The David Pakman Show - “The victims, or whatever” shocks MAGA

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

-- On the Show -- Donald Trump downplays Jeffrey Epstein victims while making confusing claims about gas prices and Iran negotiations -- Donald Trump delivers a rambling speech featuring misleading claims about taxes on tips and moments where he appears disengaged -- Jessica Tarlov challenges Donald Trump’s approval ratings on Fox News, prompting an angry response from Donald Trump on social media -- Donald Trump attacks Tucker Carlson and other former allies in a series of hostile posts, revealing fractures within his political coalition -- Lauren Boebert comments on misconduct in Congress and distances herself from certain political associations -- Private equity firms quietly acquire YouTube channels, raising concerns about transparency, editorial independence, and audience trust -- Rep. Troy Nehls compares Donald Trump to Jesus, highlighting the cult-like nature of the Trump movement -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Stocks rally over suspicion that the Iran war is ending, the California governor's race is wide open following Swalwell's departure, Pete Hegseth quotes a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction, and much more... 💳 PDS Debt: Get your free assessment & find the best option for you at https://pdsdebt.com/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF for a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Trump comments coldly on Epstein victims (09:14) Trump continues to mislead on 'no tax on tips' (20:54) Jessica Tarlov challenges Trump’s approval ratings (28:39) Trump criticizes Tucker Carlson and former allies (34:01) Boebert addresses misconduct concerns in Congress (42:03) A look into private equity involvement in YouTube channels (50:50) Republican compares Trump to Jesus (55:42) Friday Feedback segment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I've got four words for you. The victims or whatever. That is how the president of the United States referred to the Epstein victims. It's not out of context. I'm going to show you the entire clip. And we've got talk of free oil, the straight of vermouth, the idea that gas prices are really low today, despite being up 55% in the last two and a half months. We have an administration genuinely struggling.

to stay on track. And then it gets even we're even we're when we see a new intra-maga battle. It's Trump versus Tucker Carlson and the battle of the IQ losers. That's according to the president of the United States. And we have new signs that the movement is fracturing as Lauren Bobert banging up against a very hard problem when it comes to how to discuss issues. of assault and harassment and victims and so much more. On top of that, I will talk about something even bigger, which is how some of the independent voices you see online may not really be independent anymore.

All of that and more. I'm back in the studio. Well, it is great to be back in the studio on the bonus show today. I will tell you about my very interesting encounter and conversations with a conference. customs officer as I reentered the United States rising like a Phoenix over the horizon. But that's later. If you thought that Donald Trump couldn't go any lower, I have four words for you, the victims or whatever.

Donald Trump was talking about the Epstein victims and there are many of them. And I've pointed out now for months, if not longer, that there's a lot of talk about Trump and co-conspirators and perpetrators and Epstein, but there's relatively little talk about the victims, and there should be. When Donald Trump was asked about the victims, he referred to them as the victims or whatever, which doesn't exactly communicate empathy and caring and understanding for them, does it? Take a look at this. This was as Donald Trump was getting ready to jet off to Las Vegas for a deranged event,

which we will get to later. I'm Congress to further look into and uncover the truth on the Epstein files the Epstein saga. Do you believe that there should be a public hearing for more of these Epstein survivors? I'm okay with it. I think we've had a lot of public hearings. I'm okay with it. But I understand that the women didn't want to go under oath. That's what I heard, that the women, the victims or whatever, they refused to go under rope,

which was a little surprising. So Melania felt strongly about it because she was accused of that I met her through Episd, but it turned out to be totally false. It was a false way. You know, the women, the victims or whatever, I've joked before that when Donald Trump talks about religion, he doesn't exactly communicate that he is deeply spiritual. You know, we've encountered that a few hundred times during the political life of Donald Trump. And I've got to say similarly, the victims or whatever does not really communicate any

concern for understanding, empathy, sympathy for the countless victims of Jeffrey Epstein. But Trump wants us to believe he cares. He really does care. Donald Trump talking about negotiations around the Strait of Hormuz also referred to incorrectly as the Strait of Bermouth by, I guess it was. Scott Besson, as of this morning, the straight is open per Iran and oil prices have plunged. Here is Trump saying that we are going to get free oil as part of these negotiations. I think we have a very successful negotiation going on right now.

And I think it'll be, if it happens, it'll be announced fairly soon. And that'll give us free oil, free, our most straight, everything will be nice. And the free harm is straight. I think your oil price will go down to lower than what it was before. And I think a lot of good things will happen. We are getting free harmas and free barba ganush. Listen, Trump knew, obviously, this was just hours ago. The negotiations were going in a direction that would lead to at least for now and opening. That's a good thing. Just remember, Trump is the arsonist who wants credit for partially putting out the fire. All of this talk. about the strait of vermouth, as it is now known to some open clothes. It was wide open before

Trump started this optional thing. Quite frankly, Trump looks like he needs a nap. Trump then saying, not only are we going to get a deal on Vermuth, Hormuz, Harmouth, Barba Ganesh. We're also going to get a deal on tahini. No, we're also going to get a deal on Lebanon, he says. When? It's Trump's favorite timeline. Yeah, it's very exciting. With Lebanon, it's very excited. I think we're going to have a deal. We're going to have a meeting first time in 44 years, and Lebanon will be meeting with Israel,

and they're probably going to do it at the White House. When do you think they will... Over the next week or two. Or the next week, and do you think this agreement can read without Hezbollah? I think we will have an agreement between Lebanon and they're going to take care of Hasbola. But they're going to be working on Hezbollah right now,

but we'll have a degree between Israel, very important. Very importantly, and Lebanon. There you go. And of course, it is going to be just a couple of weeks on that. And some of you, I know, have been holding your collective breaths since July of 2020 when our brand new replacement healthcare plan to get rid of Obamacare, get rid of that nasty thing.

