The David Pakman Show - Trump supporters suddenly realize what they signed up for

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Milo Yiannopoulos called for mass deportations until immigration authorities arrested him in New Orleans and deported him to Great Britain -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blames Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure for high fuel costs while ignoring the Iran war -- Author Malcolm Knox compares Donald Trump to Joseph Stalin regarding their shared fixation on attaching their names to structures -- Donald Trump threatens severe military strikes near the Strait of Hormuz despite Mike Johnson previously calling the war a quick skirmish -- Eight White House aides depart including Karoline Leavitt while Donald Trump faces a 32% approval rating in a national UMass Amherst poll -- JD Vance tells interviewer Bryce Crawford that he welcomes the biblical end times and believes the Antichrist walks among humans -- David Frum outlines civil liability strategies for the US government to reclaim financial gains Donald Trump accumulated during his presidency -- Steve Scalise launches an investigation into whether Chinese propaganda causes American residents to reject large AI data centers -- On the Bonus Show: Massachusetts primary results, Joe Rogan sounds like he's moving back to the left, a lawsuit says Freedom Fuel stole $4 million of gas, and much more... ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 📖 Bullies, Parasites & Slaves: Text PAKMAN to 511511 or go to https://bps.online 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.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 Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- 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 (01:17) Milo speaks to Piers Morgan about his deportation (09:55) Scott Bessent blames Ukraine for higher fuel costs (16:17) Trump is obsessed with legacy like Stalin (26:24) Trump threatens Iran with severe military strikes (36:53) Eight White House aides resign (44:29) JD Vance says he welcomes biblical end times (51:41) How Trump could be stripped of his financial gains (58:52) Republican thinks China is why residents reject data centers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Coming up today, one of Donald Trump's loudest immigration supporters, Milo Yanopoulos, got a firsthand experience with deportation, and his reaction is unbelievable.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has found somebody knew that they can blame for the fact that your gas prices are exploding. You might not be surprised to hear that it is someone other than Trump for starting the war in Iran. And as that war continues to be in a. very dangerous phase, Mike Johnson is being confronted with some predictions that have aged really badly. We're also going to look at something potentially even more consequential for Republicans, which is that Trump and some of his own voters, Trump's own voters and some of his

allies are peeling away from him. And then the vice president, J.D. Vance gives one of the strangest interviews I've ever seen from a sitting vice president. Trump's obsession with his own legacy, maybe backfiring, and Republicans have apparently decided that if Americans don't like data centers, it must be that China tricked them. All of that and much more coming up today. You know, there may not be a more perfect. I never thought the leopards would eat my face story than this one. And it's about Milo Yanopoulos.

Milo Yanopoulos spent years demanding this massive immigration crackdown far more extreme, honestly than even what Donald Trump was proposing. And then Donald Trump's immigration system came for Milo Yanopoulos, who has now been deported. Take a listen to what he had to say about the experience. I didn't really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The manner in which they arrest you, they put your manacles, your hands, your feet, chained it together. I mean, like everybody is arrested is like an MS-13 gang member, and it hurts a lot more than it looks like on top. television. You know, I was put from, uh, from, um, you know, detention facility to a correction

facility. Um, you know, every three hours, they were, they were sort of trying to keep ahead of my lawyers so I couldn't, you know, so whatever. Um, but, but no one would tell me anything. Um, it was, it, I mean, I know it's designed to be like that, but it's, it was, sure, it was humiliating and it was disorientating the rest of it. It was physically degrading. It was, it was, It was frightening. It was frightening. I don't think I've ever been frightened like that before. How emotional have you been through this period? I've never been like this before.

I tripped and kind of tumbled down the stairs a night or two ago, and I'm a clumsy person so that it's not the rarest thing in the world. But it set something off from when I'd been kind of, you know, shoved down a couple of steps. And I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. And I was like, oh, I really have got to get this out of my system. I think maybe in the past I've been a little bit, um, a little bit blazee when people talked about their trauma, a little bit kind of cavalier when people talked about, um, you know, stuff kind of

kind of lingering with them, but I get it now. Um, and, uh, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I didn't really understand. This is kind of the entire story. He didn't understand because it wasn't happening to him. And I've said for a long time, these right wingers who can only evaluate a policy, once it personally affects them are really a problem. How many times have we heard about the homophobic congressman who voted against every gay rights thing for 15 years until it turns out that their niece was a lesbian or their son was gay and then all of a sudden. And they can't imagine, they can't envision what it would be like even if it's not happening

to you personally. Now, the backstory on this one is incredible. For those who haven't followed Milo in a while, he's this British right-wing provocateur, became a big figure in the Trump movement in the 2016 campaign. He was an editor at Breitbart. He kind of built his career around deliberately inflammatory politics. And eventually that became this enthusiastic support for Trump. And he was very aggressive on immigration.

