The David Pakman Show - Fool me twice, shame on…wait, what?

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

-- On the Show -- Dan Koh, Former White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary and former Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Biden, joins us to discuss his candidacy for Congress to represent Massachusetts' 6th district -- Forensic pathologist Michael Baden repeats his long standing claim that Jeffrey Epstein was strangled, while existing medical research shows hyoid bone fractures can occur in suicides -- House Democrats announce a shadow hearing in Palm Beach featuring survivor testimony that increases scrutiny of Donald Trump’s past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein -- David announces his new book Pay Attention and argues that algorithms and the attention economy are reshaping how people think, consume media, and understand politics -- Donald Trump and his allies advance proposals and rhetoric that critics argue could restrict voting access and challenge unfavorable 2026 midterm election results -- Kristi Noem says officials must ensure the right people vote, reinforcing concerns that Trump aligned policies aim to narrow who participates in elections -- Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Donald Trump personally pushed hardest to block the release of Epstein related files, contradicting his public calls for transparency -- Peter Navarro incorrectly describes the Dow Jones Industrial Average in dollar terms, raising concerns about the economic competence of Donald Trump’s advisers -- On the Bonus Show: Gallup to stop tracking presidential approval polling, European countries confirm Alexei Navalny was poisoned, Oatly banned from using "milk" in UK marketing, and much more... 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:23) Baden repeats strangulation claim(08:57) Democrats launch Epstein shadow hearing(15:54) David discusses new book(20:30) Trump allies float voting restrictions(27:28) Noem backs limiting voter access(33:56) Dan Koh interview(48:34) Greene contradicts Trump on files(54:37) Navarro fumbles Dow explanation   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A forensic pathologist claims Jeffrey Epstein was strangled, not that he died by suicide. The internet is exploding, but is there actually anything new here? Or is it the same old claim being recycled again? We're going to break down the facts and the science. Also, Trump's Epstein problem is getting dramatically worse. New hearings and allegations tied directly to Mar-a-Lago and growing pressure for answers. Also today, we're going to expose what the plan looks like to. to control the 2026 election and most importantly after looking at the efforts to shape who votes

are explained, we're going to talk about what can actually be done about this. Plus Marjorie Taylor Green, formerly one of Trump's biggest allies, drops a bomb, claiming Trump personally was fighting to block the Epstein files while publicly saying he's all about transparency. And later, why do so many of the current economic experts so-called? so-called, keep saying the Dow is at $50,000, which doesn't make any sense. You might not be shocked to learn that the emperors have no clothes. All of that and more.

It's a new week. It's a full week here at the show. Over the last 48 hours, a whole bunch of you emailed me saying, David, a doctor has just blown the Jeffrey Epstein suicide wide open. It wasn't a suicide. It was a homicide. He didn't hang himself. He was strangled.

David, you have to see this. This is it. We finally have it. Well, let's discuss. First of all, is it true that a doctor is saying in 2026, Epstein was strangled, not suicide. Yes, it is. It is true. Endless articles about this.

It refers to forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Bodden. And the implication of the articles is that something new happened here, that we have new evidence, that we have new claims, we have a new explanation for why a forensic pathologist is saying Epstein was strangled. He didn't kill himself. But I want to remind you, some of you might remember this. These claims were made by Dr. Michael Bodden back in 2019 for the first time. And in 2019, I did a video called pathologist Jeffrey Epstein autopsy points to homicide, not suicide.

It was based on the exact same doctor that's speaking today and the exact same info and justification that he is giving today. Nothing has changed. So this is another cycle of news for the same doctor based on the same claims from the same time 2019. Now, regardless, our audience has multiplied many times since 2019, so I think it is worth exploring the claims. Let's listen. Here is Dr. Michael Bodden explaining why he believes Jeffrey Epstein was strangled, not that he took his own life.

Well, I was asked by the brother, the next of kin, to be at the autopsy. And at the autopsy on day one, there were findings that were unusual for suicidal hanging and more consistent with ligature, homicidal strangulation, which included... And it was suggested at the time that he committed suicide by doing what? By hanging... At the time, he was found allegedly hanging by a homemade ligature of sheets. Are you saying you don't think it was suicide? I think that the evidence points toward homicide rather than suicide.

Why? Because there are multiple three fractures in the hyoid bloods. bone, the thyroid cartilage that are very unusual for suicide and more indicative of strangulation. Okay. So the first important claim, this is 2019, remember, is there were three fractures in the hyoid bone. You don't usually see that with suicide. That is more common in homicidal strangulation. Okay.

So keep that in mind. That is claim number one. Now go back to the video to see what else Dr. Michael Bodden said. Are sure what happened? That's right. So what you know this procedure, what happened in the interim to get this so, so such a blunt conclusion? Well, a week later, it was changed to homicide. The brother wants to know what did they get new in that week. Now I already have to explain. They, it went this is so, this is why this is so difficult. What he means to say is it was changed to suicide. The findings went from inconclusive to suicide, which some say is suspicious. They thought

it was inconclusive, meaning it might have been homicide, and then suddenly it's suicide. He means suicide. He is saying homicide. And I apologize, it gets more muddled because of this. To make it to homicide. What's your answer to that? We don't know. We don't know. It's 80 days now. Right. And the brother feels he's getting a run around. And to add to it, there was a total breakdown in security. The video cameras in work, the guards went to sleep. Okay. Okay. And then it goes back to me back in 2019. So the additional claims that are being made here are the finding was changed from inconclusive to suicide and the security cameras and the guards went to sleep. Those are not medical findings. So remember that. Those are not

medical findings. And finally. In prison. Very easy. And but first, in this situation, who If he took the sheets and stripped and made it, would have taken a good half hour or hour to make the ligature, then to go up there. Once you're hanging, it's about five minutes or so that you can have, be near dead. Dr. Bodden, though, if, you know, if, you know, the supposition is that it was a homicide, that would mean cops were in on it, in on it, you know, who opened the door, who moved the cameras, all of that stuff. Was it someone outside, or was it inside job? That's right. That's a terrible allegation. It's, well, why were the two guards asleep in 50 years?