And put in a perfect new plan. It was two weeks away in July of 2020. And I think it is probably still two weeks away. So anyway, probably don't, don't hold your breath on that one. Donald Trump also saying for those Americans who believe that you are getting crushed by high gas prices, they're actually not very high right now. Forget about the fact that they're up 55% since January 15th. Forget about the fact that they are multiple dollars higher than Trump said they would be.

They're actually low right now. Down is up, left is right. Okay. And then on gas prices, how much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices? Well, they're not very high. If you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon with the danger that entail. So the gas prices have come down very much over the last three four days.

I know, you know, and that's what ABC says. But the fact is that if you look at the stock markets up, everything's doing really well. And the big thing we have to do is we have to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon because if they do, you want to talk about problems, you'd have problems. So very important is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. And they've agreed to that. There you go. So of course, all of this requires selective framing or just looking away.

Trump, when he says, they're not that high for getting rid of Iran's nuclear capabilities. what he means is he went in expecting gas prices to spike even more. He was willing for you to sacrifice by paying way more for gas prices in order to achieve what he thinks he's going to or was going to achieve with Iran. But they're not high relative to that. But of course, gas prices are still over $4 a gallon. They have come down, by the way, in the last 24 hours, really like the last eight based on the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump says the stock market is up. What he means is it's up relative to where it bottomed out thanks to the Iran war. Remember, they used to talk about Dow 50,000.

The Dow then went way down. Now it's back up from its lows, but Trump can't talk about Dow 50,000 anymore because even as I record today, the Dow is up 600 points. It is still a thousand points shy of 50,000. Now, no one of these things is dispositive about whether the economy is good or badder. But the point is, in order to even. believe this stuff, you have to use truncated framing, relative points of comparison that are convenient to Trump. And this is how they operate. So this was Trump briefly speaking to the press on his way

to Las Vegas for an event about something that doesn't really exist. Let's talk about that next. Donald Trump delivered a complete and total freak show speech in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trump was over an hour late to his own speech, behind the stage, you see the big banner, no tax on tips, just a reminder. No tax on tips isn't part of the bill that Republicans passed. It's made up. It's fake. It's phony. But we will get back to that. As Donald Trump was over an hour late, the crowd participated in some kind of unusual sing-along. Imagine waiting hours. to see an obese, orange, crumbling president lie incoherently. And then when he's over an hour late, because he doesn't respect your time, this is what they do.

My power through our first displayed. Etc. I won't subject you to more of it because it is, quite frankly, vomitous. One of the most out of touch moments from this no tax on tips event to celebrate a bill that doesn't include no tax on tips was Trump visibly confused by the phrase corner store. And he tried to cover it up by going, of course, I know what it is, but I've never heard the phrase before. Indians of American small businesses, including restaurants, strike cleaners, corner stores.

What is a corner store? I've never heard that term. a corner store is, but I've never heard it describe a corner store. Who the hell wrote that, please? So understand what's going on here. Trump gives us his real reaction up front, which is, what is a corner store? That's the real reaction. We could stop there. He's completely out of touch. But then Trump realizes, oh, that probably sounds a little bit out of touch. So he goes, so the initial reaction is, what is a corner store? I've never heard that term. Oops, That's going to make me sound like an out of touch rich guy.

So then he goes, I know what a corner store is, but I've never heard it described a corner store. Well, if you know what a corner store is, wouldn't corner store be the most appropriate term for it? And he goes, no, no, no. I've never heard the term, but I know what the thing is. But I don't know what it means to describe it as such. Well, it sounds like you do or don't you. Nobody knows. Trump is completely and totally out of touch. Now, I want to remind you this entire no tax on tips thing.

It's fake. The law Trump passed and is bragging about does not include no tax on tips. It has a deduction up to $25,000 in tip income can be deducted from federal income tax. It doesn't say no tax on tips. You've got to report the tips. And we went over this last week. got to pay payroll taxes on them. You you likely pay state taxes on them. So it's not no tax. You can deduct, but most tipped workers already pay little to no federal income tax. And that's because of something called the standard deduction of $14,000. So this is not primarily a show about tax policy. But it's important to consider that the average server will benefit zero or this teeniest, tiniest, tiniest bit from this deduction on tips.

It's not no tax on tips, but they keep saying that. Trump in a bizarre moment says that a year ago, our country was an embarrassment. Remember that Trump was president a year ago. Our country, a year ago, our country was an embarrassment. And all over the world, they laughed at us. And they don't laugh anymore. They are not laughing. They're not laughing anymore.

I don't think. I want to remind you that a year ago was almost May, almost May of 2025, and Donald Trump was the president of the United States. Suddenly, when it was Scott Besson's turn to speak, Trump was out cold, just completely asleep. And I just want to thank President Trump for championing this program because I can tell By the way, champoning. The some of the Republican, some of the more traditional Republican. So as you can see, Trump just completely asleep.

Reality doesn't matter. He spent years calling him sleepy Joe. Now he's asleep. The Magas don't care because it was never really about being sleepy. Trump in a rare, accurate moment, he said something that's true. He said that his DoorDash Grandma stunt at the White House earlier this week, was a little bit tacky. And I've got to tell you, he finally gets it right. It was extraordinarily tacky. No one has ever uttered before. God bless the IRS. Can you believe it? I've never heard.

I've never heard that before. We have to patent that. We have to do something. Earlier this week at the White House, I've met a wonderful woman named Sharon Simmons, a grandmother driving door dash. to help support her husband's cancer treatment. She's got serious cancer. He's going to be okay, I think. Sharon delivered McDonald's to the Oval Office. It was a little bit of a, you know, I mean, to be honest, it was a little tacky.

You know, they come up with these crazy ideas like McDonald's, although that was the biggest ever on Google, they say, number one ever in the garbage truck. I mean, we do these things in politics. They're a little embarrassing. They're a little tiny embarrassing, but we do them. And you win by landslides.