Last year, Milo said there should be zero immigration for 20 years. And California needs ice checkpoints at supermarkets and gas stations and strip malls and intersections and government buildings and immediate deportation for everybody who can't provide their legal status immediately. In another post, he said the Trump administration needs to deport millions and millions and millions of people. And without that, nothing else matters. So the point is, Milo wanted the deportation machine operating everywhere.

And now he has experienced it himself. According to DHS, Milo legally entered the U.S. in 2019, but he overstayed his authorization. He then failed to appear for an immigration hearing and an immigration judge issued a final order of removal on July 22nd. Now, Milo disputes that account. He says, listen, I was married to an American. I had a green card. The government canceled my status without properly notifying me and they sent notices to me. an old address where I no longer get mail. Now, whatever ultimately happened legally, ICE arrested him at the New Orleans airport and the Trump administration deported him back to Britain. And suddenly the entire experience starts looking so different for Milo. When it's a random immigrant, arrested, shackled, thrown into detention, Milo loved it. He's like, we need more of this. We need millions and millions and millions. And when somebody else was being asked for their papers, put ice at the supermarket, put ice everywhere, I love it. When other people faced immediate deportation,

fantastic. We love that. Millions, millions, millions. He gets cuffed and shackled and detained and doesn't know what's going to happen to him. And suddenly, my God, this is frightening. That's what we've been saying this entire time. And what is remarkable is that he now seems to understand some of it. Now, this idea of, well, they're supposed to go after people like X, not people like me. That's what everybody thinks. And he told Pierce Morgan that he's ashamed of supporting Trump. That's good. He acknowledged that he previously was a little too cavalier about other people's trauma in these experiences. That's good. He says he experienced it himself. Now he gets it and he wouldn't wish it on anybody. So listen, you all know me. I don't take pleasure in somebody saying

they were traumatized. There's a political point here. And the point is basic human empathy is supposed to allow you to understand that something could be horrible even if it doesn't happen to you. Oh, a woman in a situation where she wants to seek out abortion and she would be, that would be criminalized. You can imagine. what that would be like, it doesn't need to happen to you. You shouldn't need your own wrists and handcuffs to figure out that the handcuffs hurt. And there's another layer to the story that is almost too perfect. Far right Trump ally Laura Lumer. She's been feuding with Milo. She says she reported him to ICE and the FBI. Now, we don't independently know what role, if any, that played

in the government's decision ultimately to arrest him. But think about what that would represent if political connections do have a role here. You spend years helping build the political movement that celebrates this extraordinarily aggressive state power that we are against, by the way. You encourage the movement. Use that power. Use it more aggressively. Go, go, go. You tell everybody not to worry about the consequences because it's going to be the good guys. We're only going to be using it against the bad guys. And then one day, somebody else in your own movement, at least nominally, decides actually I think you're one of the bad guys. And the machine you spent years cheering on is now coming for you. Milo wanted deportation. He wanted ICE everywhere. He wanted people to have to

prove on an instant demand that they have the right to be here. And then Trump's ICE arrested him and shackled him and deported him. And his conclusion after all of this is I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It took getting deported to figure out that this is an outrageous and disastrous policy. I think it's great. Listen, we've seen some other situations where, you know, MAGA wife's Latino husband deported. And she goes, I miss him, but I still support the policy or whatever. All right. Well, that's a whole other level of delusion.

At least Milo has done a reexamination. But he's done it after he has pushed personally for such a damaging policy for so long. So I think the goal has to be people should be able to empathize with situations they are not personally in and not only go, well, I don't think I'd get deported so I don't give a damn what they do. That's not a good way to go about it. On the other hand, I can imagine being in such a situation. I can imagine having been here for years, working hard, paying taxes, having committed no crimes,

and then they're going to come after me and my family. Oh, yeah, that would be bad. I don't have to be in that situation to recognize that that would be bad. That would be the, that's sort of like our North Star. But at least Milo changed his mind. They have found somebody to blame for your high gas prices. And it is not the president who started an optional war in Iran, one of the most important oil-producing regions on Earth being instantly affected by that optional war. No, Scott Bessent says,

it is Ukraine that we can blame for high prices. Huh? Take a look at this. And we are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine because Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refine products. So, That is creating upward price pressure on a global basis and then the conflict in Iran. And the conflict in Iran will end and prices will come down. There are a few layers of dishonesty here. And I think we should separate them out. First of all, is it true that Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries are affecting global energy markets?

