The David Pakman Show - GOP facing 2026 nightmare as Trump spirals

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

-- On the Show -- Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins us on Substack Live to discuss how Donald Trump’s escalating rhetoric, institutional pressure, and personality cult dynamics fit into historical patterns of authoritarianism -- Republican senators warn that Donald Trump’s controversies and economic anxiety threaten to cost the Republican Party control of both the House and the Senate in the midterms -- Donald Trump forgets that he already endorsed Clay Fuller, claims total exoneration in the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and appears disconnected from key details surrounding his own allies -- Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly blames Donald Trump for fostering a bullying political culture that she warns could damage Republican chances in the midterms and deepen internal fractures within the movement -- New polling shows Donald Trump’s approval rating at 34 percent, with economic frustration and cost of living concerns driving sharp erosion among financially struggling voters -- Dan Bongino reverses years of claims about hidden Jeffrey Epstein evidence after leaving the FBI, now saying the agency lacks the explosive material once promised -- Donald Trump posts a series of aggressive Truth Social messages attacking Democrats, threatening executive action on voter identification, and lashing out at critics including Bill Maher -- On the Bonus Show: Rev. Jesse Jackson dies at 84, Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked his James Talarico interview, Colorado could remove all penalties for prostitution, and much more... 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free croissants FOR LIFE at https://wildgrain.com/david 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you $126 in FREE gifts at https://drinkag1.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(01:19) GOP fears midterm losses(07:52) Trump forgets endorsement chaos(18:18) MTG blames Trump culture(25:24) Trump approval hits 34%(32:41) Ruth Ben-Ghiat interview(58:21) Bongino reverses Epstein claims(1:05:45) Trump Truth Social rant   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republicans are starting to panic behind the scenes. And the reason is what happens to them in November and what happens to them when Donald Trump is gone. There is new reporting about Republican senators, not members of the House, worried that Trump could cost them everything eight and a half months from now, not just the House, but also the Senate. We're going to break down what is happening and why there is suddenly a major problem. Also, Trump forgets his own endorsement in a bizarre moment that raises new questions and Marjorie Taylor Green indicates that the Republican Party may be in trouble, going beyond just Trump. We are also going to look at Dan Bongino now having left the FBI, back to podcasting, suddenly says there is no Epstein client list and there is no evidence.

Is anybody going to buy this? And by the way, he may be telling the truth. It was before that these people were lying incessantly. All of that, plus Ruth Ben Guiat joins me to talk about authoritarianism and what happens when the dear leader is gone. She's an expert on this. Going to be a fascinating conversation today. We are following growing panic in the Republican Party that Donald Trump might cost them, not just the House of Representatives in November, but also the Senate. Now, it is less likely. the Senate looks way safer than the House, but there is a huge asymmetrical risk here. Imagine the consequences for Donald Trump and his legacy and for MAGA, the future of MAGA,

if he ends up losing both the House and the Senate just eight and a half months from now. If you think Trump is triggered and unhinged nearly daily now because he can't do whatever he wants, Just wait until Democrats control the House and Senate and Trump and his friends and family are choked with investigation after investigation and oversight. But let's talk about how we would get there and whether we can make it happen. What's happening behind the scenes is that Republican senators are now openly warning. Trump could cost us everything, not just the House, but also the Senate. One senator said, are we doing enough? We're not doing anything, which is not opposition

messaging about how the Republican Party is failing to connect with voters. That's internal alarm. That's what do we say to voters to convince them to vote for us despite Trump. And it's a relatively simple problem, which is that Trump has a major political liability. And it is hitting Republicans where they care most, which is power. What's driving this panic is that Republicans have the power, but they have almost nothing to run on going into 2026. Yes, they can say the economy is awesome, but that didn't work out particularly well for the Biden and ultimately Harris candidacy. Yes, they can say we're doing immigration,

except most of these Republicans know that the way that ICE and CBP and Border Patrol are carrying out the immigration fiasco is not popular with Americans. So they are wondering what can we actually run on. Now, as far as the numbers, the majority in the house is razor thin. They've They've struggled to pass major legislation. They're divided internally. And Trump himself reportedly told Republicans, we've already passed everything that you need. You should be able to get yourselves reelected with everything that we've done, which is quite delusional. That is a disaster heading into a midterm because voters want results.

Even Republican Senator John Kennedy basically admitted voters don't care about appropriations bills or the confirmation of nominees, they care about cost of living. They care about affordability. They care about what do my groceries cost? And even though I get messages from people going, David, my my eggs are now cheaper. The totality of inflation and cost of living is that concerns remain high and prices continue going up. They're not going up insanely quickly, but they are still going up. We had a historically long government shutdown. They're not doing well. They're not doing well. on immigration, as I mentioned. And so that is going to put Republican candidates. Remember, Trump's not on the ballot directly, but Republican candidates are going to have to go back to voters

and say what in order to justify getting reelected. When you don't have real policy wins, you need at least message discipline. Trump is maybe the least disciplined president that we've ever had. And that's kind of a deeper problem here. Trump dominates the political environment and it crowds out everything else. Every single controversy, every individual. Every individual. investigation, every scandal, every chaotic moment puts the attention on Trump. Republican candidates can't talk about local issues. They can't talk about economic plans because Trump is hijacking the conversation, mostly with scandals and pseudo scandals. The Epstein situation, I mean, forget about it. That is such a massive risk. And Trump's name appearing tens of thousands of

time, hundreds of thousands. Somebody said a million seems exaggerated. The messy response from the administration, the lack of transparency, the Justice Department controversy, whether voters ultimately care about the substance of it, it is constant noise and constant instability and Republicans are on defense and midterms punish instability. The president's party almost always loses ground in midterms. That's the default. That's the expected, except in very rare cases. You add internal Republican division to that, weak legislative results, the anxiety over the economy that voters still have, the controversy every single day. And that's how Republicans end up panicking and saying we might lose everything here. Now, lawmakers are trying to focus more on their individual campaigns,

