The David Pakman Show - Insurrection act threat made by Trump as he falls asleep again

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy U.S. military troops against Minneapolis residents protesting federal immigration enforcement after an ICE agent killed Renee Good -- Senate Republicans claim they will block Donald Trump from seizing Greenland by force while avoiding direct accountability for enabling his broader foreign policy extremism -- Donald Trump appears confused and lethargic at a public event as he fixates on milk, struggles to answer basic questions, and defers repeatedly to Robert F Kennedy Jr -- Donald Trump suffers a forty-two point collapse in Gen Z approval as young voters turn sharply against his leadership on the economy, climate, and reproductive rights -- Trump surrogates including Pam Bondi lash out on television and fire federal prosecutors as protests intensify after ICE kills Renee Good in Minneapolis -- Donald Trump and his administration promote austerity diets and reduced consumption while refusing to address corporate price gouging, housing costs, and stagnant wages -- Trump adviser Peter Navarro falsely blames undocumented immigrants for nationwide rent increases using fabricated numbers and nonsensical economic math -- Representative Lisa McClain defends her husband's purchase of private xAI shares before a Pentagon contract announcement -- On the Bonus Show: Tensions escalate between Trump and Iran, the US to suspend visas from 75 countries, Rep. Moulton introduces a bill to defund ICE, and much more... ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF for a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 20% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/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 (01:22) Trump threatens Insurrection Act (08:34) Senate GOP on Greenland & Trump (16:34) Trump appears confused, unfocused (25:09) Gen Z approval collapses (32:54) Trump surrogates lash out (39:48) Trump promotes austerity messaging (47:11) Navarro blames immigrants falsely (54:44) Lisa McClain defends stock purchase  

Was this the point all along? Donald Trump is now openly threatening to invoke the insurrection act and deploy the military against American citizens who are protesting ISIS actions in Minneapolis. We are going to walk through what's happening on the ground, why this is textbook authoritarian playbook, and how this could be used as a really a pretext to crack down on dissent and even interfere with the election. We will then hear from some Republicans who are saying, we will. will not allow Trump to take Greenland by force, period. Is it real resistance or some kind of

calculated PR thing? And then during a milk event, milk, what are you talking about? Yes, during a milk event, Trump falls asleep and cannot answer basic questions. We also have new polling about Gen Z with regard to Republicans and MAGA. I'll preview that they have completely turned on MAGA. and we have prosecutors getting fired, jaw-dropping insider trading allegations and a Trump advisor spreading one of the most pathetic economic lies I've heard this year. We're only 15 days in, but it's still one of the worst this year. All of it and more today. You will remember where you were when you heard that Donald Trump was starting to move

towards invoking the Insurrection Act. Was this what it was about? all along. I know many of you listen to the show on the treadmill or on your commute to or from work wherever you are. If this is the direction we are going as we approach November of 2026, I can only assume you will remember where you were when you first heard it. So let me tell you what's going on. Donald Trump has now threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act specifically to deploy American troops against protesters in Minneapolis. Let me say it one more time. The president threatening to use military force against American citizens who are protesting

legally the federal immigration enforcement tactics that have already resulted in multiple shootings, including the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good. Donald Trump taking to truth social and laying it out. Quote, if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ICE who are only trying to to do their job. I will institute the insurrection act, which many presidents have done before me and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great state. Trump previously, when he's been asked about the Interaction Act, he's sort of been like, eh, I might need it someday.

But now he is saying specifically, it is the next step in Minneapolis if it doesn't go the way I want it to go. Now, what's actually happening on the ground is that since early December, the Department of Homeland Security has flooded Minneapolis, with immigration enforcement officers. Mayor Jacob Frye says it is a force five times larger than the city's entire police force that has descended upon that city. Three thousand federal agents compared to 600 officers of the police in Minneapolis and they are operating in one city. Fry says it is an invasion, probably accurate. I don't think that that's hyperbolic. Now, as many of you know, Officer Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good while she was, uh,

in her car near her home in Minneapolis. We've looked at that video a number of times, Ross firing three shots at close range, killing her. I think it's important to mention, by the way, as everybody has looked at the videos like the Zer Pruder film and slowed it down and whatnot, if the justification for shooting her was that she was going to drive over Ross and then drive away dangerously, shooting her three times didn't actually prevent her from driving away, which she did and then struck, I believe it's a telephone poll. Anybody should have realized that shooting her as she was pulling away

was not going to stop the vehicle, at least not in a safe way. We then had another shooting yesterday. A federal officer shot a man in the leg during an arrest attempt. And the result here has been nightly protests with federal agents and gas masks firing all sorts of stuff into crowds. How does Trump respond, he says, well, I might have to invoke the insurrection act. He's calling the protesters, professional agitators, and insurrectionists. There's no evidence of that. These are residents of Minneapolis and of Minnesota who are understandably angry about the dissent of these federal agents and the fact that federal agents have killed at least one person

there. He's calling the ICE officers, the Patriots with a capital P. He's saying the governor there is corrupt Tim Walls because he hasn't cracked down harder. And the key threat is that of potentially deploying the military against American citizens on American soil. I hate to say it. I don't like the hyperbole and I don't think that that is what it is. This is how police states can begin. This is the playbook.

