The David Pakman Show - GOP is ignoring Trump, and Trump is getting desperate

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

-- On the Show -- FBI Director Kash Patel defends aggressive federal actions while raising serious First Amendment concerns about targeting protest funding -- Donald Trump demands an end to mail voting but congressional Republicans publicly refuse to include a ban in new election legislation -- Kevin Hassett attacks a New York Federal Reserve study showing American consumers bear most tariff costs instead of refuting the economic evidence -- Peter Navarro declares the economy strong despite data showing the worst January layoffs in seventeen years, highlighting the gap between official claims and measurable reality -- Shawn Ryan publicly accuses Donald Trump of breaking promises about exposing corruption, signaling growing frustration within Trump’s own political base -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The Epstein scandal causes a rift between Newsmax and Fox News, Jessica Tarlov destroys her Fox News co-hosts, and much more... 📖 Book By Anyone: Create an unforgettable fully-customized gift at https://bookbyanyone.com 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get a pair for just $297 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ -- 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(01:13) FBI defends protest funding scrutiny(09:26) Trump pushes mail vote ban(17:24) Hassett attacks tariff study(28:54) Navarro claims strong economy(34:36) Ryan calls out Trump(41:41) Friday Feedback segment   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will start today with a jaw-dropping interview that has people asking, have you ever seen anything this pathetic? Dan Bongino interviewing his former boss, FBI director, Cash Patel. Really a lot of very revealing moments from Trump world today. Trump allies are making shocking claims about arrests tied to political protest that raises huge First Amendment concerns. And then something interesting is happening in Washington, which is that Trump is making demands. He always makes. demands. That's not new. But a lot of Republicans are just ignoring him now. And it's the latest sign that Trump's grip on power may be quickly slipping. Plus, a Republican advisor completely melts down when confronted with the truth about who's actually paying for Donald Trump's

tariffs. We'll look at growing cracks inside the MAGA movement. And your comments at the end of the show in Friday feedback, you will not believe some of the nasty people that write to me, Although, maybe you would if you've been around for a little bit of time. It's on the podcast. It's on the YouTube channel. It's everywhere. It's today's show. I don't know that I've ever seen something as pathetic as what we are going to play for

you today. Have you ever seen anything this pathetic? Does Trump think these guys look good? Dan Bongino, fresh off of quitting his job as Deputy FBI Director and retreating back to his podcast studio because it was just too tough to be the deputy FBI director. Interviews his own former boss, Cash Patel, who is still the director of the FBI. The level of brown nosing, suck upness, sycophancy, and extreme delusions that these two seem to be sort of ramping each other up with. It's like one gets the other going is really

something. And here is Cash Patel very strongly declaring. And I'm going to suggest something to you. As I watch the micro expressions on their faces, I don't pretend to be, you know, like a body language expert where you hit the body with expressions or anything like that. I just am looking at this. Cash Patel still sounds like he's a full true believer. But I think Bongino knows that he just looks pathetic after joining the FBI and then going back on everything he spent years. saying about Epstein and now being in a position where he has to go, no, no, no, there's nothing. Whatever Cash said is true. I think Bonino knows that he's pathetic. Take a look at this first clip. You know, and it's interesting being outside and the other side now reading kind of, you know,

the whole cornucopia media coverage about what went on there. And then you see, you know, one side saying, well, we haven't seen a focus on public corruption. And you see the other side saying there's been too much of a focus on public corruption. I'm serious. You've seen it. You're like, well, one of those is obviously not true. I mean, the FBI is always going to remain focused on public corruption. Just you and I, and I know you going forward with Rea and Bailey over there, are going to continue to focus on rooting out, root and branch public corruption. You had the Letitia James case.

You had the Comey case. You had the Bolting case. You've got the Kathy Hockel Stafford case. You got the Gavin Newsom Chief of Stafford case. You got the New Orleans mayor. There was that police department case we had. I mean, these were really serious cases. But, you know, being an attorney,

These things take time. You know, we're not the Department of War. We just don't engage in, you know, kinetic action. This is a law enforcement operation that's to build cases over time. But in one year, there's been a lot done. And like I said, one of those stories... We've done so much cash. Let's discuss how great and successful we were.

There's got to be a myth because they're both saying the opposite things. Well, it just goes to the theme that we've been talking about the mainstream media. They've been saying two things the entire time. Well, which one is it? because they both, as you said, can't be true. If what they're saying is true, then we're lying about the arrest, you just listed off. If what they're saying is true, then we're lying that we arrested John Bolton and indicted him. Anyway, word salad after word salad and just throwing bouquets at each other and we're so great and we've done such a great job and it's so awesome. Now, then we get into

this little thing called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Cash Patel explains that they are starting to do arrests of people who have incited violence under the guise of peaceful protest. And what I can tell you is that they are just finding people who did peaceful protest and claiming that it was to incite violence. This is insanely after anti-first amendment, but listen to Cash explain it. Director, your thoughts on this. I covered earlier in this show that there's a reason, a lot of these politicized, weaponized, bureaucrats tried to avoid talking about Antifa as an organized group of threat actors.