You know, it's one of the... So we got to keep to him. No, we got to knock on the Oval Office store. This does not happen. That's the first maybe in the history of the Oval Office. And it was a very beautiful woman standing in there with two big bags of McDonald's hamburgers. Bags.

And I say, is this really believable? But the point of it was she made $11,000 that she had no idea was coming. And it was really great. It turned out to be really great. It's all really great. Was tacky, Trump is right, it was extraordinarily tacky. At another point, a completely confused and bewildered Donald Trump said that we just hit an all-time

new stock market. Now you might be saying, David, there must be some word missing there. Did we hit an all-time new stock market? Hi? Did we hit an all-time new stock market? No, we just hit an all-time new stock market. Oh, well we're doing, and we have this, a lot of people thought that inflation would be through the roof, and the stock market would crash.

we just hit an all time new stock market. So. So we go. We just hit an all time new stock market. Woo. Does anybody in the audience know what that means? No. And of course, as I said earlier, the stock market partially recovering from the decline caused

by Trump's Iran fiasco. And it is an arsonist setting a huge fire, putting out a little bit of the fire and going, praise me, praise me. I have just put out a little bit of the fire that I started. Trump refers to the inflation, the rising gas prices as fake inflation. Years. Don't forget we're having some fake inflation because of the fuel, the energy prices, which everybody said was going to 250. We're talking about that, Scott. Yes. Don't forget we're having some fake inflation.

Complete and total fake inflation. When you go to the gas pump and it's 414 for regular and 529, for premium, that's fake. How do I know? Because Trump said it quite simply. And then finally, Trump wrapping up this completely hairbrained event with some of his double jerk dancing, making everybody feel really good. So in case anybody was worried about rising prices, in case anybody was worried about paying tax on tips, Trump showed up. He said he got rid of taxes on tips even though he didn't. He said that gas prices are low, even though they're high. And he danced, which no president would ever do unless everything was great. Now, there was one other little thing that happened, which was that when Donald Trump was flying to this event on Air Force One,

he turned on Fox News, and he saw something that simply enraged him. And we will look at that after the break. We do need your help. I'm talking about you to get to 4 million YouTube subscribers. This would be an achievement like no other for a little tiny independent show like this one. Make sure you are subscribed on YouTube. I'll tell you what happened on Air Force One after the break. If debt feels like it's draining your attention each month, multiple due dates, rising interest, balances that barely move. You are not alone. Our sponsor PDS debt works with people facing credit cards, personal loans, or medical bills, and they don't use a one-size-fits-all approach. They review your specific situation, connect you with custom options that are really designed

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The cat went for smalls. Your cat deserves more than a bowl of processed shortcuts. Try smalls if your cat doesn't love smalls. You get a full refund for a limited time. My audience gets 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life. When you go to smalls.com slash Pacman, the link is in the description. Our friend on Fox News, Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal on the five, has triggered Donald Trump so wildly that he took time out of his day while flying from D.C. to Vegas to deliver

a completely bonkers speech to post to truth social about what Jessica was saying on TV. We're going to play the clip. There was a discussion, I guess we would call it, an argument, a disagreement between Kelly Ann Conway, former advisor to Trump and Jessica Tarloff. Now, remember, the whole setup of this show on Fox News is that Jessica Tarlov is the one liberal and then they stack it with four increasingly unhinged right-wingers and Jessica Tarlov makes mincemead out of all of them every time. And it's sort of like self-contained insanity, except it's no longer self-contained.

It's now Trump is flying on Air Force One watching and I guess absent ketchup to chuck at the wall decides to post about what Jessica's saying. So first let me play for you. This clip. This is what got Trump all worked up. Why? Well, Jessica accurately points out that Donald Trump's approval rating is flushable. It's in the 30s, mid, low 30s. What really drives Trump nuts is the acknowledgement or having to confront or be confronted by the.

the fact that he's really unpopular. Most Americans don't like him. Most Americans don't think he's doing a good job. And so that sent him for a loop. Here is the segment that triggered him. So you want her to be the nominee in 2020? No, but the twisting of what I was saying is crazy, Kelly. And I did not say I want Kamala Harris to be the nominee. I said that the argument that you're making against the Biden-Harris administration falls flat when you look at what the Trump administration is doing. I'm just going to look at, well, I'm going to look back that Trump got elected on running against the Biden-Harris economy. He has a 35 percent approval rating in most polls. He's not a politician. He doesn't. He's not campaigning. He's governing. He's just supposed to

the apprentice who came to save us. Look, the guy has been an office. You can't see. You can't understand Trump because his political decisions align with his personal and patriotic ones. You understand. By the way, that's the, that's the Jordan Peterson defender argument. Let me explain what I mean by that. One of the things that happens when you bump up against the cult defenders of Jordan Peterson, You go, wow, Jordan Peterson said something really wacky. He said A, but A isn't true. They like to come in and go, you don't understand what he's even arguing. You don't even either you don't know enough about who he is to correctly parse and interpret what he's saying.

Or you're not intelligent enough to understand these complicated arguments. When I covered Peterson saying even atheists are actually religious, they just don't know it. And I said, you know, that's really unfalsifiable. All these Peterson acolytes wrote in going, David, you're just too dumb to understand what he's saying. And it's the same thing with Trump as Gutfeld, who I guess is supposedly he's a comedian. Maybe this is supposed to be funny. I don't know. I've never heard him say anything funny.