You flood a city with federal agents. Their presence results in violence and a public outcry. You say that the outcry is from individuals who are terrorists and enemies of of the state, you say the local authorities are corrupt and can't handle it, and then you say, well, now it's time for military intervention. We are kind of like at step three heading towards step four. And Trump is openly telling us about his intention to move to step five, which is actually deploying military forces against citizens. And then the question is is step six somewhere down the line, the state of emergency. And step seven is, well, we can't have elections now.

this wouldn't be an appropriate time for a midterm election. Now, Governor Walls has spoken about what he sees going on. He says it defies belief. He says this has become a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota. And it does seem to be that from that copious videos that we are seeing. And think about the precedent that this sets. If Trump successfully invokes the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis, it establishes that the president can flood any city with federal agents. And if there is any reaction to that, even when the agents have killed a civilian, the president can say, well, now we need troops to crush the protests. Protests against environmental policies, deploy the troops. Protests against abortion restrictions.

Deploy the troops. Do you see how this could be applied to any situation that the administration wants? It is not about immigration enforcement anymore. This is about the president being able to use the military force to suppress dissent. And what really concerns me is that Trump's been testing the boundaries of executive power and pushing to see what can I get away with. And he's getting away with a lot. Now, at the end of this rainbow is the pot of gold or the pot of coal or whatever, is it to try to do something about the midterm elections?

Has this been the plan all along? Foment chaos in the streets, implement the insurrection. Act, maybe you declare martial law, and then you suspend the elections. Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth is already asking military branches to provide 40 lawyers to support immigration operations in Minneapolis. The Pentagon is bragging. We are proud to support what is going on in Minneapolis. So there's no pushback. They're enabling it. And this is a line we cannot allow to be crossed. Now, I'm not here doing the, it's civil war, you know, the people that have been predicting civil war for 15 years. There is a counterpoint to this as a path to cancel elections. And the counterpoint

is very simple. The federal government doesn't run the elections. States run the elections. And therefore, the president can't possibly cancel them. And that is a good argument legally. But we shouldn't underestimate this president's willingness to impose force even if it is not legal. So what happens in Minneapolis over the next few days, quite literally could determine the next several years of civil liberties, free speech, and fair elections in this country. The stakes are extraordinarily high and we are going to be following it really closely. Something remarkable is happening, or at least Republicans want you to think something remarkable is happening. Let me explain. The Hill has a new report out that there are some Senate Republicans vowing to bluish.

block Trump from seizing Greenland by military force. We're talking about the green. This is not like some town called Greenland in the Midwest. Greenland, which is there in the North Atlantic, the NATO ally. Trump has been openly threatening to take it if Denmark doesn't sell. He's repeated it to reporters. He's posted about it on Troth Central. His administration is doubling down in these meetings with Danish officials.

suddenly you've got a couple Republicans clutching their pearls. We're told Republican senators are concerned. Republican senators are flummox. They're worried about NATO. And there are two Republican senators, the same names we keep hearing, Tom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski, who are flying to Copenhagen, beautiful city, by the way, to reassure Denmark that Congress will stop Trump if he tries something crazy. Now, if you just read the headline, it sounds kind of bold, sounds kind of brave. It sounds like Republican resistance against Donald Trump, but let's slow it down for a second. This is the same party that has spent nearly a decade whispering all of its objections to Donald Trump off the record while voting him with him on everything that matters. Notice how much of the pushback is anonymous

because Tilleson Murkowski, who are at very low risk if they come out and say the stuff, they are putting their names to this. But then we hear about other republicans. that are privately alarmed. Off the record, they're concerned, but publicly they're deferential. That is cowardice at the end of the day. These are the same Republicans who said they were going to rein in Trump during his first term and then during his second term and they were going to be a check and a balance and the same Republicans who said this time it's going to be different. And every single time when it mattered, they folded. Look at Venezuela. All the work to block Trump's impulses there, the warnings about it would be destabilizing and the stern talk about consequences

in all of it. And Trump did what he wanted anyway. And Republicans have mostly lined up right behind him or at least gotten out of the way. So forgive me if I don't take this whole we're very concerned thing super seriously as we are about to enter year two of Donald Trump's second term. There are a lot of strong words here. Even Mitch McConnell, gave a very strange slurring speech on the floor of the Senate. But in that speech, he said seizing Greenland would incinerate NATO and it would damage efforts to contain Russia. And it would shatter trust with allies permanently.

Mitch is completely right about it. But Mitch has also mastered the art of saying the right thing after the damage is either done or already underway. And that's the bigger problem here, which is that Republicans are acting like the issue is this one idea. Greenland's the only problem. The problem is the person generating these ideas. This is not a glitch or a bug.

This is Trump as a system working as designed. Impulsive and vindictive treating foreign policy like real estate deals and military forces as personal security. Blocking one insane plan to take Greenland by force would solve nothing about the underlying problem. If Republicans were actually serious here, the answer wouldn't be, well, we're going to do a delegation trip to Denmark. It wouldn't be another anonymous quote of concern. The answer would be remove the guy from office. Stop letting him terrorize our allies and destabilize global security and float these trial balloons about invading a friendly country or declaring the insurrecting the insurrection

act or whatever. And so forgive me if as I hear Tom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski tell us what they're going to do and how Republicans are very concerned. concerned privately, I am not really impressed with it. Don't worry. Don't worry. We're not going to let him do this thing. And then Trump applies real pressure. The base starts screaming. The threats begin. The loyalty test start. And we know how it ends. We just Trump gets away with it. So spare me the heroic framing about these very disturbed Republicans. They are not standing up to their dear leader in any serious manner. They're trying to manage him while avoiding any political price. Now, Tom Tillis,

maybe is the exception because he's quitting. Lisa Murkowski, maybe is the exception because she's always been more sort of independent minded and Alaska voters, Alaska Republicans are a little different than Arkansas Republicans. But other than them, this entire situation is shaping up to be one bad day away from a serious international crisis that Republicans are impotent to actually rein in and stop. If I'm being too harsh on these Republicans, let me know. If you are impressed that Tom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski won't let Trump take Greenland by force, let me know. Now, I want to be clear.