The reason it's been avoided is they are completely unorganized. They are not really an organization. There is no leader. There is no headquarters. There is no central planning. What they wanted to do is they wanted to have all the benefits of organizing money, publicity, the ability to use social media to tell people to show up and throw rocks and bricks. They wanted to have all of that.

but they didn't want to face the legal penalties. You know, being an attorney and now being on the FBI side, the investigative side, that the government forbids that type of criminal organization through RICO, statutes, Vicar, and other things. So they want it one way, they want to organize and use it. But then when it comes to saying, well, they're organizing it for this purpose. They say, oh, no, that's not an organization. It's just an idea.

Now, listen, they are retreating and backtracking through a wall that they used to be able to break through under prior administrations because no one held them accountable. And now after the first year that we reestablish how this place, how this building, how this lead premier law enforcement agency actually operates and goes after not just threat actors overseas and those who are willing to do harm to American lives, but those who cause violence here in America and use the guise of politics to delete that violence. We're not going to tolerate that. And these is code for we're not going to let people have a First Amendment.

Groups like Antifa and anyone else involved in these rights across the country and involved in paying for them in any way, shape, or form, this FBI, thanks to what we stood up over the last year, has made significant headway under the NSPM 7 process in looking at those who funded these streams and are starting to arrest people who used their funds to incite violence in the guise of political, peaceful protest. And according to who, that is how they are using. funds. Now, let me, he mentions this and N. SPM, is it NSPM? NSP 7, yeah. He mentioned this NSPM 7 thing. What that essentially is, is the ability to say that law enforcement have way more rights to do stuff to people because it's a, an investigation into domestic terrorism. This is now an investigation into domestic terrorism. We are taking a whole bunch of additional rights for ourselves and denying people other rights, including things that are in the Bill of Rights like the First Amendment. Where are the so-called constitutional conservative groups, the heritage foundations and others,

saying, hey, hold on a second. Are we for or are we against the Constitution? I thought that we were for it. Cash Patel says they have been focusing on pieces of crime that historically have been ignored. Focusing on every piece of crime that has been ignored, historically. And what else did we do? We put new leadership into the field that subscribe to this leadership and this administration's agenda because that's what happens. And that's what the American people voted for. And for the FBI, it just means letting good cops be cops.

And we let them go out there and arrest the bad guys. There you go. It's so simple. Just let let's go arrest the bad guys. That's all. Forget about rights. Forget about two products. Forget about everything.

I'm a good big FBI director because I say arrest the bad guys. And then finally, Cash Patel in a pathetic moment with a version of his tears in their eyes moment. They came up to me with tears in their eyes. He says, moms and pops everywhere are coming up to him to say, thank you. Thank you for keeping us safe. When you and I traveled around the country, what happened when we went to towns across America? I know what happened to you. People came up to us.

Moms and pops came up to us from every town, every corner we went to and said, thank you to you in this Trump administration for keeping our kids safe and keeping our murders off to Thank you. It's in keeping the drugs out of our communities and letting our children have a safe environment to grow up it. I heard it over and over again. It's not something you and I personally did. It's what this FBI delivered while we were leading it and we're going to continue to do

that. Big and strong. Big and strong and good. One of the most pathetic duos and most incompetent and most unqualified as director and deputy director of the FBI. I wish that cash were next here because he's really got to go. Something very interesting is happening in Washington, D.C. right now. Donald Trump is demanding something, which is an unusual.

Republicans are hearing the demands from Donald Trump. They're ignoring it. They're just not doing it. And that is new because for years when Trump snapped his fingers, Republicans moved and Trump said jump and they said how high. And he posted to Troth Central and they obeyed when he ranted. Republicans did stuff. That's how it worked.

It's starting to ignore him. And it tells us something very important about Trump's diminishing power. Now here's the story. Trump's been demanding an end to mail in voting for a long time, but more actively recently. And he says we need to just ban it. No reform, not some limits, just gone. We want no more mail in voting. A blanket end to vote by mail as we know it.

And he says without evidence, we need to do it because it's all corrupt. And I lost 2020 because of that. And that's a really bad thing. So what do Republicans in Congress do? They do nothing. They did pass an election bill, but it says nothing about banning mail and voting. They're just not doing it. It's called the Save America Act.