But anyway, he says, you just don't understand. You don't understand Jessica. You understand Gavin. You understand Biden because their political decisions are divorced from the things people. people want. Why are you on the 20 of every 80-20 issue? It's because you divorced political desires from human needs. And then you have to dress up your decisions as compassion when they're merely wants from an activist class. The thing about Trump is, I don't care whether you like him or hate him. You're suffering from the Trump-America alignment problem, political, personal,

and patriotic. By the way, he's reading this and not very well. all stack up, which means what he wants, the country tends to want. If it's 80, he's on the 80, you're stuck on the 20. They wanted the tariffs? Your defenses are getting more and more narrow because you say, we keep saying the same thing every day. It's because we have to, because you don't listen. I do.

All I hear in my head is your voice. You know what? You're lucky. This is the voice of God. They didn't want the war on the war on. They would be elected. What do you got? What do you got?

Very, very low, low quality commentary there from Gutfeld. But maybe it, maybe, I mean, he's a comedian at the end of the day. So maybe that was just comedy and I'm misinterpreting it. Of course, Jessica Tarlov is completely correct. Trump's approval rating is in the toilet. 92% of Americans were not happy with what was going on in Iran. Americans overwhelmingly understand that the tariffs haven't been good for the country, they've raised prices. They like to go, oh, you know, men and women's sports, it's

not even an 80-20 issue. It's a 99 to one issue. No one wants men and women sports. A lot of people have no opinion about that. And almost nobody considers that even a top 15 issue at all. The one thing that was interesting from Door Dash grandma was that when Trump asked her about, what do you think about men and women's sports? She goes, I don't have a position on that. I'm here for no tax on tips. Now, unfortunately for her, no tax on tips. is completely imaginary, but they, most Americans don't even care about that issue. So this idea that Jessica and the left are on the side of a minority very much not the case. Now, this sent Trump totally crazy.

He went into a spiral posting the following from Air Force One after seeing this segment. Quote, I'm on Air Force One heading to Las Vegas and Arizona for greetings and speeches on no tax on tips, a windfall for our great American citizens. I'm watching one of the least attractive and talented people on all of television, Jessica Tarlov. Her voice is so grating and terrible. I had to turn her off. Her Democrat sound bites are fake. She makes up poll numbers.

Nobody challenges her because she's so boring. I have among the best poll numbers I've ever had and why shouldn't I? All the country does is win. CNN had me at 100% saying they never saw that before. Get her off the air. She's bad for our country. I hear Megan Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens are dying fast. Their numbers are terrible.

Nobody believes them anymore. They were fake MAGA and now they've been exposed. You know, Trump is actually checking the boxes of how people like Trump criticize women journalists. Look at what he goes to right away. She's not attractive and her voice is grading. These are, this is not a show that is all about sexism and misogyny. and the patriarchy. It's just not the focus of this show. But I have to acknowledge that when Trump talks about female journalist reporters and commentators, he goes right to this sort of thing.

Why don't you smile enough, Caitlin Collins? Has he ever said that about a male reporter? You're not physically attractive, Jessica. Does he talk that way about male reporters? Your voice. This is grading. That's a classic. That's a classic from these sort of fundamentally sexist, misogynistic guys like Trump. Not the focus of my show, but I can't miss it because it's so obvious and plain to see. The reason he's really triggered, the reason he's really lashing out is Jessica got him. He's not popular.

He's not well liked. His policies aren't well liked. And Trump doesn't like that being called out. We have Donald Trump in complete and total meltdown mode. It is friendly fire as he is going after Tucker Carlson in what some are calling the latest evidence of Trump's significant cognitive decline, if not dementia. Donald Trump posting to truth social, quote, who's dumber? Tucker Carlson or Joe Kent?

It's very interesting. I met Joe Kent at Dover Air Force Base, doing, going along with numerous others who had lost their loved ones in war. I said hello to all of the families. Kent horribly lost his wife. Her casket was being brought to Dover, along with the rest, although he married again quite quickly, in my opinion. In any event, a number of years later, I noticed the same person was running for Congress in

Washington State and lost. I then noticed a couple of years later, he was running. again and lost. While I didn't know him other than our briefed over encounter, but feeling sorry for him after the two election losses, I told my people hire him for the White House, give him a job, make him feel good. He lost his wife in two elections. It was just pity, Trump says. They did so. And while I rarely saw him, I certainly didn't expect this loyalty, but that's what I got. He was really a sleaze bag and some would say on top of it all a leaker. I don't know whether or not that was true, but next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Kent is a loser just like Tucker, Candace,

Megan, and the rest of them are losers. You're born that way. Low IQ. And that's not a damn thing they're going to be able to do about it. President Donald J. Trump. And then Trump continuing, it's easy. Tucker is a low IQ person. Always easy to beat and highly overrated. So are Megan Kelly, Candice really dumb and mentally ill. And bankrupt Alex Jones. who is completely fried. There are others also. Then we have some that are very good, true MAGA all the way and smart. I should do a list of good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.

Wouldn't that be fascinating? So listen, I want to put aside, Trump's right. Alex Jones is completely fried. That is a frickin' predator right there. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Packman. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Packman.

Trump's right. Alex Jones is fried. But I don't want to talk about Alex Jones right now. I don't want to talk about Candice or Megan Kelly. I want to talk about Tucker. Tucker was never just another commentator. Tucker was the amplifier of Trumpism during key moments. Tucker gave Trumpism legitimacy. He framed narratives in ways that made Trump seem like something short of a completely delusional tool. Tucker defended Trump endlessly and actually helped build Trump's movement. And now they've broken and Trump refers to him as low IQ.