I don't believe Trump will take Greenland by force, but I don't think it's going to be because Republicans in the Senate are going to stop them. You know, I'll often talk to my friends about what do we really think is private on our computers and on our phones. And many people believe that their emails are genuinely private. And it turns out that a lot of the email services are looking at your emails and can look at your emails even after you have deleted them, which is why I recommend our sponsor StartMail, a trusted name in secure email for more than a decade.

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They are all in on this with a ton of features, including aliases to keep you anonymous, strong encryption with your emails. It is super easy to move to start mail. It's a few clicks. Migrate your emails, migrate your contacts. You really can't go wrong. Try StartMail for yourself completely free for seven days at startmail.com slash Pacman, which will also give you 50% off your first year. The link is in the description. Hey, what about signing up for a membership on my website? I don't know. Is that crazy? We are an independent media program. We rely primarily on the support of our audience. We're not

part of a big media conglomerate. We're not part of any kind of system where we receive funding from above. It's just people who like the show and they sign up and they get a membership. The two newest people who have done so, I want to say thanks to right now. Michael Knott and Skila Williams, appreciate both of you. You can join them at joinpacman.com. Read about all of the great perks. And there is no perk greater than knowing deep, deep in your soul that you're supporting independent media. We're also doing a one day membership drive on Tuesday, January 20th. That's this coming Tuesday. It will be, uh, it's the one year anniversary of Donald Trump swearing in for his second term and we will be officially three years away from the

end of Trump and we're doing a one day membership discount. If you want to be notified about that, just send me an email info at David Pakman.com. I'll put you on my newsletter and you'll get an email on on Tuesday. This is beyond belief. Donald Trump fell asleep during an event while it was being discussed that milk is good for the brain. Trump fell asleep, wakes up and goes, I passed all my cognitive tests. If I told you even six months ago that this was going to happen, you would probably say, no, that's too on the nose. It can't be. Watch Trump sleep and then wake up as Ben Carson, who is not exactly a passionate and inspiring speaker, starts talking about the importance of milk for the brain. The things that are absolutely essential for bone development and for

teeth. But as a neurosurgeon, the thing I really like is the brain, what it does for the brain. You know, the brain starts to develop right after conception and adds millions of neurons every single day, continues to do that right up until the mid to late 20s. Now, it's important what that brain is getting during the development. Is it getting soda or is they getting milk? So milk would help your cognitive ability? Absolutely. You can tell who's been doing. Take a cognitive test. I've taken a lot of it. I've ate every one of them because I drink milk.

So sorry to have woken you up, sir. So sorry that's just the Oval Office and we're kind of in the middle of a meeting here. Trump going on and on in truly bizarre fashion about milk, just a just getting really weird. We are very thanks. It's so great. I look forward to getting it all the time. I open a refrigerator. I say milk with rice and milk with water and milk with everything. I say, what kind of milk is it?

That's what I like right there. That's great. Thank you very much. Is that a joke? Like, what is Trump talking about? Milk with rice and milk with water? I don't know what he's saying. They had milk out. And I guess Trump was joking about milk or something. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Thank you, Bobby. We have some milk here. It's been sitting here for five days. It's from the original bottle and I brought it so the press can have some. You could swing it all over it. Remember the old days when we were kids? Everybody shared a bottle.

Today we tend not to do that. But if you'd like to, if you trust the person that you're drinking right there, it's right here. It's yours. I would not have a drop of that milk if I were the press. And I love milk. And then Trump's saying very important. There is a legal definition of milk and it is whole milk. We must define it properly.

It's actually a legal definition whole milk and it's whole with a W for those of you that have a problem. Most of the media will get up that's whole like white, whole white. Senator Roger Marshall at this milk event talking to Trump quite literally like a parent who speaks to a toddler. I mean, just just speaking to him like a little kid. Mr. President, thank you so much for having us here. On behalf of Kansas dairy farmers, thank you. Milk is the most wholesome nutritious drink known to humankind. Not only is it full of...

Milk is so good. Essential nutrients, it's full of healthy fats as well as protein. As Dr. Carson pointed out, those healthy fats are what helps that brain develop and help you absorb the fat soluble vitamins. The protein is why you drink milk. And you're not hungry again in 30 minutes. Right. Right.

Trump drinks a glass of milk. Trump reportedly will eat 1,800 calories in a single meal. You think Trump's not going to be hungry in 30 minutes after having a cup of milk? Give me a break. Now, where it became truly Kafkaesque was they brought up Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the secretary of health and human services, not a doctor who says children, this is a, it's hard to even say it without laughing. need policies based on reality and based on science. Well, Bobby is the wrong guy for that. That's

for sure. Policy with evidence based nutrition, not ideology or dogma. Healthy kids need real food. They need real protein. They need healthy fats and they need policies grounded in reality and the science. I want to thank President Trump. Policy with evidence. If what we're looking for is reality and science, you guys, you guys, got the wrong guy. Now, the reporters did have an opportunity to ask questions and that was pretty interesting. There was a question about what's going on in Iran where by the, but I, I'm realizing there's something else I wanted to mention.