Republicans pushed it through the House. It does add some voter ID requirements. It does add some proof of citizenship stuff. I don't think it has any shot of even making it through the Senate, but that's a different story. But it just doesn't even touch mail in voting despite the fact that the White House says it is something they are working on. Now, behind the scenes, Trump's administration.

tried to force language into the bill banning mail-in-voting, Republicans just said no. They said it would sink the legislation. It would go nowhere. So think about what Republicans are saying. Republicans chose passing a bill rather than pleasing Donald Trump. The movement didn't work that way for a long time. Republican Congressman Mike Lawler openly said he has no objection to mail-in voting. He's just not a problem. He just wants people to vote. Vote early, vote in person, vote by mail, election day, whatever. That is a direct contradiction of Donald Trump. He's doing it publicly. And there's more. There's other Republicans saying Trump's wrong on this. Republican voters rely on mail and voting. We're hurting ourselves if we try to ban it.

The party organization is even saying, hey, we got to use mail in voting to increase turnout. We've got to tell people it can be easier to vote than going to the polls on election day. So Trump's demanding one thing. Republicans are doing the exact opposite because they believe that it's going to help them win. And this is what the weakening authority of the wannabe dictator looks like. It doesn't have to be a dramatic rebellion. It's just we're not going to comply. Yes, of course, Mr. President, ban mail in voting. And then they don't do it. They ignore it and then they pass a bill that doesn't include it. The reason this is so important is that authoritarian-style leadership depends on the perception that the leader is completely in control. Their word is the law and loyalty is absolute. The moment

If the government followers start calculating, it's actually maybe better for me not to do what the leader is saying. It might hurt me politically to do what the leader is saying. That is the crack that starts. And we are seeing that. Republicans haven't suddenly discovered their principles. Trump's demands are just a problem for them. Trump's demands could get them out of office. And when they are now forced to choose between do I go with Trump or do I go with what I think will

help me win and those are no longer the same thing, they are going with. what will help me win. On tariffs, we saw Republicans defect and pass an end to the tariffs on Canada in the House of Representatives. On budget stuff, we are seeing pushback. We are seeing more selective compliance rather than blind loyalty. And so Trump still has enormous influence. All week, I've said this doesn't mean Trump loses his base overnight. But influence and control are kind of two different things. And what we're watching right now is the control part start to slip. Will Republicans ever stand up to Trump was a question we asked for a long time. What we're seeing now is kind of different.

They're not really standing up in the sense of confrontation. They're just kind of ignoring him. And Trump built his power on fear and dominance. And that makes this a very dangerous moment. And we have the opportunity in November to make him a hardcore lame duck who gets nothing of significant past for the rest of his presidency, nothing at all. Have you left a rating for the David Packman Show podcast on Apple Podcasts yet? What about on Spotify?

It costs nothing to do it and it really helps us. The right wing is doing everything they can to dominate the podcast charts and to dominate the podcast space. We've got to fight back. And even if you watch on YouTube or wherever, if you can follow us and leave us a rating on Apple podcast, which if you've got an iPhone, you've got it or on Spotify. Spotify or both, I would be personally so grateful and so flattered. Some people are impossible to find a gift for.

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com and remember that the coupon code, it will end soon. And it will. We're getting close. It will end soon. Can save you around 50% off of the cost of a membership. Who pays the tariffs? Republicans love tariffs until somebody explains who actually pays them. And then when that happens, they throw a temper tantrum and fall apart. When Trump's economic advisor, Kevin Hassett went on CNBC and was asked about a New York study, New York Fed study, which shows that 90% of the tariffs are paid by American firms and consumers. He said, no, no, no, it's a terrible study. But unfortunately for him, it mirrors what every study is saying. Take a listen to this. A study by the New York Federal Reserve claims 90% of the tariff burden is being shouldered by

U.S. firms and consumers, but the White House disagrees. It's now White House National Economic Council Director, Kevin Hassett. This will be, Kevin, good to see you. This will be a continuation of a discussion we had yesterday with Ambassador, with our trade representative, Jameson Greer. And we talked about whether something's regressive. But we'll try to get into all of this. And we saw an inflation number last week, 2.4%.

If it is being shouldered by U.S. firms and consumers. consumers, U.S. firms are eating some of it or consumers are, it's being offset by something else, whether it's lower gas prices or something up because just in the numbers themselves, that doesn't hold water. Yeah, I mean, the paper is an embarrassment. It's, I think, the worst paper I've ever seen in the... Scott, you should be embarrassed for even bringing it up. history of the Federal Reserve system, the people associated with...

Sorry, Joe, not Scott. This paper should presumably be disciplined because what they've done is they've put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that's highly partisan based on analysis that wouldn't be accepted in a first semester econ class. The bottom line is that if you're wondering like who bears the burden of something, of a tariff, then you remember, Joe, you got supply curves, demand curves, you shift them around, you got consumer surplus, you got producers, you got producers, It's so difficult and complicated.

