The David Pakman Show - Presidency new lows as Trump humiliated in Davos

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

-- On the Show -- Maryland Governor Wes Moore joins us to explain how his administration is pushing back against Donald Trump's authoritarian actions, outline recent policy changes in Maryland, and discuss his political future -- Donald Trump faces broad public rejection as new polling shows majorities say the country is on the wrong track, his economic claims are not credible, and most Americans view him as dangerous -- Donald Trump triggers market turmoil by publicly threatening allies, escalating trade wars, and insisting on U.S. control of Greenland -- Donald Trump shows visible cognitive and physical decline during a rambling press event marked by confusion and erratic responses to questions about policy, violence, and foreign affairs -- Donald Trump struggles to answer basic questions about governance, foreign hostages, and legislative goals, repeatedly defaulting to trivial anecdotes and statements that reveal confusion about how government functions -- Donald Trump embarrasses the United States at the World Economic Forum by delivering a low energy, incoherent speech filled with slurring, factual errors, and false claims -- Stephanie Grisham publicly warns that Donald Trump appears mentally slipping after observing a disjointed and low energy press conference -- Erick Erickson argues that Donald Trump's Greenland obsession and reckless diplomacy are alienating allies and giving Republicans political permission to distance themselves from Trump -- On the Bonus Show: Trump made $1.4 billion in his first year back in office, Australia passes stricter gun laws after Bondi massacre, Kyrsten Sinema gets sued over an alleged affair with her bodyguard, and much more... 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 20% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:23) Polling shows broad Trump rejection (08:19) Trump rattles markets, threatens allies (13:03) Rambling press event raises concerns (25:49) Trump confused on basic governance (32:56) Incoherent World Economic Forum speech (38:23) Wes Moore interview (53:28) Stephanie Grisham warns of decline (58:38) Erick Erickson criticizes Greenland obsession    

Today we look at a presidency that is unraveling in real time. We have new polling that shows Americans are rejecting almost everything that the Trump administration is doing across the board with majority saying that the country is on the wrong track, out of control, and that Trump himself is dangerous. It's not just polling. We also saw markets plunge yesterday as Trump ranted and threatened allies and picked new fights, including a now unhinged obsession with Iceland. Sorry, Greenland, that's the mistake Trump made during his speech in Davos today, calling it

Iceland instead of Greenland. He doesn't even know what country he's trying to steal. And then there is the rambling and the confusion and the bizarre answers to basic questions. And it's gotten so bad that there is now a former Trump press secretary saying that he needs a psychiatric evaluation. We will speak to Maryland governor Wes Moore and see how he has been and is preparing to deal with ice and other Trump-based calamities. And we will also talk about the consequences of this administration piling up, including what

that means for our relationships with large swaths of the world. What a show. I suggest we record this one. We start today with the presidency reaching new lows. Americans have been polled specifically on the issues, on the specific policy changes and ideas that this administration has put forward. And it is a poll that shows a presidency collapsing, Trump failing on everything, and Americans rejecting every major area of focus for this administration. We are going to look at the polling. This is an economist UGov poll, and it is extraordinarily

disturbing to look at what is going on. We start with a relatively simple question you would think. Is the country going in the right direction or in the wrong direction? 61% of the country believes the country is on the wrong track under Donald Trump. And then on the question of whether the country is currently under control, 71% say the country is out of control. Now, that one, you know, this is one of those things where is it out of control because Is Trump's out of control or is it out of control and Trump is trying to get it under control? Why you believe the country is out of control is of an important detail. And we're going to delve into that specific issue more either tomorrow or on the Friday

show. On the question of sending federal troops to Minneapolis, only 37% of Americans support that as a matter of policy. And asked more questions about ICE and the entire operation, 47% of the country approves of protests against ICE. Now I've got to tell you, that's concerning because we are talking about constitutionally protected. First Amendment.

I mean, it's just it is protesting. It is using your voice. It is a form of speech. And not even half the country supports that. That is kind of a problem. I have to tell you. Now, when you clarify and say, should peaceful protest against ICE be allowed, which is a more specific question, not do you support the message of the protesters, but should it be allowed?

Fortunately, 77% of Americans say, yes, we believe that you should be allowed to protest against ICE. What's crazy is the other 23%, 12 of whom say, no, protests shouldn't even be allowed and 11% who aren't sure. this little thing called the First Amendment, which says the protests are allowed, period. So a little bit of a concern when it comes to speech. More questions in the poll about the situation in Minneapolis asked, did Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman who was shot dead by ice.

Did she threaten ICE agents? Only 29% of Americans believed that she was a threat to ICE agents and then asked, whether the shooting was justified, only 29% believed that the ice shooting of Renee Good was justified. On the question of whether you can believe the economic data being reported by this administration, how much do you trust the data? 56% of Americans distrust the economic data. 10% don't know. And right now, when this administration puts out a piece of economic data, only a third of Americans trusted. In other words, two thirds of Americans either know or suspect that the economic data being put

out by the Trump administration is, quite frankly, bullshit. On the question of Venezuela, we started asking when Trump kidnapped Maduro, who supports this? Does anyone support invading Venezuela? Does anyone support the U.S. running Venezuela? Does anyone support any of this stuff? And the answer is mostly no. Only 31% support invading Venezuela. Only 35% believe that Trump's intervention, meaning the kidnap of Maduro was justified.

And only 17% believe that the United States should run Venezuela. No one wants this. People want affordable health care. People want affordable food, housing, safe communities. safe communities, education. Do they want Trump running Venezuela? No, they don't. On the issue of Greenland, only 9% of Americans support taking Greenland by force.