Now, I believe that this was inevitable. Two ego driven figures. Tucker pretends not to be ego driven, but he is. Trump is very clearly ego driven and he doesn't hide it. They both need to be the center of attention. The second Tucker starts drifting or questioning anything, he becomes the enemy. And so Tucker's miscalculation was that he thought, all right. the movement, I'll shape the movement where I can, maybe even help the movement outgrow Donald

Trump and then I'll be here waiting, sort of like Jerry with his friend in Seinfeld who has a breakup and he's going to be there for her and he's going to be there for her and eventually he will just be there and it will be Jerry's new girlfriend. It was the same idea for Tucker Carlson, But it doesn't work and it didn't work because they are totally contradictory to that from an ego perspective. And Tucker has this massive loyal audience and Trump attacking him now creates a pretty serious split where you've got the pro-Trump absolutists who are either you're with Trump or you're not and that is it. And then you've got the Tucker influenced skeptics of Trump, I guess we would call them, who are more on the side of those kids we heard from at the Turning Point USA event where they're like, listen, we were on the right, but we didn't sign up for this. This wasn't what Trump

promised. This wasn't what we agreed to. And now they are going to have to battle it out to see who ultimately comes out on top. Now, I think it might end up being neither. I think it will be, you know, Trump is increasingly diminishing and losing power even at the center of his own movement, Tucker is sort of on the outs with a lot of his traditional constituencies. And they might both end up kind of parting way, parting, uh, and leaving a path in the middle, uh, for something else altogether to take control of the Republican party. Remains to be seen, but Tucker now a big target of Trump and Trump sees Tucker as a threat to his own legitimacy, which Tucker is.

I mean, whatever you feel about Tucker's specific arguments. Tucker absolutely threatens Trump's power within the movement he created. Trump recognizes that and he doesn't like it. We have to talk about the latest firm attack from Lauren Bobert who had to make a really hard choice as to whether to stiff Trump, if you know what I'm saying. Here is Congresswoman Lauren Bobert talking about sexual misconduct allegations on Capitol Hill. And this relates to Eric Swalwell and the recent scandal that led to his stepping back from the gubernatorial race in California and completely resigning from Congress.

And Lauren Bobert comes in and she goes, people need to go to church and find Jesus. Why are they so horny? And yeah, go to church. Find Jesus. Like, I mean, why is everybody so horny here? The only little problem with that, two little problems with Lauren Bobert now, the context of Swalwell saying this stuff. Problem number one, it applies to Swalwell, but not to Trump, apparently. Or does it? Well, that's the question which we're going to get to in a moment.

But also importantly, what about Lauren Bobert herself, who was caught doing who knows what in a movie theater with a guy kicked out of there and has had her fair share of what I guess we would call horny related problems in Washington, D.C. So she is maybe the last person to be issuing this kind of warning. Blorn Bobert also the day before, she's been weighing in on this stuff quite a bit, saying, if you are being mistreated by your boss or someone else in the office, saying to staffers of all members of the House, come to her and she will help you. How important is it for people who want to come forward with credible sexual misconduct

delegations here in Congress to have sort of jobs lined up and stuff like that. It seems like some of these people who got, who accused Eric Swelwellwell, you were able to find jobs quickly. That's been a change as opposed to previous Congresses where people really had their careers destroyed by for doing the right thing. I would say come out. I mean, we will be here for you to protect you. Come to my office. If you, if you have something, if your boss is mistreating you someone else in the office, tell somebody. If you want to remain anonymous, remain anonymous. You know, let one of loudmouths get it out there for you. Happy to issue receipts on behalf of anyone.

I don't know what's going to come out. You know, like everybody is like, oh my gosh, TMZ's here. Like, what are we going to do? You know? And I'm like, I don't know. What are you hiding from? Like, so they don't even have their credentials yet. They're not down here.

But anyhow, it's, I don't know. If you have something to hide, sorry. I want it out. And I hope that people come forward. I'm glad that Eric Swalwell's staff were able to, to find work. But also, I mean, turnover is crazy on the hill anyway. It seems like, you know, one one meeting in the duck and donuts and somebody's ready to switch offices and have a better job. So, but Democrat or Republican, they can count on your office to have their back.

If it's Democrat or Republican. You know, if it's, you know, what is so funny about this is just step back for a second. After everything that Lauren Bobert represents and has done, the idea that if you are a staffer on Capitol Hill, maybe you're working for a day, Democrat, maybe you're working for a Republican, it doesn't matter. You go, I'm being harassed. I'm being sexually harassed. I'm being sexually assaulted. I don't know who to turn to. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to Lauren Bobert. That the, the idea that anyone would do that is so laughable as to be completely and totally absurd. And it's also funny to funny and points to the delusion of Bobert to think that they, that she would be the person to, make others feel at ease coming to her, given everything that she's been involved in and everything that she's done. Arguably delusional from Lauren Boeber. All right, one more Boebert clip while we're at it. She was asked, do you think it's appropriate for King George to meet with members of the house? She goes, I wouldn't meet with them because of 1776.

Do you think it's appropriate for King George to meet with members when they come up here as they pursue the Epstein investigation because of his brother? I wouldn't meet with him. So I don't know. I have 1776. I have nothing to do with King George or the Royal Family. I am American first and I have no I have no need to meet with him. Will you attend the speech?

I don't know. I mean, maybe I'll show up. I don't know. You guys are in there. Sometimes we get great photos. Have a great day. 1776, an answer that proves she doesn't understand modern diplomacy. separated from England hundreds of years ago. So why would I today as a sitting member of Congress

in 2026 simply meet with dignitaries from other countries? Now, what I would have respected far more from Lauren Bobert if she said it is, you know what? I would meet with British MPs. I would meet with British, with the British Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary. But I, I, I would meet with British, am against monarchy and therefore I am not going to tacitly endorse the positions of the royal family because I don't believe that they are legitimate. I actually would have respected that. That I would have respected more. But no, it's 1776.

She is pathetic, but it does look like she's going to be able to hold out in the House of Representatives. You use your email for everything, banking, work, purchases, medical information. That makes your email provider one of the most important places to think about privacy. Most big tech email services, scan your messages, build profiles about you, use the data to show you ads. Our sponsor StartMail takes a different approach. StartMail looks and works just like the big name email services you're used to. But StartMail never scans your mail.