Plus, and then you look and see how it all works out in the end, and they're basically only looking at changes in prices. So they're assuming that quantities don't move at all. But guess what? Quantities did move at all. So the basic theory of President Trump's tariffs is that there are, sure, we're importing stuff from China, but we got producers in the US that make the same stuff, maybe at a slightly higher price.

Yes, except in a lot of cases we don't. And in a lot of cases, it's at a much higher price. And in a lot of cases, it could be made domestically, but it would take six to eight years to ramp that up. If we bring the stuff home, create the demand at home, then that will hurt China and drive up wages of the U.S. Yeah. It's funny because he talks about Trump's theory about tariffs as if Trump has a theory.

Trump's theory as presented is totally disconnected from the reality of how things work. Now, we'll come back to that. The main thing Kevin Hassett does is he attacks the paper. He says the paper this is based on as an embarrassing. harassment, worst paper in the history of the federal system. And it suggests that the researchers should get in trouble. Notice what he didn't do. He doesn't really explain the reality of how tariffs work.

He doesn't present alternative data. He attacks the research. And that really tells you everything you need to know. The economic reality is tariffs are very simple. And when you present, you know, if you ask these same Republicans, you know, if you ask these same Republicans, What happens if you add a new tax? They would go, oh, well, then you just, all prices are just adjusted and things will just, what happens if you raise the minimum wage?

Well, then all prices would just be adjusted. Everything will cost more. People won't even really have more purchasing power. You go, okay, what happens if you just put a tax on all imports, which is what a tariff is? Oh, it's very complicated, you know, supply and demand and macroeconomics and college classes and all of this different stuff. The company importing the goods pays the tax. Are they going to just accept making less money? No, they're going to pass a bunch of that additional

tax onto the consumer. That's it. It is genuinely that simple. Now, he's not wrong that you can use targeted tariffs in a strategic way to achieve political or national security goals. I'm so sorry to do the same example again. But if you said, I think it's risky to get our semiconductors from Taiwan Because any day, China takes Taiwan over and all of a sudden China goes no more semiconductors. And next thing you know, we've got no cars, we've got no mobile devices, we've got no electronics because we need to get from from Taiwan the semiconductors. So what are we going to do? Well, let's phase in a semiconductor tariff on semiconductors from Taiwan.

Next year, it'll be 10%. Year two, it'll be 20%. Year three, it'll be 30%, 40%, 50%. In the meantime, we are going to subsidize. the building of semiconductor factories in the United States. Six years from now, we will be producing semiconductors domestically. It will cost more, but it's in a phased manner. We will no longer be reliant on Taiwanese semiconductors. And it's going to be better for national security. All right. You can make that case. That is a calculated, strategic, surgical use of tariffs. Let's just

put tariffs on everything and things are going to be awesome. Doesn't really make a lot of sense. It makes no sense in fact. None of these are controversial ideas. Economists across the political spectrum essentially agree how this works. The debate usually is, are the tariffs worth it for strategic reasons despite the fact that they will raise prices on just about everything? The fact that they raise prices is not a mysterious fact. Now, this is where the politics becomes interesting.

Trump did build support around the idea that you can punish countries with tariffs. He built support around that idea. And the message was we're going to make them pay. The truth is, mostly Americans pay. And China has really figured out how to handle the tariffs. They have figured out that they can either supply or demand from other countries. They've started to make buy and trilateral trade agreements with other countries saying to the US, all right, if you guys are going to do this, then we don't really need to work with you.

We can go elsewhere. But none of this is sort of allowed as part of the conversation in the Trump administration. You're not supposed to question the policy. You're supposed to question reality. Tariffs don't increase prices. Well, but that goes against reality. It doesn't matter. It's how you stay loyal to Trump.

Now, the deeper psychological dynamic, as usual, is that populist economic messaging relies on really simple stories with clear villains and heroes. Trump's political genius, if there is any, is that from 2015, he's been scapegoating and framing himself as the genius. I understand trade like nobody else. China's screwing us. I'm going to fix it. I'm a businessman.

Never happened. But it was emotionally salient and it convinced a lot of people. The truth is that economics, global supply chains, all of these things are a little more complicated than Trump wants you to believe. And certainly more complicated than Donald Trump understands. So what you're seeing from HACET is not so much a technical disagreement. It's a defensive reaction to a reality that is bad for the political narrative that he is pushing. Now, there's an institutional issue here as well. well. The Federal Reserve system exists in part to provide independent economic analysis no matter

who's in power. And one of the realities is that federal reserves, regional and federal, they do pretty good work. And to attack them and say, that's just a political paper, there is no institution that is totally free from political bias. But the feds reports are really pretty good. And once economic analysis becomes subject to political loyalty tests, Trump's president, so the Fed should just say everything Trump's doing is good, we have again lost a framework for making decisions based on evidence rather than loyalty and emotion. That's the real story. So, you know, the interview moment, it's less about the interview moment with HACET. It's more about what happens when political messaging collides with economic reality and when facts.

contradict the narrative, they become the enemy. Anybody who is concerned about serious economic policy based on reality and facts should be terrified by how flippantly they go. Any study that says the tariffs are a bad idea is a bad study. That's horrifying. One of my close friends has a cat and I actually kind of like the cat even though you all know I'm more of a dog guy. She is very picky about food though, the cat, not my friend.

