being more about why was this ignored?

Why was this a silence that a lot of people were allowed to benefit from for so long? And so for the Epstein focused Fox audience, there's a contradiction that Fox News hasn't resolved yet. If Epstein mattered when the story implicated Democrats or global elites, why doesn't it matter right now? There was a moment when the Epstein files leaked. I think it was Friday where every network was covering it. And Fox had some innocuous. I don't know if it was like, I think it was a story about two rats fighting for a bagel in the New York subway or something like that, which was so emblematic and representative of the problem here. Now, for the economically focused viewers, the problem is different now, but it is still a real problem.

This story is not going away. It keeps producing documents and names and unanswered questions. And every attempt to minimize it is feeling bigger rather than smaller. So the reason that Fox's response has been what it has been, which is a lot of ignoring, but then some minimizing and whatever, is they're not really sure how to bridge the gap between these two sides of their audience. That's what I believe makes the Epstein scandal different from other Trump scandals. Now, it is still the case that for a lot of viewers of Fox and even just for a lot of voters

in general, while they are concerned about the Epstein story, what is really hitting them is the economic situation. And I believe that when it comes to 2026 and voting, it is not going to be the Epstein story that gets people out to vote. It's going to be the economic situation. And that's important to remember here as well as we go forward and thinking about what is the right approach for those who are trying to take down MAGA in 2026. Measles is exploding again and even more.

This is not a headline from the 1950s. It's the United States underdolls. Donald Trump in nearly 2026. Measles exploding again. We have new reports and even worse numbers. South Carolina now has 153 confirmed measles cases that is up nine in just the latest update. And the part that matters is that almost all of them are unvaccinated. The measles vaccine works. It is safe. It is extraordinarily affected. And most of the people now getting and spreading measles have not been vaccinated. A disease that we believed we had eliminated in the year 2000 is spreading again because vaccination rates are dropping. Misinformation has been allowed to fester,

and it is getting worse. Public health officials are warning the outbreak is being driven by exactly what experts have been warning about. There are pockets that are not vaccinating. And they are then traveling and they are having large gatherings. And this organ of, anti-vax belief system is spreading the virus. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on earth. That means you really need herd immunity. Everybody should just get vaccinated. We can do away with it as we thought we had done in the year 2000.

You don't flirt with it and even small rates and vaccination rates. Small drops in vaccination rates can cause a problem because it is so contagious. And that's what we are seeing. Now, what is fascinating is that you look at the betting markets. Here is Kalshi. What will the average number of measles cases be during Donald Trump's term? Just in the last two weeks, not even 10 days, those numbers have exploded where it used to be that it was around a thousand measles cases were expected.

Now it is up to over 3,000. That is a lot of measles and people are putting their money where their mouths are. And this is where Donald Trump enters the picture. For years, Trump and his allies have coddled and winked that and played coy with and legitimized anti-vaccine sentiment. Trump has benefited from it politically while Donald Trump is getting all of his vaccines that we know. Sometimes he has elevated figures who spread medical misinformation.

Sometimes he has attacked public health institutions and experts as enemies. They didn't invent antivax just like Trump didn't invent racism, but he has given it oxygen and given it power and much like the xenophobes and the racist, Trump has made them more comfortable Going public about their beliefs and that has to do with the anti-vax people as well and Trump is now learning the hard way Once you build a movement on this trust this stuff once you get people to distrust science and you bring in RFK Jr to be your secretary of health and human services People start to behave differently. You can't just turn it off when the measles outbreak is inconvenient and so the monster that Trump created is outside of his control. And the kind of, um, soft hypocrisy at the center of all of this is again, that Trump's getting vaccinated. He gets his flu shot. He gets his COVID booster. People around him are

vaccinated. They know the reality. But politically is a different story. And anti-vax rhetoric has become useful. You know, it's sort of like, I've been reading this book about the history of J&J, Johnson and Johnson, a company much revered and considered to be just so great and moral. And there are like six, seven horrible, horrible incidents involving people put at risk because of Johnson and Johnson. This goes back to baby powder. This includes a painkiller called Duragesic. This includes hip implants, hip replacement medical devices. This includes the J&J COVID vaccine, which really didn't work well.

And what you have is a situation where the individuals there were like, oh, Yeah, no, we're on Tylenol's the other one. I wouldn't let a loved one get one of these hip replacement implants. But then at the corporate level, they're training people to sell more of them. And it's similar with Trump. Trump has sort of allowed this anti-vac stuff to fester politically. He's even encouraged it to some degree. But he's getting all of his vaccines. And the cost is very real. Kids are getting sick. Schools are dealing with quarantines. Health departments to try to figure out how on earth do we deal with this. And it is not random. These outbreaks are in specific states and communities, places where vaccination rates have dropped. Sometimes it's around a church. Sometimes it's around homeschooling communities. And meanwhile, look at the contrast because you look at the highly vaccinated states. Measles cases are near zero. Sometimes they are zero.

You look at New England. A lot of the New England states have zero, one, or sometime. I think Vermont had two cases. It's not luck. It's not like, oh, you know, we pray to someone for fewer measles cases. It's just vaccination. That's really all it is. So this did not have to happen.

We have solved measles before. We solved it with vaccines. It's back because of political nonsense that is spreading where expertise is looked at increasingly skeptically. And when people go, well, Trump can't control everything. That's right. He can't. But he didn't have to nurture antivax.

This grew under Trump's first term. Trump scaled it up when he was. lost to Joe Biden and Joe Biden oversaw the distribution of COVID vaccines. And Trump mainstreamed it and looked the other way as it grew and grew. And now all of a sudden, Trump is presiding over a country where diseases we had gotten rid of are staging a comeback. And it has nothing to do with science. We don't lack an effective and safe vaccine for measles. It is politics. Not the news I would be hoping for on Christmas Eve. Now, on the bonus show today we will talk just a little bit about what's going on with the show what

i'm up to on christmas we've got a casual bonus show for you today i hope to see you there holiday tomorrow will be back on friday