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The link is in the description. If you use one of the mainstream AI chatbots, they monitor everything you put in the app, stuff about your personal life, your work projects, medical questions, all of that info stays in the system forever to train the AI. They build a profile about you based on what you, based on what you input. If you care about privacy and bypassing censorship, I recommend using Venice instead. Our sponsor Venice lets you use all the biggest and best AI models. They do not store your prompts. Your prompts are encrypted and stored only locally in your app or browser, not used for training

data. Venice also offers completely uncensored chatbots and image generation. You can ask it anything and it will answer. It is finally AI you can completely control. None of the conversations are tied to your identity. And you use Venice exactly like the mainstream chatbot app that you're already used to. The interface will feel really familiar. You'll also get 20% off a pro plan at venice.a.i slash Pacman with the code Pacman. The link is in the description. There's been a video out a couple of days now making the rounds about the secret behind your favorite YouTube channels. And it raises some real issues that I want to talk about. The video is called your how private equity turns your favorite channels into slop. The presentation of the video is a little bit dramatic,

but I actually think that there's a really important underlying aspect to this that is worth talking about because we've been talking a lot about trust in media, who controls content, And the basic idea of the video is very simple. And once you, if and when you watch the video, you'll probably start looking at YouTube channels and podcasts a little bit differently than you did before. There's a decent chance that if you watch a bunch of different YouTube channels, at least some of those that you believed are independent and at some point were independent, no longer are independent, even though superficially they might look exactly like. they did before. The hosts are the same. The thumbnails are basically the same. The style's the same. The tone and the content. It's all basically the same as it always was. But behind the scenes, ownership has changed. Control has changed in ways you were never told about. And this has to do

with private equity. Now, I've told you about private equity in the nursing home space. I've told you about private equity with dentists office and anesthesiology practices and real estate and in a whole bunch of different places. But private equity firms have also quietly been buying YouTube channels and digital media properties. And they don't have to disclose those acquisitions to the audience watching on these YouTube channels. If a creator does a paid promotion, they're supposed to tell you. If they sell their entire operation, they can just kind of keep going like nothing happened. So from your perspective, nothing has changed. From a structural, standpoint, something really significant has happened here in terms of incentives and priorities

and decision making because these firms aren't buying YouTube channels because they personally love the content or really relate to the creator or whatever. They are buying the audience. They're buying the attention. And maybe most importantly, they're buying the trust that audiences have built with the creators on those channels. Now, the model. is really straightforward. You buy a channel at a reasonable multiple of revenue. You buy a bunch more. You combine them into a portfolio. And then now you've got a package that you can hopefully raise the value of in total and have a more valuable asset on your hands, which you can then sell again or monetize in other ways. Now, does this improve the videos on the channels you watch? No. But financially,

it can increase valuations and then create pressure to optimize these assets to eventually sell them or monetize them even more. When that happens, the goal is very far from, let me make the best content I can make. The goal becomes let's make content that performs consistently and protects our investment in these YouTube channels, which sometimes means more uploads. Sometimes it means more repetition. Sometimes it means experimenting less or shifting towards whatever has been deemed to be most brand safe or whatever the case may be.

Now over a period of time, sometimes audiences do notice it. Sometimes you'll go on the subredits of certain channels and they'll go, have you noticed that the whole thing kind of feels off now? Not necessarily worse. Not immediately worse anyway. But maybe it's a little less authentic or it's less distinct or it's sort of like gotten flattened in some way. There's also another aspect.

of this that often comes up, which is called key person risk, which means if you have a channel that's dependent on one creator, that can be a liability from an investment standpoint. I mean, look at my channel. This channel is dependent on me as a person as the creator here. So what often starts to happen when private equity gets involved in YouTube channels is they'll start building a system where they bring in additional hosts, they standardize production, roles become interchangeable. And the end goal is that the channel can function without the original creator.

And at that point, what you're watching might still look like a creator channel, but it starts to become pretty indistinguishable from legacy or corporate media's structure. You turn on CNN. It's that same desk and the same graphics and the lighting and all of it. But you can swap who's in the chair relatively seamlessly. Now, I think it's important to mention I've talked to some people who have done deals like this, it doesn't always lead to worse content. And there are some channels that improve production quality when they make these sorts of deals

or they scale in ways they couldn't have before. But there are also cases where the creators leave the audiences drop off. What made the channel distinctive originally kind of goes away. And it becomes a much bigger issue than content quality. It's about control and independence in an environment where independence was sort of part of the appeal. A lot of people don't trust government. A lot of people don't trust legacy and corporate media. And so the desire to trust someone becomes, hey, here's an independent creator. I like and trust. My connection to them seems more direct. It seems more authentic.

And that's a great thing. And what private equity does when they buy YouTube channels is they package that trust and authenticity in a way that they can then, um, you know, they can then, um, you know, monetize for themselves, which kind of demolishes it and makes it not what it originally was meant to be. Now, I think it would be relevant to address directly how this relates to this channel, because as some of you know, if you've been around for a while, over the years, there have been endless accusations about this channel, who owns it, what's going on. The DNC is funding the channel.

Chorus is telling David what to say. A PAC is telling David what to say, even though it's not a foreign policy show, so it seems like that would be really stupid, but it's A PAC who's telling me what to say. The reality is much simpler than any of those stories. I own 100% of this show and the content decisions are made by one person and that's me. There are no outside investors or private equity ownership or or hidden stakeholders that decide what gets covered on this show. If I choose to cover something, then I cover it. And if I decide not to cover something, then I don't. And there's no layer behind the scenes influencing that.