Okay. So I'm going to stop it here because nothing else that Michael Bodden says is medically relevant. It's just like anybody can kind of go, oh, it's weird that the guards were asleep. So the statements he makes are it's easy to commit suicide in prison. The guards fell asleep. There was a suspicious revision of it was inconclusive it. None of those are medical determinations. He really only makes one medical claim. And it is the claim that he has never seen broken hyoid bones in a suicide and that that never

happens in a suicide. There is a little problem with that, which is that this has been studied extensively. For example, there is a study called fractures of the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage in suicidal hanging. And what it says is that 25% of cases of known suicide by hanging result in fractures of the hyoid bone and or thyroid cartilage. So the only medical opinion that Dr. Michael Bodden renders that hyoid fractures never happen in suicide actually happened 25% of the time based on peer reviewed studies. So to me, this isn't convincing. This is not convincing based on we have to separate what claims is he making that are within his area of expertise the hyoid fractures and we have contradictory claims from studies about the hyoid fractures.

Now, there are other issues here with Jeffrey Epstein, including since these claims were made in 2019, we've learned about the missing minute of video. We've found out about other suspicious circumstances, investigate all of it. Of course, of course. But there is a news cycle rehashing Dr. Michael Bodden's opinion from seven years ago with one actual medical claim about hyoid fractures, which we can easily refute. So to me, it's not super strong. That's the full story. And there is another round of articles about it, but it is not a new story. These are not new claims. That's where it stands as of right now. Let me know what you think.

Leave a comment. Send me an email. Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein problem is not only not going away. It's getting much worse. And it is now rising from a political controversy to survivor testimony to congressional hearings and now to direct scrutiny of Donald Trump's own property, Mar-a-Lago. Now, this is a major development. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee just announced they are going to be holding a shadow field hearing in Palm Beach on April 14.

Why Palm Beach, Florida? That is where Mar-a-Lago is. That is Trump's primary residence, Trump's private club, Trump's home base. Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said they are taking the investigation to Epstein and Trump's backyard. We're going to see testimony from survivors, key witnesses, and this is going to move the story from documents and DC-based speculation to people speaking publicly on the record. And that is a significant escalation. Now, the reason that Palm Beach matters so much is that according to investigators and reporting, Palm Beach was ground zero for Jeffrey Epstein's entire operation. This goes back to 2005 when a woman reported to police that her stepdaughter had been abused

by a wealthy man on the island. Detectives eventually identified dozens of teenage victims. Many were students at local schools, somewhere as young as 14 years old. They were recruited to Epstein's home for so-called massages that often turned into sexual assault. And that's the backdrop for what's happening right now. And that's why the hearing is going to be taking place there. Now in comes Trump into the picture. Democrats say multiple women were recruited for Epstein from Trump's Mar-a-Lago during that period of time.

Trump essentially acknowledges this by talking about how Epstein took one of his employees from Trump's spa to Epstein's whatever operation. One of the most prominent accusers, Virginia, Virginia Jafray said she was recruited at the club when she was a 16 year old locker room attendant. And according to reporting young spa employees from Mar-a-Lago were allegedly sent to Epstein's home for all sorts of different services. Now, this raises a series of very obvious questions. We're talking about the sitting president's private club linked to a recruitment for trafficking operation, I guess is what I would call it.

oversight Dems also released a 2019 email in which Epstein allegedly told journalist Michael Wolfe, of course Trump knew about the girls. Quote, of course Trump knew about the girls. That is Epstein's claim. That's not proven fact, but it would explain why investigators want answers and why they want to go down to Palm Beach. Now, even though the Trump administration has been doing everything they can to get this to go away, Trump's saying, let's move on, there's no story. Caroline Levitt saying, we are done with the Epstein story. The reason the pressure keeps growing is the contradictions continue to grow and grow and grow. For example, Trump has repeatedly said he had no idea Epstein was abusing underage girls. But at the same time, Trump reportedly

said to Palm Beach police in 2006, everyone knew what Epstein was doing. So did no one know or did everyone know? And that raises the next set of questions, which is how long has Trump been lying about this? Hopefully hearings would clarify that. I don't know that they will. Now, through all of this, Trump's response is the same. I had nothing to do with it. I didn't know anything and not releasing the full Epstein files, releasing parts redacted, releasing other parts, some parts leak. It's time to move on. There's no wrongdoing. I was never on Epstein's plane. Turns out he was. I was never on Epstein's island. So far, there is no proof that Trump went to to Epstein's Island, but maybe it's yet another lie.