And I don't, I don't know what the hell is going on with this. There are protesters reportedly being killed by the hundreds or even thousands in Iran. There's a contingent of the left. I don't know if this is the tanky left. I know that that's a pejorative or the revolutionary. left. It's the people that will often defend Russia, Maduro, Hamas, etc., who are just denying that they're sort of like, we don't know that any protesters have been killed in Iran. What? What would the what? What? What? And Trump interestingly amplifies talking points beneficial to the

Republic of Iran going, well, I don't know. some of the protesters themselves might have been shoot. Mr. President, on Iran, you said that the killing has stopped. Who told you that the killings have stopped there? We have been informed by very important sources on the other side, and they said the killing is stopped, and the executions won't take place. Listen, they said it very strongly, just like Putin has told me. A lot of executions today, and that the executions won't take place, and we're going to

find out. I mean, I'll find out after this. You'll find out. But we've been told on good authority. And I hope it's true. Who knows? Who knows? We've seen the body bags. So how do you trust them? No, you've seen that over the last few days. And they said people were shooting at them with guns and they were shooting back. And you know, right. It's one of it. It was self-defense and also it's not happening. And I believe the Iranian leadership. I believe Putin. I believe Kim Jong-un. I believe Bourbon. I believe it. I've been why would you suspect that they might be telling you a lie, sir? The question of Greenland came up. Trump asked.

would you acquire Greenland by force? And Trump just gets mad at the reporter. It's really strange. potentially acquire Greenland by force. That would be a NATO country. Are you saying that? Are you saying that? Would you do that by force? Would you are telling me that that's what I'm going to do? You don't know what I'm going to do. So what are the options? Your network doesn't know. Trump seems not to understand what a question is. Would you take Greenland by force? Would you? Well, you're the president. I'm just a reporter. I'm just a reporter. I can't take Greenland by force. The troops don't listen to me.

Trump seems not to understand what's called question and answer. And then finally, a moment of confusion on the topic of Planned Parenthood funds previously frozen being released to Planned Parenthood. Trump knows nothing about it. Bobby knows nothing about it. It's being reported that Health and Human Services released frozen funds to Planned Parenthood. I'm wondering why this happened and why Planned Parenthood is receiving. any federal laws.

I don't know anything about that. Bobby, do you know anything about that? What is the question? It's being reported that frozen funds were released to plan parenthood in December by AJS. I'm wondering why that happened. I have not heard that. I have not heard that.

I have not heard that, says Bobby. Now, of course, is it true that Bobby has no idea what's going on, which raises the question, why doesn't Bobby have any idea what's going on? Or is he lying and just doesn't want to talk about it, which raises the question, why would he not want to talk about it if he knows that it is something that is going on? The world wonders. Now, there is a group of people that is seeing these videos and they don't like what they see. And I want to talk about that group next.

We have been talking about Donald Trump's diminishing support from young voters now for several months. And it is clear that some of those young voters were duped into voting for Donald Trump by the Manosphere, the Joe Rogans, the Andrew Taints and others. Trump is suffering a massive loss of support from Gen Z voters going from plus 10 approval a year ago to minus 32. That is a 42 point swing here. And this is before they've even done their taxes for 2025, by the way. Here's a report from CNN about this.

You this morning. What about the kids? Perhaps no group swung more in the 2024 election than younger voters. they were decisive in Donald Trump's win. We've gotten new data this morning on what they think now. With us now. Seen and Chief Data analyst Harry Enton, there have been some pretty big shifts here. Yeah, these guys are swingers.

That's what we're talking about here. Take a look here, Generation Z. John, like that. Gen Z, party ID margin, Dems versus the GOP in 2024. Look at this. It was just a six-point margin between the Democrats and Republicans. Democrats just led by six points. Very small.

Remember, Donald Trump did very well for a Republican candidate amongst the youngest part of the electorate. But take a look here, 2025. Hello. A huge widening of the lead for Democrats among Generation Z, tripling their lead on-party identification from six all the way up to 20. That was, in fact, the largest shift, considerably more so than any other group. Yes, there was a shift in the overall electorate, but this, more than double the shift that we saw.

among the electorate at large towards the Democratic Party. Okay, and we said it was decisive for Donald Trump. How have opinions shifted toward Donald Trump among this groups? Okay, so this, in some ways, you know, you might say this, oh, this doesn't necessarily apply to Donald Trump. It absolutely does apply to Donald Trump. I mean, he has just fallen off a clip when it comes to generations. Look at this, Donald Trump's net approval rating in February of 2025.

John said it right. Wow. This was actually a month into the administration. This was a month into the administration. He was at plus 10 points in the approval rating. He was on the right side of ledger. Look at this falling off that cliff. That is a drop of 42 points to negative 32 points. All right. So very, very key up there. I don't know if everybody loves this delivery, but the data is important here, which is that in early 2025 right after Trump was inaugurated, his net approval rating among Gen Z was positive. It was plus 10. This means more young people approved than disapproved by a margin of 10 percentage points. We go to January. of 2026 now, same polling group shows that his approval among Gen Z voters is minus 32, meaning that 32 percentage points more of Gen Z disapprove rather than approved.

That is a 42% swing in a year. Think about how dramatic that is. Swings like this rarely happen ever in American politics, like on any issue among any group opinion changes slowly. It's a slow process. This is an outrageous. swing and other surveys more or less corroborate this, this under 30 cohort of voters has shifted dramatically away from Donald Trump. There's there's new independent polling, the Harvard Youth poll, all of them say the same thing. So let's contextualize it and talk about what it means and what happened. Back in the 2024 election, Trump narrowed the traditional democratic advantage with young voters.