Yes, that is true. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war against Russia. and they have successfully hit some Russian refineries and fuel depots and other energy infrastructure. And they've damaged Russian refining capacity. And they've reduced exports of some refined products. That is all true. And that can put some upward pressure on global fuel prices. That's true.

But notice how Besson describes what's happening. Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets. As though Ukraine woke up one morning and said, let's blow. stuff up in Russia. Why would Ukraine possibly be doing this? Maybe because Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war against a Russian invasion that has now been going on for years. Russia uses its energy industry to finance that invasion and its fuel infrastructure helps supply the Russian military. So Ukraine is attacking infrastructure that directly supports the country invading it. Now, you can debable.

as we often do about individual targets or tactics. But if you ignore that context and you go, Ukraine's driving up gas prices by bombing infrastructure in Russia, that is completely absurd. Now, then there's a much bigger problem. If Scott Bessent wants to have a conversation about why American gasoline prices have gone up, there is this Iran-shaped elephant standing directly behind him. Donald Trump chose to launch this war against Iran. It is not a defensive war. The United States was not invaded by Iran. There is no Iranian army pouring across the American border. Trump made the decision to enter an optional war in the Persian Gulf. And the predictable consequence is this massive disruption to global energy markets. The strait of Hormuz before the war handled

about a fifth of the world's oil consumption has been hugely disrupted. And so oil prices shut up. And because crude oil is the biggest component of what you ultimately pay for in gasoline, we saw gas prices go up in the United States. That's not. an anti-Trump interpretation. In fact, even Trump has admitted it. Trump said to Americans, paying more for gas is the price of fighting and he says winning the war against Iran. And after we're done, the prices will come back down. So when Trump is defending the war, these high gas prices are the noble sacrifice that Americans have to make. But when his treasury secretary is asked about prices, Ukraine did it. And the numbers make this.

just ludicrous. Axios just looked at the first six months of the Iran war compared with the first six months after Russia invaded Ukraine. And the cumulative increase in what American drivers were paying for gas was much larger during Trump's Iran war. The national average is around four bucks a gallon right now. Now, Ukraine's attacks on Russian refining capacity are putting a little bit of pressure up on prices, especially diesel and the refined products market. But there's been one dominant geopolitical shock here. And it's been Trump's war against Iran and how that has disrupted energy flows in the Persian Gulf. We know that because every single time the prospects for peace with Iran seem to improve. And by seem to improve, I mean, Trump says we're getting close,

but it's been a lie like 45 times. When we believe we're maybe getting closer to peace with Iran, oil prices fall. And when the fighting escalates and shipping through Hormuz looks like it's threatened again, oil prices go up. And as we are recording this right now, oil has jumped up again because this week, Donald Trump has renewed attacks against Iran. So this is a, it's a tidy little piece of propaganda from Besson. Russia invades Ukraine. Ukraine fights back. Ukraine attacks the infrastructure that sustains Russia's invasion. And the Trump administration goes, Look at what Ukraine is doing to your gas prices. Meanwhile, Trump's optional war massively disrupting one of the most important energy corridors

on this planet. We're not supposed to notice that part. It is completely and totally on brand to also excuse Russia because in blaming Ukraine by ignoring that this is defensive, you're excusing Russia's role in all of this. You're trying to protect Trump. but you're also trying to protect Putin. And if Vladimir Putin were, you know, personally writing the talking points for the Trump administration, they would basically be this. I'm not sure what would be different if you said to Putin, hey, what would you love to see the Trump administration saying about what's going on?

Well, we would love them to blame Ukraine for gas prices going up. And that is exactly what Scott Besson does. If it weren't so predictable and destructive, it might be funny. But it's not that funny for people to be unable to afford, be unable to afford gas or struggle to afford it or have to make choices between gas, food, medication. That's not really funny. And that sort of carries us to a discussion a lot of you have been suggesting I have, which is about the legacy of Donald Trump. So let's talk about that next.