The remarkable part is that Democrats don't control the House, have no subpoena power, they can't run official investigations, witnesses are appearing voluntarily in this shadow hearing, and they're doing this because Republicans are refusing to hold a formal hearing. So just to the MAGAs, who does it sound like has transparency as a goal in mind? Is it the Republicans who refuse to hold official hearings? Or is it the Democrats who are working in an unofficial capacity with witnesses that will be testifying not because they are under subpoena, but because they believe it is the right thing to do. Now, Democrats and everybody acknowledges documents alone are not going to answer the questions

that remain. We need to hear from people. We need to hear from survivors. We need to hear from anybody we can talk to. And the reality is Epstein's network involved a lot of powerful people, politics, finance, media. We are not anywhere close to full accountability. And we have a sitting president who could further transparency, but is choosing not to do it. Not normal, serious legitimacy problems. And notice the trajectory because first it was social connections and old photos, then questions about documents.

All of a sudden, Mar-a-Lago is at the center of it. Now we're going to get survivor testimony in public hearings and the story is growing, growing, growing. So the question remains very simple. If Trump had nothing to hide, why fight the release of the documents? Either because he's hiding something about himself or it's about his friends. What do you think? One thing that's become impossible to ignore with mainstream AI chatbots is how aggressively they police what you are allowed to ask.

Perfectly normal questions get flagged, refused. or answered with warnings, like you're doing something wrong just for being curious. And so it starts to feel less like a tool and more like an interrogation assuming that you were the problem. And that's why the AI tool I use instead is Venice. Our sponsor, Venice, takes a completely different approach. Your conversations are encrypted. They're only stored on your device, not on company servers. They are never used for training data. There's no surveillance. There's no content policing. There's no treating users. like potential criminals for asking questions. Venice runs open source AI models for text,

code, images, and video directly in your browser or app. No censorship. The Pro Plan adds features like PDF uploads, higher usage limits, custom system prompts, and uncensored image generation, all while keeping control in your hands. If you want AI that doesn't monitor or restrict you, Go to venice.a.ai slash Pacman to get 20% off a pro plan. The link is in the description. All right. I have something, uh, something significant to announce today. I was teasing this last week. I wrote a book, another book, not the echo machine. My second book. And it is launching for pre-order today. The book is called and we're going to put up the cover. Pay attention. There's a double meaning here. Pay attention how the algorithms and media wars are suppressing truth and rewiring your

brain. Now, this is in a sense a follow-up book to my first book, The Echo Machine, but the basic premises is quite simple. The information and environment that we are in right now is not only changing, it's reshaping how we think, how we see reality, and even how our brains function. And a lot of people do not understand that this is going on. Now, we often hear, oh, this is like 1984 or this is like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. What I argue in this book is that rather than kind of drifting towards a 1984 type scenario or a Brave New World type scenario, we have a hybrid today. We have, we have authoritarian threats on the one hand, very Orwellian threats. But at the same time, we are willingly participating in a system that pacifies us with distraction

more the way that Huxley writes and endless stimulation. And what I am going to outline in this book is that the participation from us from below is the engine driving the attention economy. Now, the book is going to number one, kind of peel back the curtain. on the creator space. I am going to talk in the book about how people in my position and others in independent media and social media who publish videos, how do we get influenced by the algorithms and media incentives that reward outrage, conflict, and extremism? I'm not going to argue that any one person planned it that way, but this is how the creator economy

has developed. So there's like a real peek behind the curtain part to this book. I'm going to talk about thumbnails and viral framing and clickbait and all the stuff people have been going, David, you know, why are the titles? I address that in this book. But then we're going to zoom out a little bit. And we're going to talk about the myth of media independence and why platforms increasingly will not need human creators as AI grows. So the point of this book is it's not as politically partisan a book as the echo machine.

The echo machine is a very politically partisan book. And mostly it's people who already follow politics that bought the book and read the book. This is a book that is much wider. If you use social media, this is an important book to read and understand. If you have a smartphone, this is an important book to read and understand. If you have kids who are growing up in this ecosystem, the book is very important to understand. If you have a job or consume media or just live in 2026, everybody should really understand this book because the the systems that shape political media

where I sort of operate are shaping all media. So here is what's going on. You can preorder the book now at David Pakman.com slash attention. You'll see a couple options for preorder. We are so early. This is like the early early preorder. We don't even know what the preorder perks are going to be yet. But everybody who pre-orders the book is going to qualify.

So don't worry about missing out on anything. You know, last time we had signed book plates and a bunch of other stuff. We are super early. This is just like to signal to my publisher is there interest in this book. You will qualify for everything we offer as far as perks if you pre-order now. So again, the book is pay attention how the algorithms and media wars are suppressing truth and rewiring your brain. available for pre-order, David Pakman.com slash attention. We'll put the link in the YouTube video description.

I believe this is the most important work I've ever done in terms of understanding the media world in which we live today. That's why I wrote it. I hope you love it. There will be plenty of time to say more about this in the future. Something extremely serious is happening right now. And I worry that way too many Americans are not paying attention. There is a growing body of evidence, statements, policy proposals, political strategy,

pointing towards what looks like a concerted effort to control, manipulate, and potentially override the results of the 26 midterm elections if they don't go Donald Trump's way. Now, this is not speculation out of nowhere. people who watch the show regularly or listen to the podcast. You know that we've been following the pattern for months and years now. Once you see the pattern, it becomes very difficult to ignore it. Now, start with the most important fact. Donald Trump has still not accepted losing the popular vote in 2016. He has never accepted losing the 2020 election at all. And he has insisted that if 2024 had been fair, even though he won the popular vote and he won the electoral college,