That I believe that Trump is going to have to get away from this Greenland stuff. We'll look at his statements today in Davos, where he confused Iceland and Greenland. But this is not something that Americans want at all. And I believe he's going to have to give up on it. On the issue of Trump's signature policy areas, it also doesn't look much better. Trump ran on I will fix crime. Crime is going to be like the thing for me. Only 42% of Americans after a year of Trump back in office approve of Trump's job on crime.

This was like the issue in addition to immigration. Speaking of immigration, only 43% of Americans, approve of the job Trump is doing on immigration. This was his big thing that he was going to solve. And then on inflation and prices, a key issue and also one of the most important issues to voters, barely a third, 34% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing on inflation and prices. Finally, on attributes and characteristics, only 32% of Americans believe Trump to be honest and trust, worthy and 53% of the country, a majority believes that Donald Trump is straight up dangerous. What does this mean?

Number one, buyer's remorse, first and foremost, a lot of people who voted for Trump no longer are happy with that vote. Trump's Latino support has been almost cut in half based on where it was and where it is now. And then the context is a rapidly approaching election. I can't believe like primaries are starting already and we're just months away from these midterms. We have midterms where on average you would expect Republicans to lose over 20 seats, which would hand control of the House to Democrats. But with approval ratings this low and with this share of the country displeased with the job

Trump is doing, we could be looking at, as I recently said on CNN, a 40 seat swing, a 50 seat swing or even a 60 seat swing if we can make it happen. A disastrous day for the stock market yesterday because of one guy, Donald Trump. The S&P 500 down over 2%. The Dow down nearly 900 points. And the NASDAQ or as Trump calls it the NASDAG down almost two and a half points. Why? Well, there's a whole bunch of reasons. Sort of funny optics. Here is CNN displaying the stock market rapidly collapsing as Trump is bragging about the stock market. Actually, officially 12 months as of today.

52 all-time record highs. That means 401ks did great. I have people see me all the time. Policemen that guard us really well. And they're sobbing. They go, sir. Got to know him a little bit. They said, so you're making me look so good in my 401 case through the roof. My wife thinks I'm the greatest genius and I'm a financial genius like Warren Buffett. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is there is sometimes this thing you hear, oh, the vast majority of the shares are owned institutionally and by the very rich. So the stock market moves don't really affect the average person. Well, but by by wealth concentration, that's true. But there are a lot of people with modest net worths whose retirement savings is in a 401k and it moves with the market.

And it's really impactful. If Trump loses 5% of his wealth, it's not really a huge deal. If as he says, the firefighters and the police officers lose 5% of their 401k, all of a sudden, that is quite different. And indeed, as Trump speaks, the stock market declining and declining. Now, why is this happening? There's a few different reasons. Number one, Trump wrote this completely deranged.

letter to Norway, which we looked at yesterday. I won't read the entire thing, but the gist of it is that Trump says, hey, you know what? I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I stopped more than eight wars and Norway decided not to give it to me. And because Norway didn't give me the Peace Prize, even though it's administered by the Nobel Prize Foundation, not the government of Norway, even though Norway didn't give it, because Norway didn't give me the Peace Prize, I am going to take Greenland from Denmark, demented. It doesn't make any sense, but it is so erratic that it shook up the stock market. The other reason the stock market was shaken up yesterday is that Donald Trump said, if

Macron, the French president, doesn't join my Gaza Board of Peace, I will tariff France 200%. Have you invited President Putin to be a member of the Board of Peace? Yeah, he's been invited. Did you give any response to President Macron saying he will not join the border peace? Oh, did you say that? Well, nobody wants it because he's going to be out of office very soon. So, you know, that's all right. What I'll do is if they feel like costo, I'll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champains

and he'll join. But there you go. And that threat as Trump is increasingly erratic, shook up the stock markets. And then finally, again, back to Greenland, Donald Trump deciding the U.S. must take control of Greenland. They, we just, we must have it. And Trump issuing threats in a truth post where he said, quote, I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rut, the secretary general of NATO concerning Greenland.

I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed plainly, Greenland is imperative for national and world security. There can be no going back on that everyone agrees. The US is the most powerful country anywhere on the globe by far. Much of the reason for this is a rebuilding of our military during my first term. which rebuilding continues at even more expedited pace. We are the only power that can ensure peace throughout the world and it is done through strength. Okay.

So the point here is this stuff has real consequences. When Trump says this crap, it moves markets and it hurts people. Now as of this moment that I'm recording, we have a partial recovery from yesterday's decline. About half of the loss has been recovered so far. hours left in the trading day, we will see where it lands. But lest anyone tell you that Trump's speaking is merely speaking and you've got to go only by what Donald Trump does and what he does is completely fine. Well, what he does is pretty bad.

But also the speaking is moving markets and it is hurting people's 401k's the police officer who came up to him and said, sir, my 401k is doing great. Is that same police officer saying the same thing when the Dow is down nearly 900 points? I think probably not. The last 24 hours have been so disturbing with regard to Donald Trump's behavior that it has led his own former press secretary to say it's time for a cognitive evaluation, not which one of these is a giraffe, not that, but a serious evaluation. We'll get to that.

Donald Trump, before leaving to Davos, held a press conference and he spoke to the press court at the White House. He was barely able to speak. He was declining quickly. He was almost seriously injured. I'll show you that in a moment. But this is a person who we would question the fitness of to do any job, never mind president of the United States.

Trump starts by bringing out a stack of papers about his accomplishments in the first year, flips through it with absolutely no energy, and then just dumps it on the floor. Here's the book. These are all things we have. I'm going to read a few of the samples, but look at this. These are all, each line is something that we did. Nobody did that before. And it's, it's big stuff too.