Do you think Donald Trump realizes what is. legacy is going to be. Trump is obsessed with his name, his name on buildings and his name on properties, his name on government initiatives and on the Kennedy Center. And Trump seems consumed by this idea that if he can physically attach Trump to enough stuff, it'll make him permanent. There's a really interesting article by Australian journalist Malcolm Knox, who has an interview about this with Walter Marsh and the Guardian. We'll link to it. And it raises a question we've been talking about a lot, which is, does Donald Trump understand what he's going to be remembered for? Knox has written satirical novels about Stalin's Soviet Union. And he tells the Guardian

that when you study authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union, it can be useful to try to understand what we're watching right now. And I think these are such great point. What Knox points out is that Stalin was also obsessed with himself. He wanted to put his name on everything. He was creating this cult of personality. He was sort of striving for permanent something that would outlive him. And the most interesting point that Knox makes is that Stalin had a lot more power to manufacture his legacy than Trump does.

Stalin could literally rewrite the history that they were teaching. He could erase people. He could plaster his image everywhere and force the country to participate in this cult of personality. And what happened even then? Almost immediately after Stalin died, the cult was dismantled. And as Knox said, the sun will come up, the sun will go down, and Trump's name will turn to dust as every other dictator's name has. Now, Arnold Schwarzenegger made a similar point, even talking about his dad's Nazi predilection

and sort of saying eventually the authoritarian, the dictators, the dictators, these brutal people, they are ending up the losers in history. Inevitably, they end up the losers. Now, of course, Trump is not Stalin. The United States is not the Soviet Union. The point isn't that these are identical systems or figures. But the comparison is this obsession with controlling how history sees you. Trump is obsessed with his legacy.

He wants to build the ballroom to irreversibly change. the physical structure of the White House. He wants monuments to himself. He wants his name on stuff. He won't be here to control the story eventually. And when that happens, what is going to be the positive case for Trump's legacy? Think about that seriously. Is Trump going to be remembered for creating a health care system that finally got everybody affordable health care? No, because he didn't do it. Did Trump dramatically improve American standard of living? Of course not. Did he solve America's housing crisis? Of course not. Has he left Americans or will he he be leaving Americans with better infrastructure, education, retirement security, or quality of life?

No, he certainly didn't bring the country together either. And what I find so fascinating about Trump's obsession with physical monuments to himself is that normally you don't need to spend every waking moment demanding that people put your name on stuff if you've built a real legacy. FDR didn't need to rename everything, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whatever. Social Security was his legacy. Getting out of World War II was his legacy. LBJ has Medicare and Medicaid. Eisenhower built the interstate highway system.

Now, you can debate every president. Every president has flaws. But you can identify stuff they did that changed American life for generations. What is Trump's equivalent? What, what 50 years from now will Americans say, thank God that back in that, you, you know, the early 2020s, Donald Trump did X. People's lives today in 2075 or better because there's nothing. Now, I think the people around Trump would go well, you know, putting those tariffs on everybody and then like cutting taxes for the very wealthy in corporations and

deporting people brutally, plus his Supreme Court picks that would. But his supporters might identify that sort of stuff. But we would look at it and we would go, well, what's the giant durable improvement to ordinary people's lives. And where, where is the thing grand children are going to benefit from? He might be remembered for January 6th. He might be remembered for trying to overturn an election he lost and being completely unable to get over it. He'll probably remember, be remembered for being impeached twice. And by the way, maybe a third time, depending on what happens in November and then over the next couple of years, he might be remembered for being the first former president convicted of felonies, but those are all negative legacy elements. And now, by the way,

for launching an optional war with Iran whose consequences are potentially going to outlive his presidency. So there's an incredible irony here. Trump is obsessed with permanence, but he can't control what becomes permanent. He can put his name on a building. Somebody can take it off. He can put his name on an institution. Somebody can rename it. He can order his portrait hung somewhere, somebody can take it down. What he actually did as president is harder to erase and it's all been pretty bad. Now, one other thought, Knox makes one other observation in this piece. Authoritarian leaders don't only lie. They try to create an environment where everybody has to negotiate between what's actually real and what they're expected to pretend is real.

And that is exactly how I explained it shortly after the 2020 election when there was a poll that said 57% of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump. And one of the things we talked about was how many genuinely believe it, but how many understand that that's what you say to signal your support for the dear leader? Very common in cults, very common in authoritarianism. In North Korea, do you think all of the people genuinely believe that Kim Jong-un got all holes in one? when he golfed and doesn't defecate and, you know, rainbows follow him around. No, but they understand that either for their own self-preservation or and or to show that they are part of the system, it's something that they have to say. Now, Trump will, of course, declare that everything is great. He will say it's the greatest ever economy. Every apparent failure is really a historic victory. We're putting gold leaf