He believes that he would have won every state if the election had been fair. He has been openly obsessed with declaring himself the winner of all of these elections, even when it goes beyond the facts. And we realize that this matters because if he has refused to accept every election results so far, and he is, I mean, his presidency is at risk from the midterm elections. If the Republicans lose the House, Trump's presidency is over. And so what we are seeing now when we evaluate Trump's past behavior, his egomaniacal narcissism, his inability to ever admit defeat, and his increasing obsession with legacy in what he can do in these final couple years of his presidency, it is impossible for him to lose in the sense that he will

do anything he can to prevent losing. Now, one major piece of the strategy that they're going to put in place is to control the voting process itself. Trump has openly discussed what he calls nationalizing elections, meaning the federal government under his administration takes control of elections. In our country, each state runs its own election. We have 50 elections in 50 states. The idea from Trump is the federal government would take it over. This doesn't appear to be legal, but when has that ever stopped Donald Trump? He's talked about Republicans taking over the voting in multiple places. So think about what that means. That's not we're going to observe. It's not we are going to audit. It's we are going to control the process. And Steve Bannon has even

talked about sending armed ice agents to oversee that process. Doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand where this would go. Democratic cities in swing states would be a big focus. It would be the same targets we saw in 2020, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit. And the goal is influence over where the votes are counted and how the votes are counted. Part two of Trump's plan is to make it harder to vote in the first place. This is a Republican classic. You've got Trump backed proposals that would tighten up voter ID requirements, reduce mail

in voting, allow federal authorities to seize voter rolls and even purge voter rolls from states. And they call all of it election integrity. But the practical effect is fewer people more likely to vote for Democrats are going to vote. That's the whole point of this. Number three, as I mentioned before, militarization. federal immigration agents surrounding polling places, the impact, of course, is obvious. If voters fear getting harassed or questioned or detained simply for showing up, a lot of them are going to stay home.

It's not about security. It's about intimidation, fear, and suppression. So those are the first three pillars of this. But it goes beyond that. This plan from Republicans and Trump also relies on shaping perception. Trump's movement has tried to convince millions of Americans. that elections are fundamentally rigged. And some Americans have been convinced.

And the purpose is if people distrust the default setting, almost any extraordinary action can be justified. If you come to believe that our elections aren't fair, then you are more likely to accept intervention from Donald Trump. Lose an election, you claim fraud, you challenge the results, you delay certification, you create legal chaos. The prototype happened in 2020. Fortunately, it didn't work and Joe Biden still got to service four years as president.

They seem more organized now. They seem more prepared this time. And maybe the most alarming possibility is what happened after the, happens after the votes are counted. Some Republican officials have said they might refuse to seat winners if races are questioned. So even candidates who win could be prevented from taking office if there are claims of illegitimacy. Now, this looks very similar to what happened on January 6th. Trump was pushing officials to block certification of the 2020 results. It failed because some key individuals

refused to go along with it. Now, the question is, will officials resist the pressure this time? The concern is that election officials are worried Trump's greatest strength isn't necessarily winning votes, but shaping what happens later. Trump's not even on the ballot this time, but his legacy does depend on the results. And so can he create enough confusion, chaos, and intimidation to get people to bend to his will? If the elections are close, this is extra powerful. And so the best defense we have against this is to blow them the hell out of the water in November. The further apart and this is mostly accepted, but a few people disagree and they go, if they're going to manipulate the machines, it doesn't really matter how close it is. Well, that doesn't seem to be the main pillar of their plan.

If we blow them out of the water, it's not going to be plausible that there is any dispute because it will be such an overwhelming victory. The tighter the results are, the more likely that disputes can create chaos and chaos creates opportunity. So this goes way beyond one election cycle. We've been watching this now for numerous election cycles. Democracy depends on a basic principle. The losers have to accept that they lost.

Once a political movement decides, losing is unacceptable. they start putting in place mechanisms to protect that, then the system is at risk. And what I believe makes today particularly dangerous is that the threat doesn't really look like a traditional overthrow of democracy. It's rules, procedures, pressure, the erosion of public trust such that more Americans might go along with it. Listen, we got to let him do whatever he wants. These elections are rigged after all.

And that is a terrifying, terrifying thing. Now, as if you needed more proof that this is what they have up their sleeve. Let's talk about the latest statements from Christie No. There is a moment making the rounds right now that perfectly captures a growing problem in American politics. A top Trump clown, Christy Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, says the quiet part out loud about elections. Now, if you care about democracy, you should pay attention to this.

If you want your vote to count, you should pay attention to this. This is the strategy. Let's look at what happened. Christy Noem was speaking about election preparations and she said when it gets to election day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting. Now think carefully about that. Not eligible voters, not registered voters, not legal voters, the right people. Let's take a listen to what she says.

And elections is another one of those critical infrastructure responsibilities that I have as well. And I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust is reliable and that when it gets to election day that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country through the days that we have, knowing that people can trust it. Now, if you press supporters about Christy Nome's language, they're going to defend this. They're going to say the same thing.

They'll go, David, you know she just means legal American citizens. Those are the right people. That's the standard defense. And that's really all that they're going to be able to say. But the problem is that if you look at their policy agenda, it tells a completely different story. We've seen across multiple states, Republican officials aligned with Trump pushing these aggressive purges of voter rolls and strict ID requirements, reducing.

early voting, limiting mail-in ballots, all of those processes disproportionately affect groups that historically vote against them. Young voters, urban voters, minority voters, students, lower-income voters. So when you hear language about making sure that the right people vote, that's not language that exists in a vacuum. It's the pattern we've been following really all the way back to at least 2012. Now, there's an important distinction to be made here. Security means you protect the process. It means every valid vote gets counted, period. And it means

that you prevent fraud, but choosing which types of citizens should participate is a form of fraud. It's voter control. It's anti-democratic. And there's a deep philosophical issue here as well. In democracy, there is uncertainty. You just don't always win. You can do everything possible legally and do the best you can to convince voters that your policies are the better policies. And you might really dislike the other candidate. But your side doesn't always win. You don't always get power. Sometimes voters will make decisions that you don't like.