Look, we have the hottest country in the world. And there he dumps the entire thing. Each line in here is something I did, but I'm going to throw it on the ground. Trump then really struggling to read, confusing loved one and lover, trying to recover, visibly disoriented and a silent press corps. looks on in horror. With your loved one, with your lover, your lover's not going to be killed anymore,

so he can act like a real lover. Your lover is not going to be killed anymore. But you can be, you can walk right through the middle of the town, and D.C. is beautiful again, too, you know. You notice we took all the fences down, almost all the rest are coming down. Yeah. We got the graffiti all off.

National guards been amazing. You know, we didn't tell them to do. that that's not their job description. They decided to start doing cleanup duty completely on their own. Now, a scary moment as Donald Trump was almost seriously injured, he tried to remove a paperclip of sorts and it almost snapped his finger. And we we should be glad that Trump didn't have to be taken out on a stretcher. He also is, of course, the most alpha person there ever is. The book on accomplishments. And this is something, we'll I'm glad my finger wasn't in that. They could have done some damage, but you know what? I wouldn't have

shown the pain. I would have gone back. What, did you hear that? That was nasty. But I would not have shown the pain. I would have actually clearly it was a extra tight paperclip of sorts that Antifa or maybe even Black Lives Matter set Trump up with. I almost would call that an assassination attempt, but by the grace of God and Jesus, Donald Trump was fortunately not, not injured. Maybe the most disoriented moment of the press conference. Trump talking about how his mom said he could be a baseball player before getting sidetracked off of his sidetrack into explanations about what mental institutions are. We had in my area in Queens.

I grew up in Queens. We had a place called Creedmore. Creed more. Did anybody know that? Crete Moore. It was a big, I said, Mom, why are those bars on the building? I used to play Little League Baseball there, a place called Cunningham Park. I was so good I could turn a double play. It was quite the baseball play.

You wouldn't believe. But I said to my mother, Mom, she would be there, always there for me. She said, son, you could be a professional baseball player. I said, thanks, Mom. I said, why are those bars on the windows? Big building, big, powerful building. It loomed over the park, actually. She said, well, people that are very sicker in that building. Right. I said, boy, I used to always look at that building and I'd see big building, big tall building. It loomed over the park. It was sort of now that I think it was pretty unfriendly side. And it had doors and windows. Okay. So Trump took. explaining to us about mental institutions more substantively on the issue of the killing

of the 37 year old Renee Good by an ICE officer. Trump says, you know, someone else was yelling stuff. I believe we now know this to be Renee Good's widow, I think we would say now. But Trump was like it was really, really nasty stuff. But when she was shot, there was another woman that was screaming shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, right? You saw it so loud. like a professional opera singer. She was so loud and so professional. Right. She wasn't a woman

that was hurt like, all my heart's injured. She was a professional. She's shame, shame, she's screaming, shame, I said, that's not a normal person that's, that's a professional. And that's why Renee Good deserve to be killed. I mean, this, this is, this is lunatic stuff. I mean, truly lunatic stuff. Now, Trump acknowledged sometimes ICE will be a little rough with people. So it's going to happen. There will be mistakes made. There's going to be mistakes made. But when Trump learned that Renee Good's father was a Trump supporter, then he started feeling bad. And you know, they're going to make mistakes sometimes. Ice is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know, they're dealing with rough people. They're going to make a mistake.

Sometimes it can happen. We feel terribly. I felt horribly when I was told that the young, woman who was, had the tragedy. It's a tragedy. It's a horrible thing. Everybody would say, ICE would say the same thing. But when I learned her parents and her father in particular is like I hope he still is, but I don't know. I hope that the father of the woman my goons killed is still a fan of mine. That's what Trump is trying to say here. A tremendous Trump. fan. He was all for Trump. I love Trump. And, uh, you know, it's terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he, he loves you. He, he was a, I hope, I hope he still feels that way. And it's hard. Even though my goons killed his daughter. I hope he's still a fan of mine.

That is the very empathetic Donald Trump. Trump on the Nobel Peace Prize says he should have gotten eight Nobel Peace Prizes, not one. He should get one for each war, he claims to have ended. You should have gotten the Nobel Prize for each war, but I don't say that. I saved millions and millions of people. And don't let anyone tell you that Norway doesn't control the shots, okay? It's in Norway. Norway controls the shots. I'll say, we have nothing to do with it. It's a joke. They've lost such prestige. Got all, that's why I have such respect for Maria doing what she did. She said, I don't deserve it. the Nobel Prize he does when she got it.

They named, they said, wow, that's amazing. I thought President Trump would get it. There you go. Everybody just really believed Trump's the one who should get it. And then finally, Trump says that as judged by God himself, he's done an incredible job. Very much. First of all, last year you told me that you believe that the reason you won the election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world.

Looking back one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you're going to of the effort thing you've played. I do. Actually, I think God is very proud of the job I've done. And that includes for religion. You know, we're protecting a lot of people that are being killed. Christians and Jewish people and lots of people are being protected by- We're protecting Jewish.

All right. So after this disastrously bad press conference, Trump does an interview with News Nation that's supposed to be easy. It didn't go well. And then he went to Davos, Switzerland and deliberate. a globally humiliating speech. We will hear from Trump's former press secretary who says it's time. It's time for a serious, cognitive, potentially neuropsychiatric eval of Trump. We're going to take a very quick break. Make sure you're getting my substack newsletter.substack.com. We'll be back.