but ultimately they are going to have to make a decision. Do I separate from Trump? And what is the backlash from such a separation? We're going to see that in a moment with regard to Marjorie Taylor Green's old seat. So this is a tension that is really becoming difficult to ignore. They can't distance themselves without angering some of the base that loves Trump. They can't fully embrace Trump because they risk a lot of voters who are increasingly sick of Trump. So they are kind of stuck. I don't feel bad for them. They created this problem by choosing this guy as their nominee back in 2016. They could have gone a different direction. But we need to think about it in terms of what can Democrats do to punish Republicans the most electorally. And as Republicans look at

this landscape and they see this decimated party, limited policy achievements, fractures, vulnerable on the economy, scandal every single day, and a dominant figure that is only hurting them rather than helping, they are going to have to figure out what did they do. They're not so much afraid of losing an argument about policy. They're afraid of losing everything, thing because there's not even an opportunity for those discussions. So I welcome this. I relish this. I'm enjoying the panic while at the same time. I think it's important to acknowledge the most likely outcome is that Democrats don't take the Senate. Republicans keep the Senate. Democrats take the House. We should still do everything we can to try to take all of it from Republicans. And as I said

before. If you think Trump is trigly now, just wait until he has to spend two years with Democrats controlling the House and maybe Democrats controlling the Senate. So it's an aspirational thought, but not a completely unrealistic one. Donald Trump had a scary brain fail just hours ago where he completely forgot his own major endorsement of a candidate and it happened on camera and people are noticing and they are getting scared. Let me explain what's going on here. Donald Trump was asked about the race for Marjorie Taylor Green's seat. Marjorie Taylor Green, of course, choosing to resign from Congress.

Trump says there's a lot of good people and I might just have to endorse someone. Tell us about your trip to Rome, Georgia on Thursday, your trip to Marjorie Taylor Green's old district. Well, we have a lot of people that want to take Marjorie Trader Green's place. and many, many candidates and I have to choose one. And they say whoever I endorse is going to win. I have to choose one of the people that wants to replace Marjorie Taylor Green. They say whoever I choose future tense is going to win. But there's a little tiny problem with that.

Donald Trump has already made an endorsement in that race. Just 13 days ago, Donald Trump endorsed Clay Fuller posting to Drew. social quote, it is my great honor to endorse America first patriot Clay Fuller who is running to represent the wonderful people of Georgia's 14th district. He says a lot of stuff about him and then says Clay Fuller has my complete and total endorsement to be the next representative from Georgia's 14th congressional district. He will not let you down. What a strong, powerful, uh, energetic endorsement. And Trump has absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. Someday I'll have to make a choice there.

And I think whoever I end up endorsing is going to do really well. He can't do it anymore, folks. Before our very eyes, he is crumbling and mumbling and stumbling and stumbling and glitching. He can't do it anymore. And a lot of people looking around going, sir, you did endorse. All right. Let's move on. Trump is asked a very interesting question. J.D. Vance is the kind of assumed heir apparent to the Magathrome. And that would usher in this sort of techno-fascist, techno-libertarian

Peter Thiel type ideology. But a lot of people who accurately have identified that J.D. Vance is a little doofy and that Marco Rubio seems far more reasonable have started to say, you know, maybe Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State would be a better heir to the Maga Throne. I'll be very honest with you. If my two choices are J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, I'm voting for Marco Rubio, right? If I don't vote in Republican primaries, but there's no doubt that Rubio is less insane. Trump says, well, we've got a long time before I got to figure that out. she and her husband are getting pulled into the Epstein matter to defer attention from you and that your administration has something to hide. What's your response to? I have nothing to hide. I've been

exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And I apologize. This is the Jeffrey Epstein clip. We are going to get in a moment to the Marco Rubio clip. This is Trump wrongly claiming he's been exonerated. He hasn't been exonerated. They went in hoping that they find it and found just the opposite. And I've been totally exonerated. In fact, Jeffrey Epstein was fighting that I don't get elected with some author, a sleaze bag, by the way. And I've been totally exonerated. No, no. They're getting pulled in. And that's their problem. I don't know. They got to see what happens. But I watched her in Munich. And she seriously has Trump derangement syndrome. She should publicly testify.

You know, I've been totally exonerated on Epstein. Or anyway, Trump has not been exonerated. He's in the Epstein files 10,000 times, 20,000 times, 100,000 times. We don't even know how many times he's in those files. The more implicated he is, the more he yells that he has been exonerated, but he has not been exonerated. All right. Now, Rubio, would you consider endorsing Rubio rather than J.P. Mandel, J.D. Vance. Here's what Trump says. Mr. President, Argo Rubio received really positive reviews in Munich. Is there a very good reviews in which you would support him at the top of the ticket in 28?

It's something I don't have to worry about now. I've got three years to go. So it's something I don't have to burn. JD's fantastic and Marcos, they're both fantastic. I think really, and I think Marco did a great job. So listen, on the one hand, Trump's not really saying anything one way or the other. There's a lot of assumptions built in here. The first assumption is that Trump is going to be politically stable enough when the Republican primary gets going to

to even have the political power to crown someone. And part of what our job needs to be over the next whatever period of time there is between now and when the Republican primary of 28 starts is to diminish Trump's power such that he isn't even in a position to make an endorsement of any kind of value. But putting that aside, he used to call him little Marco and make fun of him. And now he's considering at least the possibility. that he might support Marco Rubio over his own vice president in a Republican primary. And I've got to tell you, it's the smartest thing Trump could possibly do because Rubio is far

more sensible and far less controlled by techno-fascist instincts like that of Peter Thiel than is JD Van. So a very interesting kind of question there. But our goal should be to make Trump's endorsement irrelevant or even something that would hurt people. It would be great if Trump's reputation is so destroyed by the time this next primary he gets going, that an endorsement from Trump is actually something that is damaging. Finally, Donald Trump asked, as far as I know for the first time, about the alleged romantic affair

between Christy Knoem and Kori Lewandowski, Trump says he's never heard anything about it, but he's going to ask. Recent news reports have discussed the possibility that Kristy Knoem and Kori Lewandowski are in a close personal relationship. Is that a bad look and do you think she'll be in the job much longer? I don't know about that. I mean, I haven't heard that. I'll find out about it, but I have not heard.