And it surprised some analysts. His performance among Gen Z voters, especially Gen Z men, was surprisingly good. That is evaporated. And there's a few different reasons why. Number one, some of these voters were merely duped by the Manosphere podcasters that they follow. And Rogan invited Trump on for an interview, endorsed Trump right at the point of the election. You had a bunch of these Manosphere influencers who led their followers who may not even be highly engaged with politics into voting for Donald Trump. A lot of these voters didn't know what the hell was going on. And now that the Manosphere influencers have started to back away, Rogan referring to ICE

as a Gestapo, Andrew Schultz saying this isn't what we voted for, you know, all these different things. It's just the reversal as the Manosphere pushed towards Trump has stopped. Number two, the economic realities. A lot of these Gen Z voters are dealing with the crushing costs of living, stagnant wages, student debt burden, fractured job market that's not going particularly well. and they are blaming the administration for it to a degree as they should. On top of that, issues like climate change and reproductive rights and immigration policy

have turned a lot of young people off of Trump's agenda. Those issues don't play well with older voters. And that may be trickling down to a degree to younger voters as well. So this is a complete and total collapse. Now, the danger for Trump is that Gen Z isn't small. A lot of them don't vote at all, but it is not a small group of voters, especially as we go into 26 and 28, where statistically, as individuals age, they become more likely to vote. If that takes place and they are feeling energized to vote against this administration or threatened by this

administration, that could be disaster, not for Trump. Trump's not running again, but for Republicans in 2026. And it could be exactly the boost that gives Democrats. It could be a 40, 50 or 60 seat swing in the House of Representatives. That is not a guarantee. I'm just telling you that this is possible. Now, there is an irony of this for Trump. Just last year, he was bragging about the incredible accomplishment that was winning over young voters like never before. He spun it as proof that the Republican appeal could be broadened.

And now instead of being able to brag about the support of young voters, he's had a 42-point reversal among young voters. So this is a strategic nightmare. The brand has been built on being a disruptor out. outsider, someone who can expand the Republican base. And he did it in 2024. I mean, the numbers of young men who voted for Trump in 24 was a surprise. But now as they are starting to enter the workplace, they are turning away from Donald

Trump. And the question for 26 and beyond is can the arguably anomalous victory of Trump in 24 be sustained by future Republicans if they squander that Gen Z support that they had? Right now, the data suggests they can't win if they lose all of that Gen Z support. Disaster for them. And they're going to have to figure that out going into November. When it was time for a new mattress, I didn't want to gamble on something generic. I had heard about Helix.

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It's really tailored to you in terms of firmness as well. It's made a difference for me, and I'm thrilled to be partnering with them. Go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman and you'll get 20% off sitewide, the link is in the description. One crisis is leading into the next for this administration and the panic is palpable. They're flailing. They don't know what to do. Minneapolis, Maduro, the economic situation. And Pam Bondi is now being dumped right into the middle of it. She's Donald Trump's attorney general. Now, let me start kind of with the obvious before we get into what her latest claims are. When government spokespeople or administration officials feel compelled to blame prosecutors for taking selfies and that that's why they need to be fired,

you know that this is a machine in panic mode. Now, let me explain what's going on. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, now Donald Trump's Attorney General, went on TV to justify firing six federal prosecutors in Minnesota, not for wrongdoing, but because they simply refused to say we will support ICE no matter what ICE does. Bondi said one of them was busy to doing a photo shoot with the New York Times while ICE was out there risking their lives and cheerfully said, we have fired them all. Look at the self-satisfaction that she expresses as she tells us what they did. Go on to Minnesota. You have multiple employees now that have resigned. They didn't like the fact that there's an investigation into some of these groups. We call it

astroturfing. There are different groups, even crowds that you could purchase, believe it or not, which is insane. And they didn't want to be a part of this. And you need to get to the bottom of is who might be financing the instances that would be putting ICE agents' lives in jeopardy. Isn't that legitimate? That seems legitimate to me, especially in light of an 8,000 percent increase in the threat level and a 1,300 percent increase in, you know, attacks against these guys.

Yeah. Sean, we support Secretary Nome. We support our men and women of homeland security and ICE, who are out there taking predators off the street every day around the country, and they're doing it in Minnesota. What happened in Minnesota? We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn't want to support the men and women in ICE. One of them was busy doing a photo shoot with the New York Times

while ICE was out there risking their lives. So they came, they said, we want to resign, but we want to use our annual list. leave up until April, meaning they wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn't want to support law enforcement. I'm pretty sure that legally you got to pay them for the time they've accrued. The breaking news tonight, I fired them all. They're fired from the office.

I fired them all. So we're supposed to look at that and go, that is so good. Now the backstory of this involves the killing of Renee Good. Um, January 7th, ice agent shoots and kills Renee Good, 37 year old US citizen during a federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. That sparks outrage. City erupts in protests, thousands march in Minneapolis and, and other cities nationwide. They say we need accountability for these federal agents. Instead of deescalating, the situation is intensified. We've got now a week after this another federal agent shot and wounded a man

yesterday during an operation in a different part of Minneapolis. Officials say he was shot in the leg, struggling with agents and prosecutors, leaders. They're all saying this is totally heavy handed. Local officials say that the mere presence of federal officers is unsustainable and are even describing it as an occupation. In that context, what does the Trump administration do? They want to recast the entire narrative. And it's really a study in propaganda. Instead of acknowledging there is legitimate anger over the killing and shooting of a civilian. A woman described by her family is compassionate, a mother of three. We're hearing officials label her a lunatic. Pam Bondi said she was a domestic terrorist. They are justifying the use of deadly force. And that's why you get to moments

like this on TV. Bondi defending the indefensible pivoting from serious federal fatalities and resignations to talk about a photo shoot. And we fired a moment. It is panic. They are out of control, but they are trying to telegraph that they are in control. Fox News host, Sean Hannity even teed up a hypothetical about classified documents to kind of try to change the subject here and says, what if something is sent that's classified? This is relating to a Washington Post reporter's house being raided. What if someone sends a classified item and the reporter has no idea that it's classified?