Authoritarians reject that idea. That is antithetical to authoritarianism. Authoritarians believe the right outcome must happen even if voters don't produce the outcome. You have to correct the system to get the right outcome. That is what Donald Trump believes. It didn't start yesterday. We saw it after the 2020 election. Trump and his allies pushing claims of widespread voter fraud.

There was none. They tried to overturn certified results. They pressured officials. They built this movement around the idea that only certain voters are legitimate. So when you hear Christy Noem say, we've got to do what we can proactively to make sure only the right people vote, it's the continuation of that same worldview. Now, I can't believe I even have to say. say this, but I think it's relevant. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in modern American elections. We've had audits. We've had court cases. We've had investigations. We've

have had Republican and Democratic officials both look into it. Everybody who has done this seriously with expertise comes to the conclusion that the system is not perfect, but fraud on a scale, even remotely approximating where it might make a difference in a single state does not exist. Now, can you find a so-called dead person that voted? Well, you can find people that submitted absentee ballots while alive and then died before election day. And that's not fraud. There are rules for how that's handled. You can find someone who voted as the wrong person and just about every single one of those is Paul Smith Senior and Paul Smith Jr. both get ballots sent to them. Turns out that seniors dead. Junior mistakenly votes as senior, but still votes only once.

Is that an error? Yes. Is that a problem? Yes. Is it proactive fraud of the sort that would change election results? Of course not. Illegals are voting in massive numbers. Well, undocumented immigrants can't even register to vote number one. And if the claim is that undocumented immigrants are showing up at polling places and going, oh, I'm Susan Jones and that that's how they're stealing an election, not only is there no evidence of that, it would be a really stupid way to steal an election. So the point we need to understand is that the justification for any of this stuff because of fraud is fabricated.

This is how democratic backsliding will happen. You don't need tanks in the streets. It's language. Who's a legitimate voter? Who are the right voters? Who deserves representation? For the good of the country, who do we need to exclude? Once those questions become normalized, the system starts shifting and we've seen the pattern

in other countries. It starts with we've got to protect elections. And it ends with restricting who is even allowed to vote. They have a plan. Christy Noem is acknowledging it. We need to be on the defensive. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program and the best most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily

bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. We are finding ourselves in incredibly dangerous times right now. Our elections are in a sense at risk. The future of the country vis-a-vis the independence of the DOJ, the Federal Reserve, etc, are a question mark. How long is Donald Trump going to survive? And I don't mean in the literal physical sense, but just as a note of power in the Republican Party. And also, like, how do we actually get through to the people that are starting to question and to consider whether staying on the Trump train is good for them? I'm talking both about voters and elected Republicans.

Joining me now to talk about this is Dan Coe, former White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary and former deputy director of intergovernmental affairs under President Biden, now running for Congress to represent the 6th District of Massachusetts. Also a previous guest host of the David Packman Show. Dan, good to see you. I said that's my most proud title, man. Listen, I appreciate that. And you did you did a great job filling in. And I think one of the things the audience was interested in,

which kind of gets to where I want to start today, is that you're willing to go into pretty hostile spaces and whether it's podcasts or cable news, etc. And really debate the right wingers in an environment where a lot of elected officials aren't doing that. So I'm assuming, and you'll tell me if I'm wrong that if you join the House of Representatives, you're going to continue doing that both there and in media. But talk to me a little bit about the approach. What is it that we should really be trying to do when we talk to our political opponents right now?

Because so many of the conversations are people talking past each other, they're not really relevant to the average person who's just trying to figure out what is going on with my cost of living. Why haven't some of the promises that have been made come true? What should be the point of the engagement with the political opposition right now? No, and you're seeing this, David, and all the work you do, and you do amazing work to get in front of millions of people every single episode you do. We can't be afraid to have the hard conversations. And if we believe as Democrats that we have thoughtful ideas around policy on things like universal child care on things like universal pre-K or revoking Trump's terrorists that are driving prices up for everyone, we should put our money where our mouth is and go to places. that aren't that friendly and we have the confidence to have those conversations and debates.

We don't have to all yell past each other. We don't have to take personal tax. But what we should do is not be afraid to make the case to the American people, but why the Democratic Party's platform and its fight to lower costs is the right way to go. And so I've been fortunate to have spent a significant amount of my time at different levels of government, at the federal level, at the state level, excuse me, the city level and the local level. And so I'm not afraid to go into those unfriendly environments. And so whether it's on News Night with Scott Jennings, whether it's with Tommy Loren in Nashville, or whether it's on Fox News Sunday, I haven't been.