He's going to look into it. Have Corey and Christy had an affair? Please, someone let me know and how should that affect whether they should be working for me or whatever the case may be for a guy who says he knows everything that's going on and that it was Sleepy Joe who was not in the know. He certainly seems in the dark about a lot of things going on. But the scariest part, Trump completely forgetting about a big endorsement, big, thick, powerful endorsement that he made just 13 days ago. He can't do it, folks. His brain

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podcast is free, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, subscribe on Spotify, and leave a beautiful, powerful rating. Very much appreciate it. And of course, you can also support us directly by signing up at join packman.com. Former Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Green has just called out Donald Trump again. And fascinatingly blames Trump for turning the right into a more. movement built on bullying. She is completely correct. Here is Marjorie Taylor Green giving advice. If Republicans want to win in the midterms, which we know they are increasingly panicked about, what do they need to do? And Marjorie Taylor Green says, well, what about maybe not having the guy at the top bullying everybody? I got to tell you, she's completely correct about this.

So if you want to win the midterms, why don't she stop calling all of us names and accusing us of horrible, ridiculous things. Like, that's absurd. And stop being a bully. You know, we got mad at the Democrats years ago when Hillary Clinton called us deplorables. But look at what the right has become. And it's become this way.

Oh, and because the leader of our movement bullies people. And we need to be honest about that. Like, why do we want to become what we saw the Democrat? The Democrats call us Nazis. They called Trump Hitler. They called us deplorables. They called us all types of horrible names. They looked down on us.

Those of us that refused to do the lockdowns and refuse to wear a mask and refuse to get the vaccine, they accused us of killing people. People that said the election was stolen. People that walked in open doors in the Capitol, they called us insurrectionists. They put me on trial in Georgia and tried to take my name off the ballot in 2022, accusing me of insurrection. I mean, the amount of things that all of us went to. all completely reasonable things.

It came on us in hate and judgment from the left is now what we have seen the right turn into, name calling, accusations, bullying. And this is not, this is how you push us away and make us go, fuck you, excuse my language, fuck you, I don't want to vote for you. I don't want to support you anymore. I still have my policies and my America First Beliefs,

but you're not going to have me stand over here and help you when you're treating me this way. And you're certainly not going to pull in the independent vote that you got in 2024. And if you don't follow through on America first and a domestic agenda and maha and all of the things that we, we, doge, my God, doge, I thought was great. If we don't come through on those things that were promised in 2024, well, then are you really going to be shocked when you lose the midterms in 2026? Because you better expect it. You know, what is most interesting about this. Her critique is like mostly good, although all the stuff she says, oh, they criticize for

this, us for this and that. Those were valid criticisms. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Green was primarily saying things that were cuckoo for cocoa puffs when she was a member of the House of Representatives. But what's fascinating is that her entire political identity and rise to power was built on not only loyalty to Donald Trump, loyalty that she now has renounced, but her entire rise was based on confrontation. It was based on outrage.

She defended Trump through everything. She amplified the rhetoric. She normalized the tone. The bullying tone that she now admonishes Trump for. She was a perpetrator of. She perpetuated it. So for her to now say the movement is damaged by Trump's behavior means that she was also someone who ruined the movement by virtue of doing a lot of.

of the same stuff that she now criticizes. Now, if we zoom out for a second, not to make it about Marjorie Taylor Green's hypocrisy. She is describing the problem with personality-driven politics. When a political movement revolves around one dominant figure, loyalty becomes the main rule in the primary rubric for evaluating who's doing well and who's not doing well. The leader attacks critics, the leader demands obedience and defines who belongs in the movement and who doesn't belong in the movement. That's, you know, the term rhino that Trump uses, Republican and Namo. It is about defining and excluding. And that can create really intense unity at first as people get excited about being part of something

where people are so ramped up about being part of it. But over time, it makes the movement unstable because the attacks never stop. Your allies shift in their alliances, they become targets. That is the system that Donald Trump has built. And Marjorie Taylor Green has shifted from being on the beneficiary end of it to being on the sort of like victim or detractor end of it. Now, there's also a strategic calculation. Marjorie frames this as an election problem.

She's worried Trump's behavior is going to cost Republican support and threaten them in the midterms. That tells you something about what Republican insiders are seeing, which is they see that the chaos and the internal fighting and the brand of Trump is turning voters off unless they are really deeply in the base, really deeply in the cult. And then there's also the contradictions within MAGA. The movement built around dominance and strength, but a political culture based on dominance creates these power struggles. And if politics becomes about who humiliates who, who out competes for closeness to Trump,

that can destabilize the base and actually hurt the movement. And I believe that that's what we're seeing right now. The politics of Trump thrive on conflict and maybe Trump personally benefits from the conflict. He attacks opponents and then allies and former allies and he tells it like it is and he's strong and all of that. But the circle of adversaries and enemies keeps growing, growing, growing and it comes to include even people that used to be in your circle like Marjorie Taylor Green. And then all of a sudden you have a problem because they've turned against you.

When someone like Marjorie Taylor Green breaks ranks as wacky as she is, it goes beyond a personal dispute. There is a strain inside this movement as it tries to keep it. itself together. And Marjorie Taylor Green is pulling in the opposite direction right now. They need stability. They need to build a coalition. They need shared goals. And when you have a personality driven movement, even if the leader is orange, it doesn't even matter the color of the leader. In this case, he's orange. You could be any color. That tension is going to produce fractures. And that's what we're seeing it right now. And again, the irony is, I agree with a lot of Marjorie

Taylor Green's critique today. But she built it. She participated and built the political culture of bullying and attacks, the normalization of outrage, the normalization of personal attacks. Now she says it went too far. Okay. Well, the whole thing is breaking down. And that's why she's doing this. And historically, when core insiders become important critics, that is a sign that the movement may not be able to hold itself together. And boy, do I hope that it can't hold itself together. All right. Let's talk about the approval numbers. I hope you're sitting down for these. Actually, you can stand. It's fine. Donald Trump's approval ratings are collapsing and not just a little bit. We're talking about another massive drop and the most important takeaway. If you take away

nothing else from this segment than this, it's that Trump's core campaign issue is what is pushing people away the economy one of his core campaign issues let's go through the numbers there's a new national poll that shows trump's net approval is negative 18 negative 18 in fact i can pull up a bunch of this stuff so that we can uh look at it you take a look at let me find the right ones here here it is you take a look at trump approval and you see that overall trump has 34 percent approve, 53% disapprove. That's actually minus 19. Trump is minus 19 on approval.