And even things people bring up that are unrelated to content. Remember, when I was part of this chorus cohort, which I should mention, the cohorts last a few months. I still get emails from people going, David, you should disclose everyday chorus. Not only have I not been part of that for almost six months now, because those are temporary cohorts. Chorus didn't direct content. So what I'm telling you is when you watch this program, it's my editorial judgment. If you don't like it, then come to me. You might just not like my editorial decisions. But the show is reflective of what I want to talk about. It's reflective of my perspective. There's no external influences on that.

And I think that increasingly as private equity is buying up YouTube channels, this distinction becomes more and more important because when you're watching content online now, you might feel like you're watching an individual. But in some cases, you're watching a channel that is part of a portfolio of channels owned by private equity. And maybe the most important part is that you aren't told about that, which means the burden shifts to you as the viewer to at least be aware of this possibility. That is not the case with this show.

I own the show. The editorial decisions are mine. You don't have to like them, but you don't have to look beneath the surface to figure out where those decisions are coming from. It's just what I want to talk about. This segment that I just did was something that I wanted to talk about. Do you know what happens when you blend? cult-like devotion and politics? Well, I've got 18 seconds of video that tells you what happens.

Here is Congressman Troy Nails saying that Donald Trump is almost the second coming of Jesus. Take a listen to this. I believe that Donald Trump is better than sliced bread. I think he's almost a second coming, in my humble opinion. I think he's done a fantastic job. a very difficult job. Pope's got a tough job, you know, got issues in the church. But Donald Trump has a very, very difficult job to do the toughest job in the world. Think about what is happening here. In a normal political system, leaders are evaluated based on what they do. You look at their policies, you look at their results, you evaluate their competence. If they're running for something,

then you don't have their policies in place, but they make promises. And you can think to yourself, Are these promises logical? Trump's promising to tariff everybody. Is that good or bad? Oh, I think it's bad. Well, I'm not going to vote for him. That's the way it's supposed to be. This is totally different language.

Trump's not being evaluated by Troy Nails. He's being elevated like a cult leader. I'm reading a book right now. Let me actually get the name of it. I want to be precise. The book is called hoodwinked, how marketers use the same tactics as cults. The book is by Mara Einstein. And it looks at how a lot of marketing techniques are similar when you've got these brand cults,

Lulu Le Mans or these other ones. They use a lot of the same techniques and tactics that cults use. But you also have to see the dynamics of MAGA as a cult. And the language of Troy nails here where he's acknowledging that this is a movement, centered around one figure, Trump. And when you have that, you end up with a leader that becomes infallible, persecuted. He's a martyr. He's suffering for us. And he is uniquely capable of saving us. That's another important aspect of it. And he is almost sacred. And that's how you end up with someone like Troy Nails saying Trump is almost the second coming of Jesus. Now,

the problem when this happens for those of us who are not in the cults is that we see it as kind of silly and dumb, but it can be quite motivating for people who want to defend the cult leader. And I've said before, I've met a lot of these different elected officials and I just see them as people. They have ideas I like and ideas I don't like and I kind of evaluate that, but they're all just people. They're as flawed as every single one of us. There is impertive. as every one of us. And what I think is a generally important difference between the left and the right at this point in time is that the left sees these elected officials mostly as instruments to achieving policy. Biden, oh my God, nobody had flags about Biden on their boats.

Yeah, because we mostly just live our lives and we go, who's the better candidate? I'll vote and then hopefully they'll put in place the policies and that's kind of it. Even, you know, you go to the Bernie example, and I know some of you will write to me and you'll go, there was kind of a cult around Bernie to some degree. Yeah, there, there was some Bernie supporters who started to sort of deify him a little bit, but it's nothing like what it was with Donald Trump. And many of us, Bernie supporters from prior elections, we didn't see Bernie as it. You know, I think Bernie's got a lot of great ideas and then he's got some ideas I don't agree with. But it's, it's not a huge deal. Just if he's the best person of those that are available, then I support him. And if he's not, then

than I don't. And so we need to remember that while I believe we are much more grounded in reality and realistic in our expectations about elected officials when we don't see them as the second coming of Jesus, as Troy Nails said, this does give them an advantage in being able to motivate voters by talking to them about their leaders in these pseudo-deified ways, something we have to keep in in mind. The David Packman Show is an audience-supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join packman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. Let's get into the nasty things that people wrote to me while I was

traveling. No, it's mostly positive, but we are doing Friday feedback. We'll include a criticism or two and some nasty comments here or there. But there's a lot of good stuff to respond to you, to react to. Remember, you can always write to me info at David Pakman.com or leave comments on any of my various platforms. We start with Brats of War who wrote on Instagram a whole year of David being in the closet and spending all of your money on a. AIDS medications. I have a serious question and I don't know that I expect a serious answer. Why are I've I've been doing this show a long time and from the beginning the number of homophobic comments that I get as a straight guy and maybe that's not even relevant.

Like maybe I'm thinking why would they make homophobic comments about a straight guy or maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is let's let's in some way. Let's insult David as they they see it by acting as though he were a gay man. What is the obsession with gay people? Seriously. Like what on earth is going on in the minds of these folks that as they watch content, they think to leave homophobic comments? You know, when I watch stuff, it's very far from my mind.

Let me evaluate the sexual orientation and come up with ways to insult that based on whether I agree with the content. And that's when I go back to, you know, sometimes people ask me, don't you get mad at these people? I go mad. I feel really bad because when I think about what's going on in my life, which is so full of stuff that it would never occur to me, nor would I ever have the time to go online and leave this kind of insulting crap. This person must lead a really sad life. We should feel bad for this person, that this is what they're spending their time doing. Emma wrote to me on Spotify. You have consistently been my favorite person to go to for important news.

Your delivery has always been trustworthy, straight to the point and still humorous, even when it's doomworthy news. I don't know how you do it. I love it when you slip, slip into the Trump impression sometimes. Please never stop reporting. Well, Emma, I've got to tell you. No, I try to avoid the Trump impression because it's not good. It's a cringe Trump impression. But I really appreciate the sentiment.