And I will not be afraid if I'm fortunate enough to get elected to Congress to have those hard conversations and win those conversations because we need to go to all the places where different audiences are, make that case and candidly win those cases. I'm really interested in, you've talked a little bit about running government more like a business. And many in my audience are going to remember when Mitt Romney was mentioned. making the argument that you should vote for him because he's a business person and he would run the country like a business. Donald Trump himself in 2015, 2016 would say as a business

person, he is better equipped to run the country. And my view has really been as a business person myself, I don't know that it translates directly to the country because the government fundamentally isn't a business. So tell me more about your philosophy around some of the overlap between business and government that you see. Right. I think most of all we need to be human and have a soul. We think about our approach to government. But that doesn't mean that we can't take lessons from the private sector to make sure that we are satisfying and delivering for our constituents as much as possible. You know, Steve Jobs used to say that he wants to delight his customers. I think every single elected

official should want to delight their constituents. And what does that mean for people every day? You know, it's making sure that the streets are clean to make sure the trash is being picked up. And at the federal level, it means that making sure that they have elected officials that they believe are actually fighting for the right things in delivering for them. You know, people get very frustrated when they feel like nothing's happened on gun control in a very long time. People get really, really frustrated when they hear Democrats, you know, doing press conferences and chanting, but then their grocery bills keeps going up every year. And I think the most concerning thing about the 2024 election on top of, obviously, President Trump being elected, was how many people stayed home. We need to give people a reason to come back to the Democratic Party and to want to be joining alongside our fight. You made a reference to this, but when I was Chief of Staff in the City of Boston, I recognized with Mayor Walsh that people cared so much about making sure the city services work for them.

So I said if we were going to do that, we need to put clear goals openly, that every single pothole in the city will be filled within 48 hours or that graffiti will be cleaned up around the same time frame. And we also shouldn't be afraid. same reason why I like to go to unfriendly places in the media, to put our money where our mouth is and make it public about how we're performing. And so we came up with this dashboard called CityScore. We made the dashboard look like the green monster because I'm a Red Sox fan. So is the mayor and everyone in Boston's obsessed with the Red Sox. And we made that public.

And you can still go to Boston.gov City Score right now. Mayor Wu has continued this practice. And you know what? People appreciate the transparency. We don't always had hit our marks in City Hall. But at least people knew what we were striving towards and what we were going too. And what's so sad about the whole Doge initiative with Elon Musk, so I think both sides of the aisle should want to see more efficiency in the government.

But Elon Musk was just doing it for stagecraft and theater. You know, he said that $2 trillion will be cut from the government under his watch. The research showed that it ended up costing taxpayers $10 billion in back pay because of the recklessness of what he was doing. So, of course, we want to make sure every single taxpayer dollar goes to people and to helping people. But we need to do it with a heart. to do it in the right ways. So when you talk about the analogy to business, it's not everything government does needs

to have a profit motive, which I think is what is the right wing version of that talking point that scares a lot of my audience. It's there should be an accountability where we want people to say, hey, I had a better experience with whatever note of government I interacted with or I feel that government is responsive to my needs and desires. It sounds like it's more from like almost a customer service perspective. rather than a profit mode of perspective. I feel like every single time someone reaches out to their government.

It's a leap of faith. It's a leap of faith against the stereotype that government isn't there to help people in the hopes that they will be proven wrong. And every time you do do that, people come back. They have more faith in government. They have more faith in the system. You know, we started the 311 app in Boston. What we were very proud of is that if you take a picture of a pothole in Boston,

not only do you get a picture of the filled pothole back, but you get a picture of the team that filled the pothole. The idea being that government should be about people helping people. That's what government should be about and people should feel confident that their elected officials and their systems are working for them. Quite frankly, that's what humanity and what government should be helping humanity in that pursuit. At the national level, I'm very proud to have helped people who simply wanted a visa because one of their loved ones was dying. I remember this one of the proudest things that I did when I was serving under President Biden was that I had a friend whose loved one was passing away. And there was someone international who couldn't get back into the United States just to watch their

loved one pass away. We were able to get through and cut through the red tape of government to make sure that person was at that person's bedside. That's what government should be all about. It should be about humanity and delivering and delighting people as much as possible as quickly as possible. Dan, one of the things that is terrifying to people in my audience right now is the creeping authoritarianism and the various ways in which the first, I mean, even the second.

second to a degree amendment are being curtailed. And, you know, I was recently in Europe. And I had a real concern as to, am I going to be messed with when I come back through immigration? Is my global entry going to be revoked as we learned some were for people who were simply at protest, a constitutionally protected activity that we we revere? What is it that Democrats can even do if Democrats do take control take control of the House in November, which we hope happens, with regard to that stuff. Because at the end of the day, it seems as though Democrats taking the House certainly will put a stop to any big legislative ideas that Donald Trump has, but he's still going to control the DOJ. He's still going to control the FBI.

And so what, if anything, can be done as far as that stuff? To your point, it's about accountability. And what concerns me about the midterms right now is that obviously there's a lot of people fed up with Trump, they should be what's happening in the streets with ISIS, horrific. But I don't hear enough fighting in D.C. from Democrats about what we will do on day one. That's what people want to know. Why should I vote for Democrats and not just against Donald Trump? Here's what I would do on day one. We win the majority back. We need to subpoena every single person who has bent the knee to this president, whether it be a law firm CEO, whether it be a person who funded, helped fund the East Wing,

it would be the person who got rich off of his crypto stuff. All of these things, we need to get to the bottom of this. We need to understand what was promised to them, what they promised to the president, and get to the root of this corruption. You mentioned the DOJ. I was the deputy cabinet secretary in the White House, which meant working with all of the different cabinets every day on the president's agenda. All but one cabinet I interacted with on a daily basis.