Only 34% approve of his job performance with 53% disapproving. This is a disastrous number for a president at any point of their presidency. Barely out of the first year of a term, it is really, really bad. Now what is fascinating is that if you look at the economy, let me. me find exactly where this is. Economic concerns here. If you look at Trump on on the economy, he's not doing particularly well. And as you look at all of the issues and how he is doing, economy is sort of down in the lower half and he is in negative territory on the economy. He is still doing okay on immigration and border security as well as crime and public safety,

although you have to remember that those have worsened dramatically. You might say, well, I thought that he was doing poorly on immigration. He's doing way worse than he was because he's not carrying it out in a way that most people actually want to see him, want to see him do. And fascinatingly, if you look at on all of these issues, who is expected to do a better job on every single issue, voters have moved away from Republicans and towards Democrats. Sometimes it's not a huge change. on the economy and jobs, it has gone from plus 10 for Republicans to only plus three. Republicans have lost seven points on the economy. On cost of living, they've lost eight points.

On immigration, they've lost 11 points, 11 points. On threat to democracy, it was already so bad, but he's lost a little bit more there. Republicans have lost a little bit more there. So what you have to understand here is when you go and you talk to a voter, And you say, hey, how are things for you right now? If they're sort of okay economically, they are way more likely to say they are satisfied with the job Trump is doing than if they are struggling economically. When you look at people struggling financially, Trump's support completely collapses.

And the most damaging part of this politically is that it's even happening within Trump's own voters. If you say, okay, let's now only look at the people who voted Trump, how are you doing? economically. Even Trump voters who today say they are not doing well economically, they are moving away from Donald Trump. So there is an erosion inside of Trump's own coalition that is very, very dangerous. Now, on the economy, the reason that the numbers are souring for Trump are cost of living, inflation, food prices, gas prices, jobs, and everyday expenses. This is a massive concern to all voters, including Trump voters. Yes, Trump's number. on immigration have worsened, but immigration is cited as a less important issue. Yes, Trump's

data on foreign policy points in the negative direction, but that is not as important to voters as cost of living and affordability. And when you look at likely voters, Democrats now have a seven-point lead in a generic ballot. That is not a good number for Republicans, eight and a half months from the midterm elections. Now, this is not only something that can happen to Republicans. You look at 2024. Democrats increasingly struggled because of the perception around the economy. Telling voters under Biden, the economy's great, didn't convince people who were struggling that the economy was great. It certainly wasn't great for them. But the shift here is eight points on the economy away from Republicans, away from Trump,

and towards Democrats right now. And the trend is very clear. The culture war crap, you may get people worked up about it. You may get a lot of posts about it on social media. But as far as what voters want from their administration, it's not about the culture war stuff. It's not about men and women's sports or any of that crap. It's the economy. And the economic issue that delivered Trump the presidency, which was things suck under Biden.

I'm going to make it better is pushing voters away. And it is an important reversal. There's a lesson to be learned here. It's really easy to make populist economic promises, really easy. It is a lot more difficult to deliver on them. You can campaign and say, I will bring prices down. But doing that requires negative inflation. And it's really difficult to get that.

You can't command prices to fall unless you absolutely destroy the economy and set off a deflationary spiral. And so the expectation and the promise is crashing into reality and the approval numbers are following it down. So Trump won power on economic promises and now he is losing support based on the failure to achieve that which he promised. There is no perfect moment to start taking your health seriously. Waiting for the right time usually means you just never do anything. And our sponsor AG1 is just a really practical place to begin. A lot of times, sustainable health isn't so much about perfection. It's about consistency. And what AG1 does is it just

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And for a limited time, you'll get a free AG1 duffel bag and free AG1 welcome kit with your first subscription order. Go to drinkag1.com slash Pacman. the link is in the description. Trump allies are now openly talking about federalizing elections, putting armed agents at polling places, and using government power against political opponents. Now, there are some of you who are saying, relax, we still have a constitution, we still have checks and balances, America isn't Russia, it's not North Korea, it's not Hungary.

But history shows democracies don't collapse overnight. They tend to erode more slowly. The institutions get hollowed out. The rules start being bent in the favor of the dear leader. And often by the time people realize what's going on, it is often too late. So how close are we really? That's what I spoke about with Ruth Ben Guiat on my substack live. We're going to continue our conversation.

today with Ruth Ben Guiat, who's chatted with us before. Ruth, great to see you really appreciate your time, as always. Nice to be back with you, David. You know, since we last spoke, a lot of things have happened both domestically and internationally. And I wanted to kind of maybe first open to get your idea as to how dangerous you believe the current circumstances are in the context of authoritarianism and some of the authoritarianism. and some of the authoritarian movements we've seen in the 20th century. And I'll kind of set it up this way.

We nominally have a democracy here. If you check, the First Amendment is still there. The Second Amendment is still there. Interestingly, relevant after some of these recent killings, including the one involving Alex Preti in Minneapolis. We are hearing a lot from the administration that sounds not very democratic. Talk about militarizing and federalizing elections. Talk about putting armed ice agents at polling places.

What we've seen around the deportation schemes and how that all has gone. And some people react by saying, yes, David, the rhetoric sounds pretty bad from Donald Trump. But we have a democracy. We have checks and balances. We have a system that is different than that which we have under Putin or Orban or if we go back further into history. What do you make of that the idea that the system we have is a sort of bulwark against what Trump really wants to do? That's a great setup, great question. You know, when we think about, we look abroad if we're in the States and we look at Putin and Orban and Erdwan, we have to remember that they've been in power a really long time.

Putin's been in power more longer than Mussolini at this point. And they've had time to do stuff. And the stuff they're doing now was not the things that they could do 10 years ago. So it's always on a continuum. If they come into office via elections in a democracy, whatever that looks like in their country, it's a process of tearing the democratic rights down, let's say. And we're on that continuum.