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Everything tastes like a treat, but feels simple and high quality. Look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store or get $5 off your next order at magic spoon.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. Well, I'm glad to say nothing is changing in 2026 as far as the David Pacman show primarily being funded by our audience. And so I invite you to sign up at join packman.com. We do an extra show every day for our members. This is not theoretical. This is the funding source primarily that funds the program, staff salaries and benefits, connectivity and equipment. Everything we do is funded by our audience. If you missed yesterday's membership special and you're like, do I really wanted to take advantage of that? Just send us an

email info at david packman.com and I will send you the code. I've got 41 people right now. We've got to get back to who asked for the code. Just give us time. And I want to say thank you to the 405 of you who signed up yesterday, making it one of the most successful. successful membership drives we've had, join packman.com. If you want that code, email info at David Pakman.com. It was supposed to be an easy interview with News Nation's Katie Pavlach. But as we know, with Donald Trump, there's no such thing as an easy interview because if it's an adversarial interview, he collapses.

And if it's a friendly interview, he feels so disinhibited that he says wacky and deranged stuff. was asked a relatively simple question. 2026, what are your goals? What do you want to get passed through Congress? You may not have the house after the 2026 elections. So you must have some goals for this year, Mr. President, sir. And Trump mentioned straws. He doesn't want paper straws.

And he wants better water pressure. When he is power flushing 10, 15 times to get the classified documents to go down. He doesn't want weak. He wants like those, you know, the hospital toilets where you flush and it's like, Kaboom. That is what Donald Trump is looking for. So looking back here at home domestically last year, you worked with Congress very closely Republicans in charge of both the House and the Senate.

And of course, you're in the White House and you worked with them on the big, beautiful bill for 2026, especially in a midterm election here. What is your goal for Congress in terms of getting your agenda through? What is on the agenda? What expectations do you have for Congress? Well, one of the things I'd like to do, you know, we pass so many executive orders. I have great executive orders that are rules. Of course, executive orders are not passed. The common sense and good and have, I mean, like water coming out of a sink, the water wouldn't

come out. They had all sorts of ridiculous restrictions. It was dripping very, very quietly. I took all of that off coming out of the shower head. You'd stand under a shower. There's no water coming out. So I pay so many things like that, straws, they don't have to be paper anymore. They don't have to melt in your mouth. So I pass so many different things like that and much more important things, but like that.

They're important equality of life. And I'd like to have all of that confirmed by Congress if we can. That is huge. That's going to be big for the average American. You know, his brain is completely broken. It just doesn't work anymore. People want affordable health care. People want affordable housing.

People want to know that when they leave their. their house, they are going to be safe. People want to know that when they, you know, as they are saving for college for their kids, that when the time comes for their kids to go to college, that it's going to be affordable and there's still going to be a functional system. And Trump's talking about straws and water pressure. Now, listen, I've been known to complain about poor water pressure. I understand the frustration. It is an issue. It is an issue. I've switched hotel rooms in order to get that. I need what they use on an elephant, but people need health care. What about the prices that we're going to come down?

What about all of it? But Trump goes, no, we've kind of like, we've done everything. Everything's good with the economy. Now, we've done a great job. I think the economy is phenomenal. We're rebuilding the military, continue to rebuild it. And again, right now we're recognized as having the strongest military in the world. And I rebuilt the military in my first term.

Trump can keep repeating it. But what we learned from President Biden's presidency is that repeating that everything's awesome, doesn't convince people that everything is awesome. Trump asked, what's the difference between your first term and your second term? Well, Trump says in the first term, he was hunted and now he's the hunter. Sounds like law and order, huh? But the fake news, the first, the fake politicians, everything, Russia, Russia, Russia, the hoax, the hoax of the century, all of the different things.

And in a way, I was the hunted. And now I'm more of the hunter, I must tell you. And these are bad people. These are sick people. They got to know something wrong with them. But this is more pleasurable. There's no question about it. But Trump is much more pleasured by being the hunter rather than the hunted.

The real answer to what's different is Trump should go, well, I'm completely demented now where I was only partially during during my first term. Trump was asked about Dennis Coyle, who has been held hostage by the Taliban for almost a year. And Trump's like, huh, who? All right. Well, give me the information. info and I'll get them out right away. This has been freeing hostages all of the world.

Israeli hostages, American hostages. American Dennis Coyle has been taken at hostage by the Taliban for almost a year now. His family has been speaking out. Molly Long went on News Nation last week to ask for some more public attention to this case. What is your administration doing to get him home? Well, you give me the name. Dennis Coyle. Okay, well, you give me some information.

I'll take care of that. I know that your administration is. working on it. I know they are, but I could do some things on the internet that are pretty. Do you have any? Oh, that's genius. What's his name? Huh?

Oh, yeah. You know, I could do the things that Barron is doing with computers these days. I could do some stuff on the internet. We'll get it all taken care of very, very quickly, very quickly. Trump says we're building a golden dome. And he seems to believe that the dome is physical. Sort of like at one point he believed stealth bombers were literally invisible. were literally invisible to the naked eye rather than just invisible to radar.

I think Trump thinks the dome is a physical dome. It states. And as an example, we're building the golden dome, which would have a dome over the country. Somebody wants to shoot missiles. It'll knock them out of the air like match sticks. It'll go very nicely. It's amazing in the States. And so Trump seemingly thinks that it is a physical, a physical dome.

And then finally, Trump acknowledges it's much easier to rule as an autocrat with no checks and balances. The Insurrection Act would just make things very easy for Trump to do whatever he want. The Interaction Act would allow you, requires essentially, that if federal law cannot be enforced, you can invoke it and it would allow it to be enforced. So where are you with that threat? Do you still think it's necessary? I don't think it is yet. It might be at some point. It is actually very common. You know, with me, they'll make it like a big deal. But it's been used by over 40% of the presidents during their term. It's something I would have no problem doing if I think we needed it.

We have great people at ICE. They're strong people. They're smart people. And I don't think it's necessary yet. But, you know, I see they're building up like, oh, if he ever did that. Over 40% of the presidents used it. Some presidents used it actually many times. And it does make life a lot easier.