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There's something that you can't help but notice if you watch administration officials speak and give opinions and statements about things, which is that they cannot handle simple questions in anything approximating a sane and accurate and truthful manner. These are not complex questions. These are not trick questions. These are not gotcha questions. Just simple factual questions. And when they can't answer them, they do what authoritarian governments have always done, which

is they say reality is whatever I deem it to be. Let me show you this. We have Trump Economic Advisor, a senior counselor, I guess is his formal title, Peter Navarro describing the Trump economy and telling us how awesome and how great it is. One last thing I would say on this, the media has got to take some responsibility here and the Democrats. To the extent they keep bashing us, irrespective of the data, that's going to drag down confidence.

It's like, come on, like see the data, speak the data, be real, Trump economy, perfect, best year since 98 will top that. It's probably one of the best years in modern American economic history, not hyperbole. That's what the data is telling us. Not hyperbole, he says. The data is telling us this is just the best year ever. Except it is completely hyperbolic and inaccurate because the actual data shows January had the worst layoffs in 17 years.

Prices were supposed to go down, but they're going up. People getting behind on car loans at an increasing rate. So how do you transform worst layoffs in nearly two decades into perfect economy? Well, you just say it and you will anyone to disagree or you dare anyone to disagree with you. This goes really way beyond normal political spin, but politicians always try to present things in the best light. We would expect that. There is something palpably different here.

This is about replacing measurable reality with a loyalty-based reality. And in a normal system, officials would defend their record with at least some evidence. They would explain a problem. They would argue about a policy, the pros and cons. these personalized cult-type political movements in which we find ourselves today where loyalty to the leader is what matters the most. The facts kind of become secondary. Maybe we can find a pseudo fact to support the opinion we've already come to.

And if the goal were accuracy, it would be a bad way to achieve it. But the goal is not accuracy. The goal is affirmation. The leader says things are great. Therefore, things are great. it. And if reality contradicts that, we're going to ignore reality. There's a very long history of this. Governments that feel insecure about their performance will often claim success no matter what the data shows. And in the Soviet Union, it's a classic where officials regularly reported

economic success, even when everybody could see, we've got nothing. We can't afford anything. And there's shortages of everything. But that appearance of strength is what mattered the most. because if you admit to a problem, it creates questions. Aren't you omnipotent? Aren't you omniscient? And then that starts to lead to questions about your authority. So we see something very similar here. Navarro didn't explain the layoffs. He didn't give context for the layoffs. He didn't offer evidence. He just said, this is perfect. This is as close to a perfect economy as you could ever see. And so you have to ask yourself, what is his goal in this communication? Is it to inform the public? No. If the The goal were to inform the public, he would have presented some facts and he would have added

context, excuse me, and he would have been less hyperbolic. It is I need to appear as strong as possible and I need to prove my loyalty to Trump as fervently as I can. Now, as the Biden administration found out, the economic reality of a situation doesn't care about the political messaging. People know if they have a job or if they lost one. know if their business is slowing down. People know if they're paying more or less when they go grocery shopping. People know if their financial situation is getting better or worse. You can shape the

messaging, but you can't control the lived experience. And when the gap between here are the claims, here is the reality of people's experience. When that gap gets too big, trust completely collapses. History shows this again and again and again. So Peter Navarro is a doofus and he's making ridiculous claims, but this is not about a dofuss making ridiculous claims. It's It's about a governing mindset where criticism means you're not being loyal. Facts are just an impediment to getting our story across. And simple questions become threats. And when leaders can't handle simple questions like Peter Navarro can't, it usually means

the answers would be very uncomfortable. And they would be in this case. And that should concern everybody because do we really have democracy if we don't have accountability? And accountability starts with answer basic questions about reality. They won't do it. I won't say that they can't do it, but if they want to remain in Donald Trump's good graces, they know that answering questions honestly is a very bad idea.

But every single day seemingly, someone from the Magosphere is going, ah, this stuff is starting to stink a little bit. And there is yet another one of those people. And I want to talk about that now. Donald Trump is facing more and more anger from inside his own movement. And when that happens, it really matters because populist movements don't collapse when critics attack from the outside. They collapse when former loyalists inside start questioning the leader.