One of the things autocrats do is they hollow out government institutions to make them work for the leader. And there's a form of authoritarianism, which we're in, called personalist rule, where, like, for example, the Department of Justice ends up trying to penalize or go after, have vengeance against the leader's personal enemies. And government is a way, and this has happened in Hungary, for the leader to enrich himself, and not just him, his family and his officials and the families of those officials. So we see that with Howard Lutnik. The cronies come in, the Jared Kushners, the sons-in-law also play a role.

So there's these structures and processes that we see abroad are happening here. But we've had a huge amount of pushback. There have been over 330 legal cases. Many of them, like ruled upon by Trump-appointed. to judges that have either slowed down or turned back what Trump's trying to do. So that's going on. And then, of course, we're here. We wouldn't be here in some countries, all the independent media people. We wouldn't be able to speak, frankly, the way we do. And so there are many indications that democratic elements are still with us, for sure.

But they're doing their best to try and wreck our democracy. And it's been very, very fast over the last year. Is there one area where you would say, if this happens, that would be a significant change. And I'll give some examples of what I mean. I'll sometimes get emails from folks who say, you know, if the military were to clearly fall in line with his worst authoritarian instinct,

that would be like the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or others might say if instead of being the sort of indirect approach from the DOG, to make the lives miserable of his political opponents if it were a more overt sort of trumped-up charges in kangaroo courts kind of thing or whatever. Is there like a one thing or is it a kind of death by a thousand cuts sort of thing we have to worry about?

So it's kind of both, which maybe isn't a satisfying answer. It is death by a thousand cuts that sets up institutions and the public to, accept or it makes possible the big things, if the big things happen. So obviously bringing the military in for domestic use, which they test ran that with the Marines last June in L.A. They were so threatened by the sight of ordinary people coming and helping people threatened by ICE.

And that was one of the first cities that this resistance, this remarkable resistance. that we have across the nation. That was the first place. So they sent the Marines in. So that would be one thing. Obviously, fooling with elections, nationalizing elections, whatever that would mean, having a junta style of ice thugs

who are taking the place of other kinds of thugs who used to be the poll watchers, which were a problem, armed militia members and stuff like that. But this would be done by the state. So that would be a problem. And there is a pattern where I wrote a piece for the New York Times recently about autocratic backfire, as I call it, where these leaders, they do a lot of bad things. They surround themselves with sycophants and sons-in-law and people who just praise them. And they start to believe their own hype, that they're infallible, that everything you're doing is great. And then they make these unforced errors and they become more unpopular.

But when there's reaction, like we're seeing in Minneapolis and many other places, the sports world is waking up, things are going on to resist, to push back. Instead of backing off, they double down. And that's when, obviously, they're more dangerous. And so unfortunately, personalities like Trump's and the people around him, the Miller, Russ Vaught, they don't back down. They become more aggressive. And that doesn't mean that we won't prevail because resistance remains. But that's a kind of, so it's death by a thousand cuts, then you can have a big thing happen in response to popular opposition.

One of the things that seems to be a growing priority for Trump personally is legacy. And I think that we see this in a few areas where he's trying to seemingly, do more that might be irreversible or less easy to reverse. So acquisition of territory, the Greenland and Venezuela stuff would be like one example, physically changing the White House, right, Chip, knocking down a part of it and putting up a ballroom, which who knows if it will or won't happen. He seems to sort of be increasingly thinking of what is going to be left of my presidency after I'm gone. If we think about the legacies of authoritarianes more broadly, maybe from 1900 forward. Are there any who are looked back at in a general consensus as that was pretty good.

I mean, listen, I know you can find people on the internet that say Hitler wasn't that bad, but I'm not talking about like extremists. I'm saying like generally, do these individuals ever end up with a legacy that is seen as positive from like polite society? They can. And it depends. There's a lot. They keep their personality cults going. and obviously after they're dead, they have people who are doing that. Like even in Chile, the guy Jose Antonio Caste who got elected as president, he's an open Pinochet apologist. Pinochet left.

He was like doing experiments with neoliberal economics, the Chicago boys, and it was a disaster. And the military, it was a military dictatorship, and thousands of military officers were prosecuted after he left. So it was a total disaster. And yet, there are people like the current president who say, oh, Pinochet would have voted for me because I'm for law and order. And so we have to be very attentive to the way that today there's movements to alter, to rewrite the historical memory of these dictatorships. It's happening in Argentina with Miele. There's all, it's all kinds of things

going in fascist Italy because there's a neo-fascist prime minister, that's going on. And so the memory can be fabricated and manipulated. And that's a huge problem. And this is also why regimes and aspiring regimes go after historians. There are people in Russia who are sitting in gulags because they're historians who were looking into things that Putin didn't want to be looked into. When we think about the next, I guess we could divide the next almost three years into the time up to the November elections and then the time between the November elections and January 20th, 2029. Depending on what happens in November, my sense is that Donald Trump may become increasingly erratic and desperate in the sense of if he does lose control, if Republicans lose control of the House, any major legislation that would be politically.

oriented, not just like, oh, there's been a natural disaster. We all sign off nominally on funding, although even that maybe is not a guarantee, but we'll come back to that. Any major legislation essentially is dead in the water. The House isn't going to go for it, which to me concerns me that outside of that, Donald Trump's behavior will become increasingly more erratic, desperate, and extreme. Are there historical analogies to that, even if they're not perfect because maybe they weren't democracies and the control of the House didn't really matter? But is there some historical analogy to that sort of scenario? There are analogies, and if the leader has plunged the country into a military conflict,

like Mussolini did, which bankrupted the country and backfired on him, then that is when the elites who have been propping him up and the party officials can, it takes a dire situation, like being bombed by the Allies. But in Mussolini's case, finally, they all woke up after many, many years and removed him. His own Grand Council removed him. But you're right that we can expect more erratic, desperate behavior, because the whole point of authoritarianism, and certainly Trump is in this mentality, is to get to power, and often, including Trump, you run for office because you've got investigations and you've got legal problems