For Trump. You don't go through the court system. You don't, you know, it's just a much. easier thing to do. But I don't think we need it at this point. And hopefully we won't need it. But I would, I would not have any problem with invoking it if we know. We know it would make things much easier for Trump. It would unfortunately not be so good for the rule of law. And for everybody else in the country. After this interview, Donald Trump jetting off to Switzerland. Trump's trip to Davos at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland did not see.

start well. Now, I'm not even talking about the fact that when the speech started, he was slurring badly. I mean that Trump's plane had to turn around and then switch between one of the 747s often used as Air Force one to the other. But eventually, Trump did make it to Switzerland. Our representative at the World Economic Forum slurring very badly and starts his speech by saying he is addressing friends and a few enemies. The one line that got a laugh. And I got to tell you. People are laughing because they don't take this guy seriously, not because they find him charming and charismatic. And to address so many respected business leaders, so many friends, few enemies, and all of the distinguished guests, it's a who's who, I will say.

Distinguished guess is a who's who. Now, this room was so silent for much of the speech that if Donald Trump had done the flatulence that he often does during the speech, speeches, it would have been audible. So silent because of the disbelief that this is the president of the United States. Nuclear will, nuclear will take three weeks. But most ongoing that they're going oil and gas. They're even going coal in some cases. Because of my landslide election victory, the United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse, which befell every European nation that pursued the green news scam, perhaps the greatest hoax in history. Silence. Silence. Now, this is when it really started getting scary. And this next clip is a

prototypical example of why many who even worked for Trump previously are saying it's time for a proper neuropsychiatric evaluation. Trump ranting about Greenland, except he keeps calling it Iceland. He keeps calling it Iceland. In doing it, I'm helping Europe. I'm helping NATO. And I've, until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right? The last time, very smart man said, he's our daddy. He's running it. I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. And now what I'm asking for is in doing it. Remember, Donnie, Iceland is green. Greenland is ice getting very, very confused.

The room just mostly silent. It's sad because the respect often doesn't die with fireworks. Respect dies with silence where people are like, whatever, dude, we don't care what you've got to say. We don't respect you. Just over one year ago, under the radical left Democrats, we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Everybody's just like, whatever, more of this same crap from a guy who barely matters anymore.

And then Trump, of course, just saying, we're building everything. We're building factories. We're building this. We're building that. Domestic steel production is up by 300,000 tons a month. And it's doubling over the next four months. It's doubling and tripling. We have steel plants being built all over the country.

Yeah, you know, I did a little bit of research into this. I did find that under Joe Biden, there was the construction of a plant, but that was, of course, under Joe Biden. There may be one other, I guess, that is breaking ground soon, but Trump as usual, overpromising and under delivering. The world is no longer laughing, folks. You should see my inbox. I have even. Right now from people in Denmark, the UK, Serbia, Ireland, Italy, and other countries saying here, it's not even ha ha Donald Trump anymore. It's the US is just not seen as legitimate under Trump. And unfortunately, I think it's going to take more than a presidential term to get it back.

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Get 27% off everything on their site when you go to helix sleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the description. It's great to have on for the first time today, the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. Governor, so good to have you on. Really appreciate it. It's my pleasure, man. I'm excited to do it. So listen, because you haven't been on before, I want to go back a little bit to an incident back in August of 2025, where the president said you privately acknowledged that he's the greatest president and doing a wonderful job, which I was skeptical that you really said that to him.

Can you just talk us through the origin story of what went down? This happened around the same time that there was video of you. I think simply as the governor saying hello to him, I believe it was at a football game. That's exactly right. It was at the Army Navy game. And the Army Navy game was taking place in my state. But also as an Army guy, like I don't like miss an Army Navy games, period, because I just want to see the Army win. And they're like, the president-elect would like to meet you.

And I was like, that's cool. And so he comes up. And as soon as I saw him, I said, you know, welcome back to Maryland, Mr. President. And the first thing he said to me, he says, you're a really good looking guy in person. And I was just like, thank you, Mr. President. I was like, go Army. And then he said, how can I help you? And then I started talking about, he said, he told me, he said, my people tell me you're doing a really good job.

And he said, how can I help you? And I said, and I said, I want to talk to you about the bridge. because months before I met him, we had one of the most tragic moments in our state's history when the key bridge collapsed after being hit by his ship. And told him what we're working on that this is the fastest moving project, major project in the country right now.

And somehow that conversation in his own mind turned into me telling him that he was the greatest president of my lifetime. So it was fascinating hearing his recollection of something that just never happened. Yeah, it was a slight exaggeration, I guess of what what you said. Listen, I want to talk about Maryland and specifically Baltimore because as we saw the two by three block radius of Los Angeles that was supposedly chaotic enough to support militarizing law enforcement

there by the president. And then what we've seen up through and including in Minneapolis, which includes a number of different tragedies and abuses of power. Baltimore has been in the conversation for the White House in terms of we might, we might go there next. Have you had official conversations with the White House about that or has it mostly been strategizing within the state of Maryland about what you would do if that were to come to pass? Well, no, I mean, the really powerful thing is that whenever the president was making these, you know, these tropes about Baltimore and our chaos and the violence, that the, the, the