And that one department was the Department of Justice because we recognized and respected how valuable and important it was to the country of an independent DOJ. And so I couldn't even send holiday party invites to the DOJ without clearing things through White House counsel's office. That's how seriously we took it. And the fact is you look at the contrast

of Donald Trump literally sliding into Pam Bondi's DMs and telling her that she's not being harsh enough to his political enemies, shows you how far we have fallen. So we need to start by getting to the very bottom of what is happening, using our subpoena power and making it clear to the American people just how much corruption Donald Trump

has allowed. That's how we start to win back hearts and minds. And that's how we start fighting back with our agenda at a lower cost. When you look at the next couple of years as a sort of set up period of time for 2028, do you believe at this point that Trump is going to go quietly in the sense of the trying to stay in power part? I believe the answer is yes, but I want to hear from you. And part two is to what degree do you think he is going to be in a position to pick his heir to the maga throne? And is that even something that Republicans are going to want then? Or will Republicans by then have figured out, hey, we actually need the distance from Trump if we want to get back to power? That's a great question.

And you know, I got criticized recently in the town hall because when people talked about what should we do once we went back to house, I said I'm not even convinced we're going to have elections unless we're careful about making sure we're empowering our secretary. of states all across our country. That means working with our state officials to make sure that we have not only the funding, but security around our secretaries of state all across this country. It means making sure that we have the right lawyers at every single polling booth all across the country to make sure shenanigans aren't happening. Because I don't think that that is a given without a thoughtful strategy. And I haven't heard enough from Democrats as to what we're going to do to make sure that these elections even happen. Secondly, Donald Trump, even when we lose the House, we'll be doing every, sorry, even when he loses the house, excuse me, we'll be doing everything he can to hold

on to power and everything he can to pick his successor. So what we need to do, why part of the reason why getting to the bottom of what he has done the past two years is so important is to expose just how much corruption he has done. It is very clear that as poll numbers, as you have highlighted, David, many times are at its lowest they've ever been because of these ice rates. We have more, 10,000 more ice agents are about to get on the streets with quotas without the proper training. It's just going to get worse. We need to hold him and them accountable for this and then get to the point where we have diminished Donald Trump's power enough where Republicans will start to stray away from him, which is exactly what we need to do to actually get back to getting things done for people in this

country. We need a proactive democratic agenda on lowering costs in fighting this president and making it clear to Republicans that staying with this president, a lame duck president is the worst strategy. Yeah, the fastest way to get Republicans to abandon Trump is for them to realize they've got to abandon Trump to save themselves. And a few of them, for a few of them, that's starting to happen. Dan Coe is running in the Democratic primary for the 6th District of Massachusetts. Also, previous host on the David Packman show, Dan, we're watching this campaign really closely and continued best of luck with it.

Thank you, David. you know, we only win when we have independent media voices like yours with the followings that you do, holding this administration accountable, holding Democrats accountable every single day, making sure that people understand there's a reason to get excited about the Democratic Party, in my opinion, reason that you should get excited and involved in fighting back against this president. It's only through independent media voices like yours where we win the day again. So I just want to say thank you for doing that. And thank you to all the listeners.

And also thank you for the opportunity to be guest hosting a couple of people. That was a real treat. And thank you to your listeners for being patient with me. Thanks, Dan. 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. up now at David Pakman.substack.com. We have a stunning moment involving Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and one of Donald Trump's own biggest former allies, Marjorie Taylor Green, former Congresswoman. And if what was just said by Marjorie Taylor Green is true, it directly contradicts what Trump and his defenders have been telling the public, which is that Trump wants the Epstein

files out, but there are just obstacles that are. difficult to get around. According to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, Trump himself led the effort to block the release of the Epstein files. Trump's own biggest former ally says that it was Trump himself who tried the hardest to stop the documents from coming out. So let's go through it. Marjorie was talking about efforts to block the release of Epstein docs when she said the following. Pam Bondi, she serves at the pleasure of the president and his administration. And those there are telling her, here's who you can prosecute. No, don't do this.

I mean, they told her that the Epstein files, that fought, that fight to release the Epstein files came directly from President Trump. And I know a lot of people have a hard time with that. But that is the truth. He fought the hardest to stop these files from being released. And the only reason that he signed our bill that we passed in the House was because he had to. It became a massive political problem. Biggest political miscalculation in Donald Trump's career was calling this a hoax, fighting the release of it,

and having Mike Johnson, the speaker, refuse to bring the bill to the floor to the point where Thomas Massey, myself, Nancy Mason, Lauren Bobert, actually had to vote with all of the Democrats to get it released. least. So listen, I am, I'm reminded of a quote. Actually, I wonder if it's a Carl Sagan quote. Oh, the book is right here on my shelf. It's just you can see the tip. Just the tip of it. You can see at the bottom here. In Carl Sagan's book, the demon haunted world, he wrote, quote, one of the saddest lessons of history is this. If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence. of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge even to ourselves that we've been taken. That is what is happening right now with a lot of the people who still believe and insist

that Donald Trump wants the Epstein files out, that he has nothing to hide, that he really wants to be transparent. Now Marjorie Taylor Green explains Trump was privately trying to prevent the release of the Epstein files while publicly saying transparency, transparency. He says he has nothing to hide. People should move on. Denies wrongdoing, but he won't release the full files. Why would he be fighting harder than anyone, according to Marjorie Taylor Green, to keep the documents secret, if any of that stuff were true? That's the obvious question. And inside of, uh, you know, from someone that was inside Trump's political movement, we are now hearing that he has been lying to his followers.

This matters for a very simple reason. Transparency clears suspicion. When you demand secrecy, you build suspicion. And we should be very suspicious of Donald Trump. If the files, unredacted and full, really exonerate him, he would want them out because it would help him. If they don't, he would want to block the files. Those are really the two possibilities here.