and you want to get into office so you can shut everything down for good. And Putin, Netanyahu, Berlusconi, Trump's part of this. And then you want to enrich yourself and you want to amass so much power that you become untouchable. And if you feel that you're losing these things, you're losing people who prop you up and you're losing popularity, then you become more erratic. And often that's when they do what we're already seeing this. I did not have, I predicted a lot of stuff that's gone on, but I did not have on my bingo card, the kidnapping of Maduro. I know, I do have stuff in Strongman in my book on Greenland because that's an old fixation of Trump that they're going to get Greenland. So that's even in my book. But here it comes

again. So they become more aggressive, more imperialistic. And this turns more people off, actually. There is a lot of speculation and growing speculation about Donald Trump's physical and cognitive help. You know, I don't know the truth of it, but what I'm interested in from a historical perspective is, do we have examples of where the strong man being strong depends so much on their physical and cognitive health

that it is a common occurrence that the true state of their health is sort of covered up or something. oppressed. Yeah, the best examples come from communism, the history of, including, you know, in Soviet Union, where they had, because it's like these kind of old relics would take office and then they would be ill and there was all kinds of Kremlinologists were scrutinizing every appearance to see where they really, you know, were they really just falling over?

And then there's rumors even today of Putin having body doubles. That comes from the communist thing. But I found it very interesting. The New York Times just published a piece on Trump's personality cult. And in it there's a kind of mention that Trump said that people who inquire about his health, that's a seditious question. Yes. Because the more they get older and they have health problems,

it's not good for their personality cult because one of the canons of the personality cult is that they are omnipotent. They're infallible. So Trump stole Mussolini's slogan, Trump is always right. It used to be Il-Ducce is always right. But he has to be all-powerful physically.

Otherwise, they're very afraid that somebody could come after them, that they live in fear of people smelling a weakness, And so I found that really, I hadn't seen that quote before, that Trump actually said that to inquire about his health is seditious. And I thought, oh, check that box too, because that's how invested they are with seeming perfect, perfect specimens of masculinity. That really goes to his desire. I don't know if control is the right word,

but his desire for the media at large, to only talk about certain things and to only talk about him, in a certain sort of framing or light. What are the pillars that authoritarian want to control in the sense of you've got the media, you've got ports, you've got military and law enforcement? What are the various pillars

which we would look at to say, okay, how much authoritarian control is there here? So the ones you mentioned, but also finance and business, and they often, sadly, they have a record of, as happened in the Hitler famously, but also Mussolini, they sign on very early on,

and these are called authoritarian bargains. So the bargain is, the deal, is that they pledged support of the leader and they refused to criticize him. No matter what happens, and once they sign on, they stick to it for a very long time and they don't seem to care what happens to the nation.

And in return, the leader gives them goodies or doesn't go after them. So they remain in good standing. And so that's very important. And then education. And in Europe where, like for example in Italy where most of the education system was state-controlled, it was really easy to take it over. But they think long-term authoritarian and they want to indoctrinate new generations. And so in our country, even during the Biden years and before that, the far right was very active with Turning Point. That was Charlie Kirk's, you know, that was all about campuses. They've had a whole plan for many years,

and now they're in power, they can activate it. So education, the military, and sometimes they say state security forces. Because after we see with ICE, that's an example. It's not only the military, there's like a whole assemblage of other forces. And ICE acts like a kind of militia or paramilitary. And then in some states, you also ally, they also with gangs, like in Venezuela, in Philippines with Duterte.

They use these gangs who actually work for the state, but they're private gangs. So there's a whole assemblage. You need all those people. And religious institutions are also very, very important. So you've got these pillars, and autocrats need to keep them happy. And as resistors, what we try to do in history, what people have tried to do is get those people to defect. That's the word that political sciences use. Elite defections where they say, I've had enough. I'm not supporting this regime anymore. Along those lines, how much does it

matter when Marjorie Taylor Green abandons and denounces MAGA? Homis Massey, who's still in the House of Representatives, now has just gone full-blown, you know, insulting Trump, et cetera. How much does that really matter in a situation like this? Well, the wild card, in fact, I wrote down in my notes, wildcard GOP. The GOP, as we all know, was completely domesticated by Trump. Even by 2020, it lost any identity ideologically. You know, it didn't even have a party platform for 2020 election. The only platform was we support Trump, like zombies.

And then we had January 6th, of course, and he sent a violent mob after repose. as well as Democrats, and that broke them psychologically. So what they do as things get worse in America is going to be really important. So Marjorie Taylor Green and Massey are, in a way, outliers. Massey's very alive with Russia. He's a special case. And Marjorie Taylor Green used to always parrot Kremlin talking points,

actually. It does matter for their constituent. who see them breaking, so whatever is motivating them, let's put it this way, whatever's motivating them, there is an effect because they have constituencies who elected them and who like them. And those people in civil society see that something has happened and they're not supporting Trump anymore.

And so maybe they start thinking differently. Last thing I want to ask you about, as we start to think about 2028 and beyond. There was this leaked plan that if it was Trump's say, so to speak, J.D. Vance would be the next president, and it was like either Charlie Kirk as VP or Don Jr., and then they would do that a couple of terms, and then it would be Charlie Kirk becomes president with Don Jr. as VP or vice versa. It doesn't really matter, but the whole point is, like, they had this whole idea of how it was going to go. What tends to determine whether the

dear leader can successfully choose the air and kind of keep the line of succession going. Is it as simple as well if Republicans come to believe that an association with Trump is bad for them beyond Trump, then it's that simple? Or what is likely to set the table for that? You asked such good questions. It's a very interesting question, the idea of succession. because if you look around the world, like these guys,

the Erdogans and the Putin's, they don't allow any talk of succession because their egos. And in fact, I wrote a piece for my substack lucid about this, the acronym is Tina, T-I-N-A, there is no alternative. And so the personality cult is about there being no alternative. Only the great Trump or only the great Erdwan can rule.