And here is Pam Bondi's answer. And of course, the context, what what Hannity should be asking is, what if an outgoing president puts classified documents in his bathroom stacked around his toilet, right? Because they don't, they don't care about classified documents when it's Trump. They only care when it's a Washington Post reporter or Biden or whoever. I mean, I guess there could be a couple of scenarios. One, if the press was soliciting classified materials purposely and maybe that could be proven, maybe that can't be proven, or what if something is sent that's classified and the reporter

had no idea was classified? If the reporter had no idea, it's classified, we have the right to have that returned to the Department of Justice. I cannot, and to the Department of War is where it belongs. I cannot talk about the facts of this case because right now it's just a search warrant to retrieve the information that belongs to the Department of War. But the guy who worked for the Department of War, he is in jail, and he should. should remain in jail.

The, um, the real issue with classified documents was Biden. Never Trump. The real issue with classified documents is their contents if we don't like their contents, but it's who even has the documents. If we want to strategically do verbal trapeze artistry and stuff ourselves into a whole about But another issue we like to pretend to care about, but really don't. This entire classified documents ruse is a way to intimidate reporters, which was part of the raid on the Washington Post reporter. And notice how missing from this entire discussion. And of course it's missing is that Trump was caught with classified documents right around

his toilet. And Pam Bondi doesn't care. It's how can we distract? How can we put the attention on somebody else? How can we defend the increasingly indefensible? The quality and confidence. of Pam Bondi's apologia or apologia, depending on your preference, is being reduced because you can't keep continuing.

You can't keep defending the indefensible and that's what she is trying to do. Trump officials are out there pitching austerity to Americans as if it's a lifestyle upgrade. Let me explain. Brooke Rollins is the Agriculture Secretary for Donald Trump's administration. She proudly announced they have run a thousand simulations to figure out how can Americans eat for three bucks a meal. And she's gonna tell us, you get a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and maybe one other thing, a mystery item.

Listen to this. Is this the prosperity that we were promised? I think the question you're asking, and it's a really important one, is while we're asking Americans to reconsider what they're eating, are we actually asking Americans, especially those who are living on the margins? Are we asking them to spend more on their diet? And the answer to that is no. We've run over a thousand simulations.

It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, corn tortilla and one other thing. And so there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money. Yeah. A piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, one florette, a corn tortilla, a taco size, not burrito of course. And one other thing. This is coming from a Trump administration that claims to represent prosperity and abundance and success and winning. And instead the message is tighten your belt,

stop complaining. You get one corn tortilla teeny tiny. Maybe we'll give you some salsa. And it fits perfectly. I hate to admit it with what Donald Trump himself has been saying. Donald Trump has repeatedly mocked Americans for buying too much, but not too many yachts, not too many private jets, too many school supplies, too many toys. Americans don't need 37 dolls for your daughter. Just a couple is fine. You don't need 37 dollars for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don't need 37 dolls. So we're doing things right. We're running this country, right? There you go. And when Trump was asked about it, he doubled down and he goes, pencils. They don't even need that many pencils either. Said this week, got a lot of attention. You were at your cabinet meeting. You said,

quote, I'm going to quote what you said, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up? No, I think a tariffs are going to be great for us because it's going to make us rich. But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn't that an acknowledgement that some prices will go up? I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs. that's 11 years old, needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.

We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China. When you say they could have three dollars instead of $30, are you saying Americans could see empty store shelves? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they don't need to have $30. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.

Five pencils. That's it. That's all you get. Now, I'm not going to ignore that this might sound like a critique of mindless consumerism. And if this were really a critique of mindless consumerism, I would support it. If this were about environmental sustainability, pushing back on corporate excess, questioning whether constant consumption of crap actually makes us happier, I would be on board. But that is not what this is. This is not anti-consumerism from the left. This is scarcity economics from the right.

Notice what's missing. There's no talk about corporations raising prices while posting record profits. There's no talk about how kids are going to have to have fewer dolls and pencils, but Trump gets a multi, however many dollar military parade. There's no talk about the fact that health care bankruptcies are almost unique to the United States. There's no talk about wages lagging inflation for decades. The solution is lower your expectations. Want less, accept less and accept it quietly. You will have two dolls and you will like it.