The reality is that he just had no data to reinforce it. In fact, what we saw was that since I've been the governor, we've actually done something really unique, which is work together with local law enforcement, with local leadership, the mayor of Baltimore, county executives around the state, and now the violent crime in Maryland is down nearly 50 percent since I have been the governor. It is the fastest drop of anywhere in the United States of America. And then in Baltimore City, the last time the homicide rate was this low, I wasn't born yet. And so when the president is talking about the lawlessness, I just told him, I said, I would love for you to take a walk with me around our communities and see what I see, which is actually people working together to address an issue that was a

crisis before we took over. But now we have seen the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States of America. So, you know, as someone who's also military veteran, you know, I take a personal and a specific offense to him just using these, you know, using our military personnel like they're just choice soldiers. But also it was very clear that if you're looking for places of chaos and, and lawlessness, don't come to Maryland because that doesn't exist here. One of the things that I find really interesting about your approach on crime and to sort of zoom out to the 30,000 foot level just a little bit, one of the things that's really

tough about these conversations about crime is that on the one hand, When you have higher population density, you have more crime. It's just sort of like a statistical reality. At the same time, we have decades of crime reduction in the United States that is sort of the background rate. And so whenever anybody wants to point to statistics, we have to remember that this is a country that for 30 years has seen a reduction in both violent and nonviolent crime rates. And then you have to go further and say, in a particular area, is there a policy that

has bent the line one way or the other? But with that sort of as the context, you've taken an approach that is not a defund the police approach. In other words, you've identified. It seems as though law enforcement may need more resources in some places and in certain ways, which can include training, et cetera. Can you talk a little bit about that in terms of your left approach to this issue versus the we've got a defund approach that we've seen from some on the left? Yeah, I mean, because because for me, this is not driven by a political ideology. We drive it by data. And the thing I wanted to do is say, we have to both increase accountability and increase opportunity. So, yes, we made historic investments

in local law enforcement in the state of Maryland. I believe that they do play an important role in making sure the communities feel safe, that we did invest in both our state's attorneys and also our public defenders and making Maryland one of the only state that actually helps to fund the U.S. attorney out of balance sheet. Because if someone commits, a violent crime, particularly a violent crime with a firearm, I want them in handcuffs in 24 hours, and they will be held to account. Yet at the same time, we are going to deal with the root causes. It's the reason that when I came on board, I said that Maryland is going to have the most aggressive and bipartisan push to end child poverty in the state of Maryland. And I'm proud of the results

that we have been able to drive on this issue. But the reason that I was explaining people, that it isn't just because I think child poverty is an embarrassment in any civilized society. It's also because if you care about public safety, focus on ending child poverty. Because oftentimes you see the areas that have to deal with poverty and oftentimes concentrated and generational poverty. They're also the places that deal with the heaviest levels of violence. So increase accountability and increase opportunity. And I think that's been the formula that we have been using and it's a formula that's working. So to go back from crime to the federalization, militarization stuff, when we spoke to Governor

Shapiro, for example, or we've looked at what Governor Pritzker did when it looked like maybe Trump was interested in in Chicago as a target. And we're seeing what Governor Walls is now dealing with in Minnesota. What would be your approach if it came to the point at which, yes, Baltimore is our next stop for the president? What is the plan that you have in place? Well, I remember when the president was threatening that last summer, and he was talking about the deployment of our National Guard. And I was very clear, I am the commander-in-chief of the Maryland National Guard, not the president. The governor is the commander-in-chief. They move on the orders of the commander-in-chief. I'm very clear on where lines of authority begin. I'm very clear on where lines of authority end. And I'm also very clear that we have remarkably trained citizen soldiers in our National Guard, and frankly, they deserve the respect of a commander-in-chief who actually does not use them

randomly or for political purposes, but actually understands the lies that they live. And so our ability to show that you can drive down violent crime, our ability to show that you can lead by constitutional policing and not by authoritarian takeovers, that you can actually work with community to drive down crime in neighborhoods and not think that, the National Guard instead of being there to decrease violence, you're actually there to incite it. There is a better approach. And I think that what Maryland is showing is that in this moment, we're not just there to push back, but we can actually show a way to push forward and show that there's a better direction and there's a better way from a type of chaotic decision making

that we're seeing from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Governor Walls said he fears his state could end up in a situation where it's ICE agents up against essentially members of the Minnesota National Guard, which would be a tragedy and it would also be a real tangible issue that's got to be sorted out. Have you thought about that? Is there a scenario where you would say, this is too much. We actually need to use the Maryland National Guard to stop ice. Well, the truth is is that we're already there. The fact that Governor Wallace even has to have this conversation.

And Governor Walls is not only a colleague, but he's a friend. And us as governors, we actually have a very close relationship. I'm currently the vice chair of the National Governors Association. And so I work both Democratic and Republican governors. And this violation of state rights that we are seeing, this violation of basic fundamental authorities and understanding what is the proper usage of these type of responsibilities. and forces has just been staggering to both Democratic and Republican governors. So, you know,

so I think for all of us, there are a collection of scenarios that we now have to spend time thinking through, that we have to spend time preparing for, that we know should not have to be the things that are on top of mind when we should be focusing on things like bringing down the cost of living for the people of our states, making sure that people can feel safer in our communities, making sure that our states can be more economically competitive against our neighbors. Those are the things that we should be zeroing and focusing on. And it's just heartbreaking to me that colleagues like like Tim have to focus on things like should my National Guard prepare to do battle against ice. This shows the level of insanity to the place that we're in right now. So it sounds like you

have thought about what that would be like. You're maybe not ready to tell us exactly what milestones it would take, but this is a, you've thought about what it would take and how you would react. Oh, absolutely. I think the unfortunate thing is that as governors, we are now having to spend time running scenarios that we should never have to be thinking about. Our focus should be on making sure that we're bringing down the cost of prices, making sure that we're making our states more competitive. Frankly, it's the things that the President of the United States should be focusing on. It's the thing that he ran on. And instead of, instead of doing that, You know, he's focusing on starting wars in other countries and, and, and increasing violence