Now let me show you this. Top right wing podcaster Sean Ryan is now openly attacking Trump over the Epstein issue. I'm going to play the clip for you. Let's listen. Let's discuss. I've been pretty quiet about Pam Bondi in front of Congress the other day talking about how the Dow's up to 50,000, nobody gives a fuck. Because what you should be talking about is how you are going to investigate and prosecute

any pedophiles that were running around on Epstein Island that you're affiliated with. But we didn't talk about that, did we? Oh, and what's the excuse? What was the excuse? Oh, if we prosecute everybody, the whole system would go down. Well, you know what that sounds like? You know what that sounds like? That sounds like how Trump ran his campaign.

Let's drain the swamp. Doesn't that sound a lot like draining the swamp? It actually is drain the swamp served up to you on a fucking silver platter. But you're not going to take it, are you? You're going to protect pedophiles. You're going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody's happy that the Dow hit 50,000. Are you fucking out of your? your mind. I guess the whole drain the swamp campaign promise was another fucking bullshit lie,

huh? Man, the lies are stacking up fast. I've never seen so many fucking lies appear in, what, a year? It's only been a fucking year. Look at all the fucking lies. You know, what did you talk to you about something else too? Then you got Pam Bondi and what's that other guy's name? Todd, Todd Blanche. Yeah, running around. given Roe Kana and Massey all this shit because they accidentally put two names that are apparently innocent out that were in the Epstein files. Well, I got fucking news for you. You know, you have two guys that are in Congress that are actually doing shit. And you give them shit because they made a mistake when they're trying to do the fucking job of the entire Department of Justice because nobody over there will do their fucking job.

when it comes to putting pedophiles away in prison. So you give them shit because two people are trying to do the job of the entire Department of Justice. Fuck you. So this, this is rage, folks. And it's really important to understand why this is different from the usual political noise. Trump's political brand has always been built on a central promise. He will fight for you and against corruption. He will expose the elites to help the average person. He will reveal hidden wrongdoing and clean up a rigged system and all of that stuff. That's the emotional foundation of this movement. So when people who believe that message,

which by the way, if you fell for that message, yeah, I know, I know, like I have a bridge to sell you. But when people who believe that message start to think he's kind of protecting the corruption, he's doing the corruption rather than exposing it, that central premise starts to get shaken apart. This is what political scientists call a legitimacy crisis. The authority of the leader depends on belief. Once the belief cracks, loyalty becomes unstable. And that's what you're seeing right here. For years, Epstein was framed in Trump world as proof of elite corruption.

The narrative was powerful people are hiding crimes. We need someone to bring them out. Trump is the guy to bring them out. Now Trump's in power. And we've got no transparency. We see silence, deflection, lies, and delays. So supporters like Sean Ryan, who expected revelations, are understandably saying, what happened? When the question is coming from your side, it's very politically dangerous because populist

movements rely very heavily on trust in the intentions of the leader. When he's campaigning and not in power, you can just trust that his intentions are what he says. We knew better because of the first term. But a bunch of people got bamboozled. And they go, listen, he's not in power. He's saying what he will do when he is. All right. Well, I believe his intentions.

But when the leaders framing as a truth teller, outsider, uniquely qualified to fix the system gets into power and he breaks the image and doesn't do any of that stuff, the movement has a problem. And if you look at history, you see that very strong, unified political movements stay unified while they believe they are all working to fight that corrupt system. the followers suspect, man, I think I'm not following the person who will end the corruption. I think I'm following the person doing the corruption. The cracks appear like a glass, like a windshield that has spittered into a million little cracks. Now as I said before, Trump's support doesn't collapse tomorrow.

Political identities are sticky. Supporters are going to rationalize and ignore or dismiss, whatever. But there is a shift. And when you've got a voice as prominent. in podcasting as Sean Ryan saying they are lying. They didn't drain the swamp. That internal tension is highly destabilizing. Now, there's one other broader lesson here about expectations. When a political movement promises total exposure of hidden rondedoing, it's setting an almost impossible standard. The promise is absolute transparency, absolute accountability, absolute truth.

reality inevitably will fall a little short of that. And so even if Trump did come in with a truly appropriate effort, desire to do transparency, you always can sort of fall slightly short of total transparency just due to like understandable logistical issues. But this is way, way bigger than that. And so we are seeing podcasters venting. We are seeing a potential fracture inside a movement that is built on a trust that never was earned. And when supporters begin to think, man, these promises have been broken, you can get a disastrous

electoral consequence, which I would love. I hope that that's what happens in November. 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 joinpackman.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. Are you aware of what people are saying about me on the internet? No, I know I know most

of you are and I don't take it personally. But let's get into Friday feedback and I'll show you what some people are saying about me on the internet. Remember that you can email info at David Pakman.com, but we will sometimes feature things. from all sorts of platforms, including Instagram or Spotify or today, we start with Facebook, where Crystal Dixon asks, how many cognitive tests does one person take in a year? Getting to one of the big kind of red flags about Trump's regularly acing cognitive tests, which is why the hell are you being cognitively tested so often? Now, Crystal says it sort of tongue in cheek is snarky and joking manner.