And Marjorie Taylor Green is suggesting that Trump chose the second path. The files wouldn't be good for him or for people immediately around him. And so he has worked to prevent the release. Now, supporters are likely to respond in very predictable ways. He will get the benefit of the doubt from supporters who go, it's not that Trump is guilty of anything. Trump is protecting innocent people mentioned in the files or Trump's preventing misinformation from getting out or Trump is stopping politically motivated attacks that would come from the files. But there's also a political risk because the Epstein issue doesn't seem to be going away.

There was a brief lull about six weeks ago, but it is escalating and escalating and escalating. And the opposite of going away is what is taking place here. Now, there's a deeper principle, I believe, at stake, which is that democratic systems rely on accountability. And increasingly, this is an issue, not of whether the files are worse for Democrats or Republicans. We on the left have have mostly said, I have said it all along, whoever the files hurt, I don't care. Release the files. We've got to see what's in there. This is becoming about elites and everybody else.

This is becoming about what some are describing as the Epstein class. It crosses political lines. When powerful leaders control the information that the public is allowed to see, especially when it's information about their own conduct, which may be atrocious, that is a warning sign. So the question of what's in the files is important. and we want it answered. The question of why the public is being prevented from seeing them in their full scope is maybe the biggest question. And a former Trump ally in Marjorie Taylor Green is saying

he's been fighting harder than everybody to keep these files secret. He says he's got nothing to hide, but he's privately working to prevent the files from coming out. Until the documents are released, questions are going to grow. And the takeaway for me is very simple. If you want a scandal to disappear, you don't block transparency and make the scandal worse. You provide transparency. And according to Trump's own former ally, that's the opposite of what took place. And you know what? On this issue, I believe her.

If you doubt Marjorie Taylor Green on this one, let me know. We need to talk about something that would be funny if it weren't so disturbing. One of the main architects of Donald Trump's economic policy of tariffs just revealed on camera, he doesn't seem to understand basic facts about the very economy that he says is thriving. And this actually says something much bigger about how this administration operates. Let's look at what happened here. Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro is praising the perfect Trump economy. And he says the stock market is over $50,000.

50,000 points, not over 50,000. He says the stock market is over $50,000. That is not how stock markets work. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. And he's not the only person who made this mistake last week. Let's play the first one here. You assess the macro economic story for us and how it's impacting citizens today. Absolutely. It's the perfect Trump economy for 2026. It's what we call a Goldilocks economy. The last time we saw what we're seeing now was 1998. And what are we seeing? We're seeing stock market over $50,000. That's Wall Street. But we're also seeing rise. We're seeing the stock market over $50,000. It's the Dow Jones Industrial average and it's 50,000 points. Saying the stock market is at $50,000 is like saying,

The temperature outside is 50 gallons. It's the wrong unit entirely. This guy helped design the tariff strategy and economic policy that this country and the world are being subjected to. Let that sink in for a second. Now, we've seen other Trump allies say the same thing. Last week, Pam Bondi did the $50,000 thing as well. She caught herself because she got kind of interrupted.

But otherwise, she was going down the same road. Remember this? The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader as I hear Raskin. The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing, Jamie Raskin. You're a great stock trader.

Confidence has replaced competence. These people don't know what the hell is going on. There is no expertise. What matters is loyalty and yelling and sounding confident. We've just got to say it loud and say it proud. Doesn't matter if it's total bullshit. Now the truth is that economic policy is complicated. Tariffs affect prices, trade policy affects supply chains, interest rates can affect inflation.

We need competent people in place. And we've got a guy who helped Trump set up the tariffs who says the Dow, the stock market is at $50,000. Now there's also a propaganda element here. Authoritarian style politics rely on declaring success. no matter what the reality is. He could say the the Dow is at 50,000 bananas and there's people out there who are going to perpetuate and signal boost the propaganda. The leader is winning. That's the important thing. Dollars, points, who cares? The economy is always strong. The numbers are always

great even when the evidence says something different. Now, the goal is not to be accurate. The goal is perception. And it matters because Trump's entire political brand is the perception of economic competence. I'm the business expert. I'm the deal maker. I know trade. I'm going to fix the China problem. I understand markets. And so when we see as top people not even understanding how the stock market is measured, we should all be saying maybe the perception of confidence is not actually backed up by competence. Now, this also connects to the broader economic narrative that we're seeing because at the same time that Navarro is saying it's a perfect economy. You look at polling and we'll look at some of of it tomorrow, in fact.

Voters are worried about inflation. Voters are worried about cost of living. Voters are under financial stress. So there's this gap. The messaging is increasingly, it's great, it's perfect, it's never been better. And then people are saying it's not so good. Prices are still going up. I'm further from where I want to be.

That gap is where you lose an election. And to be fair, sometimes politicians misspeak, but it's constantly the stock market. at $50,000 at $50,000. This is not trivial. The real kind of final takeaway is that if the people in charge don't understand the fundamentals, what is guiding their decisions? Is it ideology? Is it loyalty? Is it guesswork? Is it just whatever Trump says? And that's why I believe this is so revealing. They are showing how power is exercised and it's not through expertise. It's through messaging and narrative control and when messaging replaces reality, accountability completely disappears. Now, on the bonus show today, if you want to talk about accountability disappearing,

Gallup has decided they are not going to track presidential approval anymore. After 88 years, they're not going to do it. Why, we will talk about it. Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been killed by poison. It is happening. We will discuss it. And Oatley has been banned from using the word milk in the United Kingdom. It is an oat liquid solution again. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss it.