in his own. Governor, last thing I want to ask you about, you made a statement when you were asked, you are not running for president in 2028. That's right. Only people that are being thought of in that way usually would make such a statement. Like if I said it, no, well, actually, I wasn't even born in the US, so I couldn't be president. But if I said it, nobody would care because it's like, yeah, we know, David, you're not running

nor nor can you be president. Tell me about the thought process. And what is it about that job that is interesting versus not interesting and why it was something that you knew years ahead of time you were not going to be doing in 2028? You know, I think about why I ran for governor. You know, I had people who were coming up to me before, before I ever decided to run for any office. And after my, after one of my mentors, Elijah Cummings, after he died, where they were encouraged

me to run for his congressional seat. He was a dear friend and a mentor of mine. And I thought about it and I said, you know, that's not what I think I should be doing. And I love Elijah Cummings and his family and his advisors. But I just told them. I said, that's not what I think I should be doing. There was nothing that anyone could have told me to get me to run for Congress. Fast forward when I made the decision that I wanted to run for government,

when I made the decision that I wanted to end child poverty in the state of Maryland, when I made the decision that I wanted to go through this process of being the state's chief executive, There are a lot of people who are in my ear telling me I shouldn't do it. That you can't win, that, you know, you're in 13th place, you're pulling at 1%. This is going to be really bad for you. There's nothing anyone could have told me to get me not to run. That my mind was set. And so I'm very thankful that people around the country are noticing that, you know,

since I've been the governor, we've seen the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States of America that we've added over 35,000 new businesses in the state of Maryland, over close to 100,000 new jobs, that Maryland now has a population that's growing at a faster rate than we've seen in a decade. That Maryland is bucking trends and Maryland is moving. And I'm thankful that people are taking notice, but I'm also really excited about running free election and winning this November in a way that is not just going to be an election win, but in a way that's going to send a message.

Are you ready to rule out 2032? Could you do that for us? Not yet, right? I mean, it's so far away. We shouldn't we shouldn't get so far ahead of ourselves. Listen, I have learned at the pace of the Trump years that March is so far away. It's too far. Exactly.

Exactly. Listen, Governor Westmore of Maryland, so glad to have had a chance to chat with you today. Really appreciate your time. And I know my audience is paying really close attention to what you're doing in the state of Maryland. Thank you, man. bless you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Scams and identity theft rarely start with a hacked password. They usually start when your personal information is easy to find online. Your address,

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remove. That level of coverage really matters. Even a single exposed profile can lead to fraud, harassment, identity theft. Incogni's removal process is independently verified by Deloitte, and you can get 60% off when you go to incogny.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. Well, we're at the point where even people who worked for Donald Trump are saying the quiet part out loud. These are not anonymous editorials or Democrats or left. One of Donald Trump's own former press secretaries is publicly warning. Something is off mentally. She's talking not about policy, but about his mind.

And this is Stephanie Grisham, who served as Donald Trump's press secretary during a period of Donald Trump's first term. She defended him. She covered for him. She watched it all up close. And after Donald Trump's demented endless press conference yesterday, she posted the following to Twitter. Quote, this presser is bizarre, even for him.

It's all the usual rambling, off-topic tales, half-truths, lies. I fixed everything. No one has ever seen anything like it stuff. But it's low energy and feels like he's mentally slipping. Congress, please wake up. Please. Hashtag emperor has no clothes. If you watch this press conference, as we did and we played clips of it earlier,

you probably felt it too. anybody with a connection to reality would recognize all of the familiar Trump elements that are only getting more serious. The rambling stories that go nowhere. Complaints about the media. Confusion. Claims that he fixed everything. Claims that he's treated unfairly.

Claims that he deserves more accolades. Numbers that are made up. But there was something else going on in this one. It was low energy in a way that they aren't all. It was disjointed. It was meandering in a way that didn't feel strategic. It didn't feel theatrical. It was vacant in a way.

Trump said a lot of the same stuff, but in a less bombastic way, it was not Trump riffing. It was more like he was losing the thread. I know I'm supposed to be claiming that I need multiple Nobel peace prizes. But like, what was I doing up here to begin with? Oh, right. The whole point of this was that I was going to read through this. of papers about all of my first year accomplishments. After all, yesterday was the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's first, uh, uh, set first year of his second term. But then he just

kind of goes, each thing on this is an accomplishment. And then he just dumps the thing and moves on to ranting and raving about how his mom said he could be a pro baseball player, but there was an insane asylum nearby. And what does that mean? And why were there bars on the windows? This is advancing whatever it is. If we had a fortune five, company that Trump was the CEO of rather than being president of the United States, the board of directors would be saying, we got to get this guy out. Let's do it now. Let's do it quick and let's get him out of here.

He's president. His party is still to a degree terrified of him. The people who work for him are absolutely terrified of him. So they just kind of shrug and they're not going to do anything about it. And then we lose the ability to actually deal with it in any serious way. But people that worked for him like Stephanie Grisham, we've also talked to Sarah. Marathus, Trump's ex-deputy White House press secretary. She's said this is not right.

This is not normal. So Stephanie Grisham is right. Congress needs to wake up pretending that this is normal doesn't make it normal. It makes it more dangerous. And unfortunately, I hate that this is where we find ourselves. You know, with Reagan, there were whispers while he was still in office that maybe something isn't quite right. the end, there was like a recognition. All right, something seems a little off here. And we found out

much later. And a lot of the public was stunned. Nobody would be stunned. Would be, be honest. If a month after Trump's out of office, they come clean and they go, he's got Alzheimer's. He's been receiving an experimental IV treatment for the last three years. And it's starting to get a little bit worse now. Would any of us be shocked? Would everyone go, oh my God, I couldn't believe it. if all of a sudden after Trump got out of office, we were told he could run, you know, a four, three, 40 yard dash. I would go, I'm shocked. I can't believe that.