and gold letters everywhere and it's all great. But he doesn't get to write the history books. We get to write those books, historians write the books, people who live through this crap do. And so when we think about future generations saying, wow, what did Trump do with all of that power? Did he make people's lives better? Did he make Americans healthier, more prosperous, more secure? Was the country stronger? Was the country more democratic when Trump left? Or was it eight years separated by the Biden presidency, of course, with a presidency that accumulated power, sought revenge, used it to enrich himself, demanded personal loyalty, and just was obsessed with everybody seeing his name. Malcolm Knox believes he knows where it ends. I agree with him. I think he is exactly

right. And the permanent elements are Trump are going to be horrible things. Every political story has two parts. What happened and what different media outlets want you to think happened. And you can And you can see the framing difference pretty clearly in this story about Donald Trump signing a $70 billion immigration bill after this long fight over ICE funding. On the left, the focus is what will the money fund billions for the next three years of Trump's mass deportation campaign? On the right, the emphasis is Trump taking future ice shutdowns off the table by signing the bill. One side is asking, what does this mean for immigration enforcement, for mass deportations? The other is framing it, it as Trump ending the threat of ice shutdowns. This is why our sponsor Ground News is so useful

because it lets you compare coverage from the left, right, and center in one place, along with factuality ratings and info about who owns the outlets. I've been using Ground News for years. It can really help you see through the political spin that blinds a lot of news consumers. And right now you can get 40% off the same vantage plan I use. Go to ground. slash Pacman. The link is in the description. One of our sponsors today is the new book by George Koch called Bullies Parasites and Slaves. Bullies take from others to benefit themselves and they pretend to be our only defenders as a ploy to get our support. And the instant a bully doesn't need us, we become their next victims. We need to wise up and see this. Parasites are the people

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Donald Trump is now openly threatening an attack that he says could leave very little of Iran's government remaining. And I want to remind you how this whole thing was sold to Americans at the start. Two to three weeks, quick, limited, contained, maybe a little blip in gas prices, which will come down very quickly. We are more than six months into this thing. And here is what Donald Trump posted. Quote, the United States is as we speak striking Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful.

And in retaliation for the Iranians failed attempt at adding sea mines to the strait, which currently has no minds, they have been completely removed or detonated, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles all successfully knocked down at our military base in Jordan. If the failed nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level. But it will not be the biggest attack of them all that is waiting in the wings. And when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The belief is that Trump is alluding to nuking Iran, total destruction of Iran. Now, think for a moment about how far we have traveled from what Americans were initially told this was going to be. One of the people confidently

reassuring everybody was Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson repeatedly said this is going be brief, it's going to be manageable. It's a skirmish. It's not a war. Whatever happens to energy prices will be very temporary. And now more than six months into it, CNN's Manu Raju confronted the speaker of the house with his very predictions and asked a really straightforward question. Should Americans be judging you based on the predictions you made, which were wrong? And his response is your question is stupid. Let's look. On Iran, you said repeatedly that this war was going to be over soon. You said that this would be a temporary blip on short-term, on gas prices.

It is similar than six months. People are getting hurt still at the pump. Should the American people not also judge you on your projections here that were clearly off-base? Manu, that is one of the stupidest questions you've ever raised. I have nothing to do with the prosecution of the war across the globe. You are responsible. You're selling this to the American public, are you not? So should the House Speaker be held responsible for their duration of a military conflict around the globe?

You answer that question. I mean, you called this a short-term scrimmage. It is costing billions of dollars. This is one of the most important lessons about war. Predictions about how easy a war will be are really cheap at the beginning. So many elected officials for decades in this country have told us it'll be quick. it'll be contained. They won't retaliate. They don't have the ability to retaliate. The costs will be manageable. It won't do much to energy prices. And every single time that those predictions fail,

you almost never see anyone come back and go, hey, you know what? I was wrong about that. Instead, what happens is six months later, you ask them about their own statements and they go, well, that was a stupid question. Or they say, you know, we've made incredible progress. But we're really trying to do the job right. We could have left after two or three weeks, but we're doing the job right. And meanwhile, the president of the United States is publicly threatening another escalation so enormous that if he did whatever he's thinking of, again, we think he's talking about nuking Iran, it would leave very little of the country. Whatever you think American policy towards Iran should be, we are not in a temporary blip here. And we are

certainly not in what we would consider a skirmish. Now, there are a few different layers to this that I believe are important to consider. Number one, when we got into this thing, was Donald Trump cognizant of all of the ways in which it could go wrong or wasn't he? Because now we end up in an incredible situation. If Donald Trump was not cognizant of all the ways in which this could go wrong, it undercuts the idea that he knows better than everybody. If he wasn't cognizant of what could go wrong, it undercuts the idea that he has the best people around him because they must not have told him. And so that's a problem.