But the truth is that this is a growing question that hasn't been answered. And a number of different medical and mental health experts have pointed out, you just don't typically give people cognitive tests as often as you give as Trump claims that they are being given to him unless you are either tracking a condition that relates to cognition. We have not been told that. As far as we know, Donald Trump has no diagnosed cognitive. condition that you would be tracking. Or if you are regularly suspecting, whoa, this behavior leads me to suggest you should get a cognitive test. Let's do it. Important to mention the test

Trump claims he is getting is the Montreal cognitive assessment, which also only is really meant as a screening tool for pretty advanced dementia or even for brain injuries. So I have to bring up one other possibility because it is Trump after. all, which is that for a very long time, Trump was talking to us about an MRI and the White House was talking to us about an MRI that Trump never got. Turns out he had gotten a CT scan, at least as far as was eventually disclosed. Is it possible that Trump isn't being cognitively tested as frequently as he says and that that's actually evidence of the decline that he feels like he's getting these cognitive

tests all the time and he really isn't? You never really know with Trump what it is that's going on. All right, from the subreddit, Dr. Mac 44 says David keeps omitting the biggest reason not to buy a gun. It dramatically increases the risk of suicide. I understand David's concerns about one political party owning vastly more guns than the other. Yet his discussions about the pros and cons of gun ownership have neglected the most relevant discussion point. Gun ownership dramatically increases the risk of death by suicide.

Here's a few basic facts. Death by suicide is twice as common as death by homicide. Over half of all gun deaths are suicides. Over half of all deaths by suicide involve guns. For men, the risk of death by suicide multiplies nearly 10x with gun ownership. You know, this is of course true. And by the way, just to get it out of the way, I'm not going out there saying we got to get more liberals owning guns.

I've merely pointed out that there are a lot of progressive friends of mine who have obtained firearms legally in the last five to 10 years because they don't want the right wing nuts being the only ones with guns. But I'm not out there going, everybody go and get guns. I haven't done that at all. I do think it's important with these statistics to be able to sort of parse them a little bit. And at a at a macro level, rather, it can be the case that suicide risk multiplies significantly if you have a gun in the home. At the same time, I think it's important to consider two things. The total risk of death by suicide is a small number. And so even when you increase it, it's still a very small number. And, and importantly,

the risk of death by suicide, if there's a gun in the home, is significantly higher for people who have certain tendencies towards depression and anxiety. And so if you take that really tiny number and you multiply it, but then you go, it's really only higher in this group. It is, but it is of course true that a gun in the home makes it more likely that a suicide attempt will be more successful. And it is also true that the vast majority of the population is not going to be moved to attempting to take their own life. This is not an endorsement or an attack on anything. It's simply, it's important to contextualize a lot of these statistics, but there is no doubt. Listen, a gun in the home makes it more likely someone dies of an accidental shooting.

If there's no gun in the home, no one's going to die of an accidental shooting by guns owned in that home. The gun in the home, if someone is likely to attempt to take their own life, the gun in the home makes it more likely that they will succeed. Without a doubt, that is all absolutely true. A devourer of Redditors wrote on the subreddit. I want a candidate who talks about Republicans, the way Republicans. the way Republicans talk about Democrats. Tired of bipartisanship, tired of reaching across the aisle,

tired of going high when they go low, tired of tolerating the intolerant. Let's rightfully demonize these demons. You know, a lot of people in my audience support this idea. I hear from people every week who say, we need to do the right policies, but we've got to be talking like the right. We've got to be insulting people and we've got to be ridiculing people and coming up with nicknames and just really smashing them. To a degree, it is not always the case that a strategy that works for one person or group works for another. That being said, we're going to write a strongly worded letter and send it. It ain't cutting it for a lot of people. So I understand the desire to see more fire from Democrats and hopefully 2028 is going to give us options from some that, uh, that that have that fight and are ready to do it.

Cool Tony wrote on the subreddit. Would it be a viable strategy for millions of us not to pay our taxes to make Congress listen to us? I'm curious whether or not such a thing could work. If there was hypothetically a movement that encouraged not paying our taxes in April in order to accomplish certain things, the majority of of us want, like abolishing or at least severely curving ice and fully releasing the properly redacted Epstein files, et cetera, and having some accountability related to both all of these issues, whether it's actually withholding the taxes or just the threat or something similar. Genuinely curious if something like this could happen and work. Okay. So listen, I write about this in my book, The Echo Machine. I talk about how there are protest techniques.

that have been shown to work historically. Strategically not servicing your debt at a macroeconomic level is one of them. Everybody stops paying their taxes. That is one of them. The only issue that is something we have to contend with is that most people pay their taxes year-round. Most people are paying taxes out of deductions because they have W-2 jobs. So yes, there are self-employed people who could pay little or no taxes. taxes, you're subject to underpayment fines and, you know, there's details to it.