You look at the guy. He doesn't look like the guy that could run a 40 yard dash that quickly. I would be shocked. If we were told, oh, it turns out that he's got frontotemporal dementia or Alzheimer's. I would go, yeah, well, that's not super. We've been suspecting that for five, six years at this point in time. Nobody would be shocked. Even his defenders who are saying he's fine.

I don't believe even they would be shocked deep down if that was something that was revealed after Donald Trump left office. So listen, Congress does have to do something. As I've said before, I believe that unless Trump dies in office, he's remaining president until January 20th, 20, 29. I don't think there's any way around that. But, but if Democrats do take the House in November, at least we can really get under this guy's skin with what will hopefully be.

public hearings, public hearings about the Trump health cover up. If more people like Stephanie Grisham can come forward and say this is something we need, the better off that we are going to be. Let's talk about an off ramp for Republicans from MAGA. One of the great questions that we have been contending with and sort of exploring over the last really several years, but especially since Trump is now in his final term in office, is what happens to the Republican Party after Trump leads. And Trump may have handed Republicans something that many of them have been desperate for, which is a credible off ramp from Trump. How do you get off?

And the off ramp comes off of Donald Trump's completely unhinged obsession with Greenland or as he confused it in Davos today, Iceland. He's actually obsessed with Greenland, but he called it Iceland today because he's just completely confused. And it started with the bizarre message that ended up being publicly released by the Norwegian prime minister, which is the letter that Trump wrote saying, because Nobel Prize, wasn't given to me by Norway. I'm going to take Greenland from Denmark, totally unhinged and outrageous. And we have someone freaking out about it who is not a liberal pundit or an MS now host. It is a right winger

named Eric Erickson. He is not a squishy moderate. He is not a never Trump Lincoln project type. Eric Erickson is a far right, long time syndicated right wing radio host. Uh, and this is a serious right-winger. I mean, he spent years saying disgusting stuff about Obama, disgusting stuff about women, about LGBTQ people, about gun control. He called Wendy Davis once abortion Barbie. He has floated conspiracy-laden sexual smears about Barack Obama, about Michelle Obama. He compared Obama officials to Nazi propagandists. Obama, yeah. This is not any kind of a moderate. And Eric Eric, Eric. Rickson put out the following tweet. Trump's obsession with Greenland risks driving the Europeans

away from the United States and perhaps even into the arms of China as Canada and Mexico are moving. That would break up NATO, have Europeans demand we get our troops out of Europe and isolate the United States from our allies and the world. Those around the president find this festering obsession useful and the Republicans in Congress are too scared to do anything about it. The real danger here, says Erickson for the GOP is very simple. They are alienating our European allies with many of you perhaps already convinced they are worthless thanks to a multi-year systematic campaign to poison us on social media with European elite excesses. They have alienated Canada.

They have alienated Mexico. And they have also pissed off Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve. We're at the point where the Norwegian prime minister is fine publicly releasing Trump's text message. It won't take much more for the Europeans to decide to embrace the suck, head into a trade war, and hope to provoke economic problems for the U.S. to harm the Republicans in the midterms. And good luck getting Jerome Powell and the Fed to respond to help the economy. This is fascinating. If this keeps up, Erickson warns that Europe might deliberately, deliberately work to make the American people feel economic pain, not because they love that,

but because they will recognize it'll hurt Republicans in the midterms and it might be the way to shut Trump down. If that happens, good luck getting the Fed to bail Trump out. This is the key point. When someone like Eric Erickson starts laying out in public how Trump is torching alliances and destabilizing the economy and putting Republicans at electorate, risk. It is permission to abandon Donald Trump. Permission for Republican voters and donors and elected officials to say, there's nothing conservative here. This is too much. This is crazy. There's

no strategy. It is utter chaos, bedlam and mayhem. They don't have to admit Trump was always a disaster. They can sort of play it like, listen. Now we have a problem. They don't have to rethink authoritarianism. They don't have to go back and reckon with January 6th or they can just go right now. The texts Trump are Trump is releasing are a problem. The letter Trump wrote to Norway is a problem. The greenland nonsense is crazy. It's a global embarrassment. We are walking away. And I don't know whether that is something that the Republican Party in terms of elected officials is actually going to do in some large sense. We know that there are Republicans that whatever they believe about Trump on a personal level recognize that he's bad for the brand and that he is sending Republicans down an electoral

black hole that they are not going to be able to get out of. And when Eric Erickson starts saying, hey, you know what? It's time. It's time. Is it the sort of permission that is going to allow Republicans to say, all right, this has gone far enough and we've got to get out? Now, on the bonus show today, we are going to talk about another aspect of Trump that may convince some that this is no good, which is that Trump pocketed 1.4 billion dollars during the last year. During Trump's first year back in office, he pocketed almost a billion and a half dollars. Can you really say that that has been good for the average American as Trump has made a billion and a half dollars?

We will also discuss that after the Bondi Beach massacre, Australia has already tightened gun laws. They've already done it. And here in the United States, it's, oh, we just had a shooting. We can't we can't politicize. It's too soon to do anything about gun loss. And then nobody does anything. And then we have another shooting. And then it's, oh, we got to do something.

No, no, no. It's too soon. We're politicizing it. They already did something in Australia. We'll talk about it. And finally, ex-US Senator Kirsten Cinema had an affair with her bodyguard, which led to the breakup of her marriage. And this is quite entangled with a lot of what we have seen in terms of the

drama with cinema over the last couple of years. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show, two options. Sign up at join packman.com right away. Or if you want the coupon code from yesterday to get a discounted membership, just write in to info at David packman.com and say, David, give me that coupon code, sir. Um, and we will get that over to you. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back tomorrow.