On the other hand, if Trump was cognizant of all of the ways in which this could go wrong and is going wrong, then we have a different situation we have to consider, which is that Donald Trump doesn't give a damn. And I think that that is, I actually think both of these scenarios are true. I think Trump was not fully cognizant of all of the ways that it could go wrong and also the ways he was aware of he didn't give a damn about. Why do I say that? Well, he has said before and he's been on record as saying, I would have still done this. I did this thinking that gas prices would go up even more and that the stock market would collapse even more.

Translation, he didn't care if it were even worse for the average American. He still did it. So that's number one. What did Trump know? what didn't he know? How informed is he? Does he give a damn about you? Okay. I think we've kind of dealt with that. Number two, what is the most likely exit at this point from this thing? And I think it's very clear. It's Trump will eventually have no choice, but to declare victory. Now, remember, declaring victory doesn't mean you won. Imagine an NBA team loses and they go, we declare

victory and then they get off the field. We've got a scoreboard. We can see who at the, off the court. We've got a scoreboard and we can see who actually won. I believe that that is going to be Trump's last and I hate to say best, but sort of only option. And that is going to be to declare victory and to leave, even though none of the objectives will have been accomplished, even though we will not have a deal in place with Iran. And even though Iran will sort of have the ability to just kind of keep chipping away, chipping away and hurting the United States little by little and hurting our economy. And then finally, what is going to happen with the election around all of this? Now, I want to speak one more time to those who say, I don't like Trump, but I sort of like my elected

official. I don't have a big problem with my elected Republican senator or my elected Republican member of the House. It is because of your elected Republicans collectively that this war is going on in the way that it is right now. If Republicans were on board with Democrats and saying, we are not going to either. rubber stamp or just look away. Sometimes it's through inaction that they allow Trump to do stuff, which is we just, we don't have the power. We're not getting involved. If Republicans and Democrats in

the House were united at stopping this war, they could have done it. And so when it comes time for you to go and vote and you go, oh, my nom, you know, I'm, I'm in Max Miller's district or I'm in Anna Paulina Luna's district or Steve Scalise and I don't like Trump, but I don't have a problem with them. They are all complicit in this entire war. And depending on who, between 90 and 99% of what Trump wants, they rubber stamp and they vote for. Keep that in mind when it's time to vote in November. Your good Republican that you seem to like, even though you don't like Trump, is responsible

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Removing your information from these online databases is critical to protect yourself and your loved ones. Get 60% off when you go to incogny.com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. Something is happening around Donald Trump right now that should terrify every single Republican heading into the midterms. And that is that people are starting.

to leave. Now, I don't mean random voters who never liked Trump. I don't mean Democrats. I don't mean never Trump Republicans. People who worked for Trump, people who supported him, people who voted for him. And suddenly in a bunch of different places at the same time, we are seeing people back away. And it is starting inside the White House. Semaphore reports that Trump's inner circle is shrinking. Two members of the small group of core advisors that were photographed around him at the end of last year are gone. Two more trusted advisors are leaving within weeks. And it is much more than just these four people because there are eight other White House aides who said we are leaving. And they announced that just over the summer.

Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, as we've discussed, is gone. White House counsel David Warrington is gone. Legislative Affairs Director James Brade and, A bunch of other officials are gone. Now, obviously, people leave White Houses. There is some turnover. But Donald Trump's White House is really dependent on this tiny group of people that he personally trusts.

He is obsessed with loyalty. He doesn't just bring in some talented new person and immediately trust them. He wants people he knows. People have been around. People who have proven that they are loyal to Donald Trump. So every single departure makes the small circle smaller. And even people close to Trump believe that things are starting to fall apart. One person close to the administration said to semaphore, you've begun to see a deterioration

of the tight ship that was run in the first year. They said Trump needs fresh minds. He needs fresh ideas. And then they give this incredible discreet. of the people around Trump. A lot of people are fucking obese now from the power and from the influence. And this is someone close to Trump's White House that is admitting that. Now, fine, Trump can't run again.

But this is the nightmare for Republicans right now because the people leaving the building aren't the only ones that are backing away. We have a new UMass Amherst, my alma mater approval poll, which has Trump at 3. 32% approval, 64% of the country disapproves of the job that Trump is doing. And buried underneath those numbers is something that is a lot more dangerous for Trump, which is that among Republicans, his approval is down 14 points since March. If Democrats hate Trump, it's not really a threat to Trump or Republicans. They already weren't voting for Trump.