But the percentage of people who could withhold taxes in this way is relatively small. Now, if you're a W2 employee, you could go in and change your tax forms and say, do not withhold anything. Give me my full paycheck. I'm going to take care of paying my taxes. Very few people are going to do that. And by the way, eventually you are talking about something that is a crime if you're just straight up not paying taxes that you owe. So it absolutely is something that could be done. Do most people have the wherewithal or circumstances that would allow them to do it?

Most people would not. Most people would not. Job K flow says on Instagram, you were continually lying through your teeth. My groceries are down. For instance, the butter I buy was 469. And now it's $3.99. Fuel is down. So God forbid the truth, get in the way of you whining.

and complaining about everyone else, but your lying sack of dung self. Listen, we don't do things anecdotally on this show. Maybe your butter is 70 cents cheaper wherever you live. Maybe it was on sale. Maybe it was a coupon code. Maybe it was you changed to a different type of butter. Or maybe in the one grocery store you went to, butter was. 70 cents cheaper.

But we look at things at a macroeconomic level and inflation has not gone below zero. If inflation is above zero, that means that prices are continuing to go up. I don't know. You know, it's lying through my teeth. I can't do a show based on, hey, job K flows butter is cheaper. Therefore prices are down nationally. That would be very quickly people would realize this is kind of a dumb show. We have to look at the price level.

We have to look at the inflation rate. And so if you're getting butter for 70 cents less now. Have at it, Haas, but that's not the way we can do things on the show. Ray Bob Hemingway says, how did I get on the liberal algorithm? I like it. You guys are all useless. We got three more years of this. You blue-haired sausages.

Well, you know what, Ray Bob? You're welcome here. As long as you don't start insulting people, which you're already doing. You are welcome here. We have deprogrammed and deradicalized many, many magas, Magidonians and Magapotamians. They're all welcome here. And just remember, substance. Tell me substantively, what it is that you disagree with me on. Darlene Mary wrote in on Facebook and said, I really don't mean to be rude when I say this, but would it be possible to speed up your talking and less breaks in between. I find that it could flow easier for listening to. Well, Darlene, I think you mean

fewer breaks. Excuse me. But no, listen, changing the speed at which I talk, I'm not going to be able to do. I just speak naturally and extemporaneously on this show. And so there might be a time when I'm telling a story and I'm getting agitated and I might speak a little more quickly. And then there are times when I'm going to slow down naturally because I'm explaining and I want clarity and I don't want what I'm saying to be misunderstood. If I don't speak at the right speed for you, Darlene, you can adjust the speed of the podcast with your podcast player. You can go up to what 3x or 4x. You can slow it down if you need to. I think that's kind of the best I can offer. Familiar Safety 226 wrote on the subreddit. Is it normal that I view basically most conservatives as

frankly just evil people. Today, this is kind of a vent more than a question, but today, conservatives were really, really getting on my nerves and I just had to vent out. I'm sick to the absolute death of pretending that it's just disagreement. It's only political debate, making it sound like the debates being had are causal and of no real importance. Conservatives have never been on the right side of history, ever. Their entire ideology is based on making lives of others. miserable and hypocrisy, hypocrisy, a new word, hypocrisy, I'm sure they mean. Listen, there are a lot of right-wingers who don't give a damn about other people. Their empathy centers are less developed. And I think it's useful in thinking about what policies we want to propose or how we would

appeal to people to consider like we might react to empathy or, or we, or we, we would, Our feelings of empathy might be stronger than others. And we've got to consider that. Even if there are some that might meet the definition of what we would call evil, I don't think it's useful in terms of trying to win to just go, A, these are evil people at the end of the day. And I certainly don't think it's going to help to win anybody back. Now, you might be saying we're not going to win any of these people back anyway.

It's just not going to happen. And you may be right. But I don't think that it's useful in terms of developing a politics that will be bring people in to fundamentally start with these people are evil. And if you disagree with me, remember that my priority is winning to get power back. We may be right that there's a lot of evil people out there. In fact, there probably are. But the question is, is it useful as a matter of a political platform to focus in that in that way? Let me know what you think. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you. Remember that my new

forthcoming book, pay attention, is now. available for pre-order at David Pakman.com slash attention. It's so early we don't even know what the pre-order perks will be yet. But whatever they are, if you pre-order now, you will get the eventual perks that I will announce. We've got a great bonus show. I'll see you then. I'll see you Monday.