And so they, do think each one finds his own way to keep people away who would either they jail like opposition leaders that's what erdogan did the guy who could beat him for the presidencies and sitting in jail Putin did that with nivani killed him right we just got news he was poisoned yeah it was like a last out of american dark frog poison which is not found in siberia um so that's an extreme they do but And the Trump example with Don Jr., etc., that's the dynastic thing, because we're talking about oligarchy, what you described before where, okay, it's going to be Vance, who Vance is there representing Peter Thiel and Musk and all the techno-fascists.

That's why he's there. We all know that. And so, and then he's associated with the Trump family. And so they could just do musical chairs and keep going. And at that point, we are in an official like oligarchy, right? It's just that it's all very sensitive because, and this goes back to why Trump was like, it's seditious to ask about my health. Because asking about his health opens the door to either his mortality or the fact he'll just be to,

he'll get older and not be as competent because he's human, everybody gets older. But they can't hear about that. So having the son mentioned, that's what Fridon, Marcos did and now Bongbong Marcos is in power. So sometimes they do that and that way they can keep all their goodies and corruption going through the family. But that's, we're going to have to keep our eyes on this issue, because it's a really interesting issue if you study autocrats, this, who's going to succeed?

Is there anything about the election that's now just a few months away that makes you worry that it could become a violent situation? Not too much because I have to say that it's extremely important for successful civil resistance that it remained nonviolent. And the fact that we've had virtually no violence in very dire situations, people who, you know, during the civil rights era, people took nonviolent training so they wouldn't react to being provoked by the thuggish police in the South at that time. and here we have ice.

So there's been very, very few examples of violent retaliation, and that's very good. That's why the resistance is able to spread. And when we talked about elites before and trying to get elites to defect, if you start with violence, you lose those people. Then, for example, the coaches of the Warriors and the MFL, they can't support anything that's violent.

Nobody would. So that's why it's, I don't, so far, judging from what's gone on, I'm not worried about that right now. We've been speaking with Ruth Ben Guiat. Please make sure to check out her substack. Lucid, we've also got a list of her books on our website. Ruth, always great to talk to you. Really appreciate your time.

Yeah, it's a great conversation always, David. Thank you. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. 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. As many of you know, Dan Bongino, quit his job as Deputy FBI Director, went back to podcasting and has immediately started singing a very different tune about Jeffrey Epstein. And the question is very simple. Is anyone going to fall for this?

Now, I'm not saying that implying that what Bongino says today isn't true. It very well may be true, but it exposes that what he was doing for years was nonsense lying. You might remember that for many years, Dan Bongino and Cash Patel as well, would go on air on different shows, Bongino on his, Cash Patel is a guest on different shows, and they would say, oh, the Epstein case, massive elite corruption, hidden networks, powerful clients, secret evidence, institutional cover-ups, tons of criminals who need to be charged, the biggest scandal imaginable. And now all of a sudden, Dan Bongino, having been deputy FBI director and quit and gone back to podcasting says he agrees that the FBI no longer has the evidence that they thought they had.

They don't have the tapes of powerful men abusing minors. There is no Epstein client list. The redactions are all justified to protect innocent people. His explanation for all of this is basically it's just different. It turns out that things are a little bit different now. So let's listen to Dan Bongino, fresh off of his brief. tenure as deputy director of the FBI. Disturbing case with a bunch of level, level 10 decisions where there's a shitty decision

and a shittier one. Do we redact these four guys in a lineup knowing people are going to speculate about, gosh, who were these four guys? Were they part of this ring? Were they part of a cabal of people? Or don't redact them. And then, you know, innocent people get out in. These were the decisions that had to be dealt with every day.

shitty decisions and shittier ones that's what president trump has to deal with every single day of his life and everyone else at that principal level everyone Mike Davis I can't tell you about this tweet enough because it describes everything but this is an early tweet by the way Mike was on this from the start this guy's a fantastic lawyer Mike Davis nailed this from the beginning about what the problems were going to be on the case if anyone wants kind of a rational reason based part

put that tweet up. I thought that was a hint to Mike Davis tweet. I got a push. He says, here's the problem with the Epstein mess. The FBI doesn't have the evidence many thought it did. You can see the emails on that when we're querying. Hey, is there an uncharged third party here? There are not tapes with powerful men raping kids.

There is not a list. Epstein's Rolodex is already public. The file is largely unreleasable for many reasons, including grand jury materials, correct, 6E material, court records under seal was correct child pornography and pornography in general i explained that victims who need to be protected they don't want their names out there and unsubstantiated even double or triple hearsay and both some bogus claims which would permanently destroy the reputation of indigenous people if released that's it summed up that's how it goes so damn bonjino

spend years, spends years profiting from all sorts of different claims about Epstein. Trump's going to be the guy that finally reveals all of it, goes into the FBI, goes, oh, it's actually different than I thought, leaves the FBI, goes back to media, back to his podcast, and suddenly the message is, nah, nobody's hiding the truth. All that stuff I spent years saying wasn't true. They're not hiding the truth. There is no truth to find. There's no institution we need to be suspicious of.

Trust the process. It's closure. We finally got to the end of the story. a total reversal, not only of the story he told, but of the world he built for his audience. So what changed? Did the facts change or did his incentives change? When someone moves from an institutional role back into political media, their function changes. Inside government, the job is protecting institutions. Outside government, the job is shaping narratives. And what Bongino is doing now is he is shaping another narrative. It's a different

narrative. He's telling the audience ahead of time. Don't expect revelations. Don't expect names. Don't expect accountability. Lower the expectations. Narrative control to help Donald Trump. And the way he says it is very revealing. No detailed explanation of the evidence that was reviewed or what changed or what was disproven from the story that he built up years ago. Just like, yeah, you know, there's none of this stuff. Eh, that's how it goes. Shrug. The kind of messaging that relies on, loyalty to him rather than any actual proof. There's a bigger pattern here. And we talked about it earlier in terms of it's really easy to make populist economic promises.