They already weren't voting for Republicans in November. The nightmare begins when the people who put you in Pakistan. start going, is this a good idea? They start having second thoughts. And that's what's happening right now. Listen to this statistic. Roughly, 15% of the people that voted for Trump in 2024 say, you know, if I could do it again, I might not vote at all or I might vote differently. Think about what it would mean for a Republican candidate to lose 15% of the people that voted for them from one election to the next. The researchers say this is not so much a massive exodus.

This is an erosion. It is a clear, consistent erosion. And Republicans really should be freaking out about that because Trump doesn't need to lose 15% or 50% of Republicans or of MAGA, rather, for Republicans to get crushed in the midterms. Because these are, especially at the midterms when a lot of people just stay home, these are races really decided on the margins. If even 5% of the people who've showed up for you in 24 say, you know what? Gas is expensive.

Groceries are expensive. The Iran war is a disaster. I'm sick of this. And just those people stay home, that'll flip a congressional seat. That'll flip congressional seats all over the country. So that is a very real and present problem. Now, what do the data say about people's opinions? In other words, do people think that gas prices are doing fine or do people think that this

is maybe a problem? Well, 75% say that. that Trump is handling inflation poorly. 63% say he's handling jobs poorly. 68% say he's handling Iran poorly. And even Republicans are splitting over Iran where among the hardcore MAGA base, this is not all Republicans. This is just self-described MAGA Republicans. Only 87% of that group supports Donald Trump's handling of Iran.

And if you look at Republicans who don't consider themselves MAGA, only 30% think Trump's handling of Iran is acceptable. So the big picture is a Trump who is unpopular nationally, support among Republicans slipping, some of his own voters now say, yeah, I wouldn't vote for him again, an inner circle at the White House that's shrinking, and people close to the administration describing there is a deterioration here. This is political isolation. And it doesn't happen all at once.

Nobody announces maga's over. It's just a few people peel away. And aid leaves. A voter says, I'll stay home. I won't vote for Democrats this time, but I'm going to stay home. An ally goes, yeah, I defend a lot of what he does, but this one thing I can't defend. And all of a sudden, you've lost four, five, six, seven percent of your base and you can't win elections all of a sudden.

And the unbreakable political movement figures out, damn, only losing a few people was enough to really hurt us. So that's where we stand right now. This should make us. So there's, there's two ways this could be interpreted by anti-Trump, anti-Republican voters. Oh, he's losing people. I don't really need to figure out who's running in this midterm. I don't need to vote. I'm going to stay home. That's the wrong reaction. The right reaction should be a lot of these midterms are decided by tight margins. A lot of people stay home. The idea of four, or five or six percent of MAGA staying home should reinforce how much more powerful I can be if I go out there and vote. Let's make sure we don't end up losing when we could win because we didn't

think that it was important enough or we couldn't be bothered to get out there and vote. That I believe is the mindset we need to have. At minimum, we've got to take the House. It would be great to take the Senate. And the exciting sort of opportunity is a lot of these Republicans don't realize they are at this much risk. They are informationally siloed the way I talk about in my book pay attention. So we're thinking to ourselves, man, if I was worried my coalition was going to lose, I would make damn sure to vote. A lot of them do not realize that they are at such risk because what they see is Trump posting to Troth Central about how great they're doing. Trump posting about his endorsement record is so good. A lot of them don't realize what they are up again. So we should see it as an

informational asymmetry that benefits us. Let's make sure that we get out there and vote. J.D. Van sat down with Christian influencer Bryce Crawford. This is a guy who goes out on the street and he goes, are you, are you with Jesus? And just does like on the street influencer stuff with a Christian right-wing Christian ideology. Somehow we ended up with the vice president of the United States sitting down with Bryce Crawford, talking about the end times, talking about how the antichrist might be among us, and how confident is J.D. that he is going to go to heaven. A couple days ago on the show, we did a story about what does it mean to be crazy or insane? Like, legally, what does it mean?

Or what about psychiatric disorders? What do we mean in a colloquial way when we go, that's crazy? This segment is not going to allow us to diagnose J.D. with anything. But what I'm asking you to imagine is the reaction if a prominent Democratic vice president gave this exact interview and said this kind of crap. Listen to where J.D. Vance's head is right now. Here is J.D. saying he's focusing on doing God's work. And if him doing God's work leads to the end times, then so be it. What I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, okay.