And there's a sort of irony that is that is impossible to ignore, which is that the message is coming from a billionaire president surrounded by wealthy donors who has multiple houses, multiple golf courses, corporate executives and, you know, a officials who have never had to choose between groceries and rent. The people who fly private planes are telling you your kid doesn't really need that many pencils and dolls. The people who eat steak dinners and surf and turf at Mar-a-Lago completely overcooked and dilapidated but still expensive, they are saying a broccoli florette and a piece of chicken

and a corn tortilla is going to have to be enough for you. This is not about shared sacrifice. This is the logic you see in authoritarian systems everywhere. Look at the messaging in places like Cuba and Venezuela for so long. the elites and those in power enrich themselves. It's listen, no, we, we've got a project here that's important. And so you're going to get your pound of rice for a month for a family of four. And we're going to work to do it better. And maybe we can get you a little pork fat. Let's see if we can find some Crisco for you. And meanwhile, they are living it up with cigars and private jets in the

entire thing. This is starting to mirror that where the people at the top live large and everybody else is told restraint is a virtue for you. Not for me. Obviously. I'm going to get a full, I'm going to get a burrito sized tortilla. You get a taco sized tortilla. And Trump campaigned on more, not less. He said everyone will have more money, more winning, more greatness, more of everything you want. And instead, it's the rhetoric of, uh, uh, of scarcity as a sacrifice while they sacrifice nothing. Things are expensive and that's your problem. And you know what? Have a piece of chicken, have a tortilla, have a piece of broccoli and stop asking questions. Why didn't Trump run on this? that well, because it would have been a losing proposition to run on. One challenge in covering

politics today is that even when outlets are reporting the same facts, they often are framing the stories really differently. And our sponsor Ground News is a website and app that makes those differences easy to see. What Ground News does is gather coverage of the same story from across the political spectrum and shows you where the reporting is coming from. You can see which outlets lean left, right, or center, and you can also see how reliable they are and who owns them. What I find most useful is the side-by-side headline comparison. You're looking at the same underlying facts, but it's clear how different outlets will emphasize one angle or a narrative or another. Ground news gives you a transparent way to understand bias without being told what to

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Is it actually easier to convince people of really huge, outrageous lies than sports? small sort of believable lies. Let's explore that a little bit here. Peter Navarro is or was an economic advisor to Donald Trump. He then was convicted of crimes and pardoned. And I guess he's back speaking for Trump. I don't know. He recently went on national TV and said something just extraordinary about the housing

market. Now you might be looking around you want to buy a house and you're saying to yourself, why are these houses so expensive or you might be looking around and you want to rent a house or an apartment and you're saying why are the rents so expensive? Well, Peter Navarro has an answer for you. And the answer is the same answer they have for everything right now. Yes, Biden and illegal immigrants. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. He says all of the illegals renting apartments who came here under Biden have raised the cost of housing. If the arithmetic sounds a little bit off to you, well, maybe you've got a good head on your shoulders. Take a listen. And buried the lead. One of the

biggest drivers, Charles, of rents, higher rents in this country is the 20 million illegal aliens that came in during four years of Joe Biden. It's one million illegals, one percent increase in rent. That's a 20% national increase, but it's clustered in the blue cities and blue states like New York. And ironically, we get the Mondami's this world then. Mandami. Calling for socialist measures to solve a problem they created. All right. So let's first, we, you have to take this nonsense piece by piece.

Maybe there is some simplistic appeal to it. 20 million illegals come in, rents up 20%. Rent goes up 1% for every million illegals that. come in. Now, there's a few problems with that. Number one, even just to keep up with inflation, you would expect that there would be an increase to housing costs, just nominally in terms of currency adjusted dollars. That's number one. Number two, the actual numbers are that during the entire Biden administration, somewhere around three and a half million people entered the country illegally. Now, of course, you have to subtract out of that the ones that left, the ones that were deported,

from prior inflows and also the percentage of the three and a half million that at some point came in illegally that also left and the housing costs did not go up 20% while Biden was president. It was more like 16%. So first of all, even if you acknowledge the concept, you would have to completely change the numbers altogether. But the problem is that the entire concept is completely made up. There is no economic research that shows this relationship, between immigration and rent increases. Economies don't work that way. Housing markets certainly don't work that way.

Now, more people in the aggregate can certainly mean more demand for housing. That part is not controversial. But economists who study this stuff consistently find that immigration plays a very small role in raising housing costs compared to the real drivers of rent increases in housing costs going up. They're boring. The real explanations are boring. It's much cooler to go one million illegals. 1% housing goes up.

The truth is we aren't building enough houses. And by the way, a lot of the immigrants that are coming in that Navarro says are the problem are working in construction trying to build more houses. The reason we're not building enough houses include zoning restrictions. We saw interest rates dissuade some from buying or building. people moved to a more limited number of metro areas all at once after the pandemic. That costs some localized housing price increases. All of those forces and others are much better explanations for why housing prices are up rather than Navarro's cartoon math. Now, there's also something else

that is conveniently left out of Navarro's analysis, which is that undocumented immigrants do not typically show up and start bidding against you for luxury apartments or single family homes. Many of them are living in shared housing. Housing that is already, someone is already renting it. And maybe it's a four bedroom where there are six people sleeping in each bedroom and they are rotating through as they go and work. I mean, these are the circumstances in which a lot of people are living. That's not really going to change much if you add or swap out one person that's bunking in this house. There's also a lot of immigrants living in. multi-generational homes, informal arrangements. And again, a lot of them are doing this to work

in construction, the very industry that needs more housing supply. So the idea of immigration, especially undocumented immigration, causing a massive spike in rent doesn't hold up. What is happening here is that there is political scapegoating going on. Rent is expensive. That's true. People are angry about it and deservedly so. Trump's allies grab a real issue. and they scapego to familiar villain. This is why the populist rhetoric can be misused so often. I've given this example before I'll give it again. You hear Tucker and Bernie talk about the problems that big corporations have brought down on American society and how the middle class is getting screwed. If you don't ask them about solutions or who is to blame at the end of the day, Bernie and