If I have anything to say about it, we are, we're going to be here. Denise wrote on Facebook, Putin is also calling his war a military operation. Yes, Denise is astutely pointing this out. And I talked about this a couple of times. Donald Trump has been playing a lot of games with, is it a war? war in Iran or is it a special military operation? And Trump's motivation for doing that is that if it's a war, it probably required congressional authorization, which he didn't get.

And so Trump has been slipping in and out of it's a war versus it's a military operation for that reason. But there's no doubt that Trump loves authoritarian strong men. He's enamored with them. He's titillated by them, how they rule with an iron fist. And Putin's one of those guys. So it's also not a coincidence, not a shock to me that Donald Trump has adopted the language of Putin of calling what's going on in Iran a military operation.

He loves dictators and he wants to be like them. Great question from Ride the Schlange about the No King's protest of a couple of weeks ago. And he says, another No Kings has taken place. What is it accomplished? I was trying to understand what the No King demonstration. have actually accomplished in fighting fascism and authoritarianism and Trump spiraling the country towards the second American republic he inherited your building. I've read people talking in the context of Trump's going to be so angry when he sees this

or Trump will be livid when he sees my sign or Trump will capitulate any day now after the demonstrations. Do people really think that all one needs to do is hold a demonstration and Trump will voluntarily step down and is feeling the pressure. I think this is a fair question. If we are going to do so much organizing and participating in all of it three times now for no Kings, what is the whole point of it? Now, I've said to many people who watch the show, unless Trump dies or is physically incapacitated and dragged out, he will be president until January of 2029. But I don't see that as the point of no kings. To me, the point of no kings is at a time when Democrats

control nothing at the federal level. Don't control the White House. Don't control the House. Don't control the Senate. Create something to keep people engaged and activated. And the test will be, does the energy of no kings flow into a massive victory for Democrats in November and the removal of Republicans from control of at least the House of Representatives. I, you know, you've got to manage expectations. If your expectation is three protests get Trump to quit, well, you're going to be disappointed. Don't hold your breath for that. If the idea is we have to do what we can do, right now, we have little control over the legislative levers of power. But here's something we can do. And we're going to use that to remind people, hey, it's much, you made a sign. You made a sign. You

to the protest, you were out in the heat, depending on which of the protest. That's a lot. You've now just got to go and vote or even vote mail and ballot if that's possible in your state and in your situation. That's really easy and it can achieve change. That's the point to me. And we'll see if it happens in just a few months. A Mr. S.F. Studios wrote on YouTube for 150 years, nobody wanted a stupid ballroom or they would have

asked Congress and the voters for permission and built one. Yeah, this is one of those who was asking for this again. And Donald Trump is framing the ballroom as not only a patriotic project, but one that Americans really wanted and that is going to go to the sense of American pride and unity. And you know, you go and you talk to people. It's sort of like DoorDash Grandma getting asked, do you, what do you think about men in women's sports? And she goes, I don't have a position on that. I'm here for no tax on tips. Now, she got. bamboozled on no tax on tips. But that's an example of I'm not really engaged with that. I'm engaged with my life. And I haven't seen polling on the ballroom. But my guess would be if you go

and ask people about it and you say, would you rather the ballroom or just about any other economic initiative for the for the working class, they would choose those initiatives over the ballroom. I would bet money on that. Not a betting man. But I would bet money on that. Roland Tran thinks he got me. He wrote to me and he said, why aren't you happy for the Americans pilots being rescued, bro? I don't know what I said that suggests I'm not happy. Roland is probably talking about the fact that I didn't cover that. Well, I was off on those days. I wasn't hosting the show. On the show, I tend to cover stuff from the prior day or too and you might have noticed you might not that I was out of the country. I was in my birth

country of Argentina having empanadas and pizza and other things. And I wasn't hosting the show when the American pilots were rescued. It's great that the American pilots were rescued. Honestly, I thought it was one pilot. I didn't even follow the story. Maybe it was multiple. I don't know. He says pilots, but he also says Americans. It's totally fine, but I would have rather Trump not go to a war in Iran in the first place. How about that? PK.O.B. wrote on Reddit about David's fascination with Maria Bartaromo. I love David, they write.

But as anyone else noticed how often he brings up this Fox anchor, it's just funny because it's such a random lesser known one who I think is just on air Sunday. There's lots of bigger names that would be more predictable to cover like Sean Hannity. Yeah, you know, I'm not, I'm not obsessed or fascinated with her. But I am sort of stunned at the fact that she went from being a normal good financial reporter on CNBC reporting from the floor, the New York Stock Exchange and all of the stuff. She wasn't like an inspiration of mine, but objectively, she was a good financial reporter. She asked good questions.

She went from that to being a total Trump suckup and sycophant who nods along when Trump says the election was rigged. And that's notable to me. And it's a reminder, a reminder of how far people can fall. Last one from our friend Rosie O'Donnell. Yes, this is the real Rosie O'Donnell friend of the show. She's been on the show before. And she points out the vicious cycle of Trump.

Create a problem. Bomb Iran. Threaten them. Call it off. It's a reality show to him. And I think Rosie's right. I think that for Donald Trump, this is all. all so theoretical. It's like when Trump said, you know, we covered a clip of him going, what's a

corner store? I don't know what that is. Trump has lived his entire life in an essentially fake reality where he is catered to and doesn't have to worry about the things most Americans have to worry about. And even as president, it really is just a reality show for Donald Trump. Sad to say, sad to admit. But this is a reason why we don't elect people. We shouldn't elect people like Trump to be president. We've got a great bonus show for you. I'll tell you about my encounter with customs officers who looked at me weirdly when I arrived back in the United States. And we've got a bunch of other great stuff to talk about. Get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join packman.com.