It's harder to make them a reality. Populist politics often runs on the idea of hidden enemies and secret corruption. The system's rigged. The elites are protected. The truth is being suppressed. That's the fuel that drives a lot of these populist movements. Once that movement holds power or becomes responsible for producing the evidence, something really awkward can happen.

which is that either the proof appears, but if it doesn't, you need a new narrative. You can't keep running on that same populist narrative when you are now in power and you're going, we're not going to give you the evidence, we promised. When the proof doesn't appear, the story shifts to there was nothing there all along. The populist narrative is the system is hiding everything. The elites are keeping it from you. Now it's, oh, there was really nothing there all along. We've seen it before. The conspiracy energizes the base. The lack of results gets reframed and then the audience is told it's time to move on to something else. And what makes this moment striking is that Bongino is part of a bigger shift that's happening

right now. Figures who spent years promising massive revelations about Epstein are now walking back expectations, defending the redactions, saying there's really no evidence here. And so they've got a credibility problem. If the scandal was as massive as they said, where did the evidence go? And if there was never evidence, why did they tell the public for years that this is the biggest scandal that there has ever been and Trump is going to put all the transparency forward for us to figure out what's going on. So that's how it goes feels a little bit weak to me. Now,

there is a political risk here. The Epstein story has been one of the most mobilizing ones for a big segment of the right. It has shaped whether a lot of these MAGA's trust institutions, which media they consume, their political identity, and there is a risk here. after spending years building outrage around a story and then suddenly telling people there's nothing to see here and expecting to get away with it with no consequences. We will see if they get out of it with no consequences. But now I think we can comfortably say the goal was never to expose corruption. It was to control the narrative around whose corruption is worthy of being exposed.

And Bongino is just one cog in the wheel of the cover up. Donald Trump exploded out of nowhere with a multiple just post after post after post on truth social. Truth central. Some know it as truth central. Really a reminder that this guy is very unwell. Let's take a look. I'm not going to read all of these posts. It would take a long time.

But just to give you a sense of what he's posting, quote, the Democrats refuse to vote for voter ID or citizenship. The reason is very simple. They want to continue to cheat in elections. This was not what our founders desired. I have searched the depths of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not. Also, the people of our country are insisting on citizenship and no mail and ballots

with exceptions for military, disability, illness, or travel. I don't know what Trump has up his sleeve to just declare voter ID. Just as a reminder, I don't have any problem with voter ID in principle. The problem I have is that because of how voter ID requirements are in many states, it's not that easy to get such an ID if you don't have one. It can require taking time off from work that people can't afford to take because the hours during which they can go and get their ID are limited. It can be free in theory, but require documents that people need to pay for in order to get the voter ID.

I've explained this before. I don't have a problem with voter ID in principle. I have a problem with a way that it would be executed by these Republicans who want to use it as a tool specifically to disenfranchise people more likely to vote for Democrats than to vote for them. Trump continuing, quote, we can not not let the Democrats get away with no voter ID any longer. These are horrible, disingenuous cheaters. They have all sorts of reasons why it shouldn't be passed. And Trump goes on and on. I'm not going to read the whole thing on and on and on and on and says if Democrats get power,

they will pack the court. They will do this. They will do that. This is a terrified, cornered individual who realizes that if the elections in eight and a half months don't go his way, he may lose everything. He may lose the ability to. pass a single piece of legislation for the last two years of his presidency. He may lose everything that he is planning to do for legacy. He may lose even the opportunity and ability to

declare the heir to the Maga throne. Trump is terrified. And that's why he's putting up walls of text that I won't even subject you to. Okay. Trump continuing. Happy president's day. Prices and inflation are way down. The stock market and your 401 s are way up. Our military. Our military. The military is strong and powerful. Our law enforcement is great. Our border is 100% secure. Murders year 1900 and crime are at record lows and our country is bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.

Ah. Ha! Ha! Ah. We're strong. Ladies and gentlemen. Most people don't believe this crap. And the reason I know that is I just reviewed.

opious approval polls and people are not happy with the economy. People don't believe that they are doing well economically overall. People don't believe Trump has improved the economy and people don't believe that Donald Trump has done the things he promised to do. So Trump can grunt and cheer as much as he wants, but people aren't falling for it. Okay. Trump continues ranting and raving about a massive ecological disaster in the Potomac and he's going after our friend. He's my Fran Governor Westmore of Maryland. Trump is getting really triggered by Westmore. Again, I'm not going to read this entire post for you. It's got random capital letters all over it. I wouldn't subject you to these grammatical assaults because I respect you too much. But Trump is obsessed with Westmore. We recently

had him on. Trump is angry that Westmore won't bow down to him. Trump is angry that Westmore denied having told Trump that he's the best president ever, which Donald Trump actually said, Trump is furious with the mere existence of Westmore. And of course, we know why because Westmore is more intelligent than Trump. And Westmore is a better speaker than Trump. And Westmore is in better shape than Trump. And I think Westmore is taller than Trump's real height as well. All characteristics that really piss off Donald Trump.

And then a bonus post from Trump triggered by Bill Maher. And he says the following. Sometimes in life you waste time. TV host Bill Marr asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine. And I agreed. He came into the famed Oval office much different than I thought he would. He was extremely nervous, had zero confidence in himself.

And to soothe his nerves immediately within seconds asked for a vodka tonic. He said to me, I've never felt like this before. I'm actually scared. In one respect, it was somewhat endearing. Anyway, we had a great dinner. It was quick, easy. He seemed to be a nice guy. And for his first show after our dinner, he was very respectful about our meeting.

But with everything I have done in bringing our country back from oblivion, why wouldn't he be? But then I noticed his show started to devolve into the same old story. Very boring. Anti-Trump. No mention of the perfect border. Lowest crime in 2525 years, blah, blah, blah. So again, I won't read the entire wall of text. And this is a doozy.

But what I will tell you is that Donald Trump's singular. and only focus is how do you treat me? Are you nice to me? It's all that really matters. And if you don't bow down at the altar of Trump, he will turn on you no matter what you previously did. Trump's having a wild one. And this is an increasingly unstable, confused and deranged guy. Now as the authoritarianism continues, we have learned that Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked his interview with James Tala Rico from airing. And we will talk to you about the reason given and what we really suspect is going on. We will also talk about the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson and Colorado could become the first state to remove all criminal penalties for prostitution.

Good idea, bad idea, all of those stories and more. Sign up at join packman.com.