Tucker will sound kind of similar as they diagnose the problem. As soon as you ask them for solutions and the scapegoats come out, you hear one idea from Bernie and from Tucker you hear, well, immigrants are making the country dirtier and poorer, which is a quote of something that Tucker Carlson said before. And so they are looking for scapegoats. And we've seen this trick over and and over again. You take a complicated economic problem, you remove all the nuance and you say, who can I blame for it? Maybe it's Somali Americans in Minneapolis. Maybe it's undocumented immigrants in Miami and Fort Lauderdale or whatever it is. It's easier than admitting the real problem, which is that American housing has been broken for a long time. Neither party has fixed

it. And this is part of why these ideas spread so quickly. They're meant to feel true and be emotionally salient. And if we want rent to come down, Navarro's explanation isn't going to help. And just think about it. We, we have been doing a mass deportation campaign for the last year. What direction have rents gone? They've gone up. The border is closed. We've been told no one's getting in. Trump goes there were zero one document. So wait, the border's been closed for almost a year. We've deported however many undocumented immigrants, we've, we've deported under Trump. And rent keeps going up. The last year of Trump directly undercuts what Peter Navarro is saying. But you know, it's better to have some slogan and for Peter Navarro to give us somebody

to yell at. That works much better for him. This one is almost unbelievable, not because the allegation is shocking, but because of how bad the defense is. News Nation interviewed Congresswoman Lisa McClain. She's a Republican. This is a very straightforward question. There are reports that her husband bought stock.

in XAI. XAI is not publicly traded. This is a private investment. XAI is Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company. Think of the timing. The purchase happened days before Pete Hegseth announced Elon's XAI is going to have a role in the Pentagon's systems. So News Nation asks a very obvious question. The timing is suspicious. Was that based on Inferm, Insight, information, Lisa McClain's answer is that no, because if it were insider trading, they would have bought a lot more shares. Ha ha ha ha. Oh, wow.

Take a look at this. Conclude by asking you a personal slash political question because there are reports that you're, you were speaking about Elon Musk earlier, that your husband bought stock in Elon Musk's AI company, which is not publicly traded XAI in the private market just days before a report had surfaced that the Pentagon was. expanding XII's role in military systems. On our tablet, you guys can flash this up, the periodic transaction report from the Congresswoman.

My question for you is, can you assure us? We've covered this issue of, you know, conflicts of interest and what have you. Can you assure us this purchase was not based on any kind of inside information? Yeah. 100%. Because if it was, we wouldn't have bought 100,000 shares. We would have bought a heck of a lot more. But I also had an actual bona fide opportunity to do insider returns.

I really would have committed a far bigger crime with way more shares. What a def- well, I'm convinced folks. I wanna stop you because we don't even have your facts straight on that. It wasn't a publicly traded stock. Which he said was I think about 470 million of which we, it was a private offering. Right, which is what I was saying. It's not a publicly traded company. So it was in the private market.

Right. Right. But that leads you that the same question would apply whether it's publicly traded or whether it's traded on these private markets about conflicts, potential conflicts of interest. So that's why I'm asking of it. You could assure us that there, he didn't know anything about that Pentagon report. And quite frankly, I think that's a very fair question to ask especially. We know.

All of the insider trading that happens up here. Okay. So that's the defense. Think about that for a second. Her argument is not we had no advanced knowledge nor could we have. The response was not this was in a blind trust. Someone else is making these decisions for us. This was not. Oh, it was based on public information. It's if we were cheating, we would have cheated way harder to make a lot more money. Imagine applying that logic anywhere else.

Officer, I didn't rob the bank because only $1,000 are missing. If I had robbed the bank, there would be a $250,000 missing. Believe me. Judge, this was not fraud. If it were, I would would have defrauded way, way, way more people. It is absurd. And the circumstances here make the explanation even more difficult to accept. If you hear that the president were meeting with oil executives, which he did. Okay. Recently the president met met with oil executives about the post-Venezuela stuff. If you heard the president was meeting with oil executives and you assume, you know, whatever comes out of that meeting, it's probably going to be good for oil companies. And you say, I'm going to buy publicly traded stocks ahead of the meeting.

I mean, listen, if you're a lawmaker, it's probably still ethically murky and you could make the argument lawmakers shouldn't even trade individual stocks, but at least the information is broadly available. That is not what happened here. This is a private company and it's a relatively, a relatively obscure private company. No public stock market. And the purchase is days before the Pentagon says, we are bringing them in to the Pentagon's network and the military's network. That looks very bad. Circumstantiately looks very bad.

And what makes it worse is of course, of course, the context, which is that members of Congress from both parties have spent years trading stocks directly tied to industries that they regulate, industries that they oversee, that they receive briefings about. And it's always a coincidence. It's legal. There's no inside information involved. And then every time, it's unbelievable timing. This is why public trust of Congress is in the toilet.

When confronted with a conflict of interest question involving what is at the end of the day, a defense contract and a billionaire tech CEO, I guess again friendly to the administration, as Elon Musk now is, the answer is, oh no, if that were what this was, we would have gone way, way harder. Pathetic. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. We will talk about Iran. We will talk about the suspension of immigrant visas from 75 countries. We will talk about Congressman Seth Moulton introducing an ICE defunding bill that he believes would be worth shutting down the government over.

All of that and more on the bonus show. Sign up at join packman.com and make sure to get on my free newsletter to also be notified Tuesday of our one day membership discount. It's going to be huge. Sign up at substack. Davidpackman.com.