This is the vice president of the United States. Now, I don't want to focus on his belief in God. Millions and millions of perfectly normal Americans are religious. And I know that there are some in my audience, fellow nonbelievers, right? I'm in the group here. But there are those in my audience who believe that everybody who has some kind of nominal religious belief should be shamed and humiliated, et cetera. I actually don't think that that's useful politically to do.

What I am talking about here is not JD's belief in God. It's the combination of he has massive political power and he has this casual apocalyptic thinking. He is a heartbeat from the presidency. They're making decisions about war and nuclear weapons and Iran, Israel, Russia, potentially the lives of millions of people. And he's in a position of power. And he goes, I think I'm doing God's work. And if it leads to the end times, so be it.

that's it. We deserve some follow-up questions. As that's what the vice president is saying. And here is JD saying, I would not be shocked if the Antichrist was walking amongst us. Take a look. Do I think that we're in the end times? I don't know. And I think that it's probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it because there are like things you got to do. I got to be good to my wife. I got to be good to my kids. I have to. I have to be good to my kids. have to be, you know, as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America. And so I think that focusing, while I'm fascinated by it, I think focusing on it is too much can be very bad. I think that there are like things about the world that make me feel like not shocked

if the Antichrist was, was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it. I would really like to know what that means to him. Does J.D. believe in a literal human being alive right now who is the Antichrist? Does he think we may be living through like a biblical end times prophecy? Does he think his role as vice president is to accelerate that or precipitate it? And if so, is he thinking about American foreign policy in terms of like what could I do to bring about the rapture? That is wacky stuff. And when the person, when a person like J.D. Vance with this amount of political power is saying this kind of stuff, we need to be asking these questions, but we're not even done because Bryce Crawford then asks JD to quantify

something, I don't think I remember any vice president ever quantifying before. Rate your odds of getting into heaven on a scale of one to 10. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being absolutely certain, one being not certain at all. How confident are you that you'd go to heaven? Oh, man, that is a tough question it's high but it's not 10 right i mean it's it's it's a it's a seven or it's an eight like i'm always one of these people who is is always going to have little doubts and like if you'd ask me that question a year ago probably was like a five or a six wow wait why the why the change like five or six and now seven or eight because i'd say the difference is and again i know i all all respect to to God, but you know, I still occasionally had doubts like is this actually real.

Yeah. Right. What happened during the last year that J.D. gained two points of confidence that he was getting into heaven. Is there like a heavenly Nate Silver running the model or something like that? And I'm sort of joking around because the question is inherently funny. But if you take the whole interview together, it is bizarre. Because within a single conversation, the vice president is talking about doing God's work, even if it leads to the end times, saying he wouldn't be surprised if somewhere around here, the Antichrist is walking around and talking about how confident is he that he's going to get into heaven and how he's actually become more confident.

I'm not saying that this is a psychiatric condition. It would be inappropriate to do that. So I'm not going to do it. But politically, I got to know a lot more about what J.D. Vance believes. because if the vice president genuinely believes we may be approaching the biblical end times that the Antichrist is literally alive and walking among us and that JD's own actions constitute doing God's work, those are highly relevant beliefs when he makes a decision about what do we do about a nuclear armed superpower, for example.

Now, maybe it's all theological and theoretical for JD. Fine, explain that and tell us these are really, none of this relates to my day-to-day job as VP. If you hold this much power and you go, if what I do leads to the rapture, then so be it. That is an insane sentence speaking colloquially to hear and just move on from. Now, what do you think? Is JD literally a believer in this stuff? Or is he speaking metaphorically? Is he speaking theoretically?

Let me know what you think. Hey, if you're hearing this, that means you're listening to our podcast on one of the podcast networks that we stream to. And first, I just want to say, thank you for being a listener of this show. It really means a lot that you're tuning in here. I would love to ask you for a quick favor. We are so close to reaching 4 million subscribers on YouTube. YouTube is where we post everything you get through the audio podcast and a lot more stuff. It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick second to pop over to YouTube, search up the David Packman show, and hit subscribe. Every bit helps. I would love to have you as a subscriber there. What's going to happen to all

the money that Donald Trump stole? This may actually be his biggest problem once he is no longer president if he lives that long, of course. There is a fascinating new piece in the Atlantic by David from called what might happen to Trump's ill gotten gains. And it asks a question that I don't think we've spent nearly enough time thinking about, which is that, listen, eventually Donald Trump is no longer going to be president, but what about all of the money and the wealth that his family have accumulated while he has been president? Now, David Frum argues that Trump's use of the presidency to enrich himself is unprecedented in modern American history, and I agree with that, and that it's also unprecedented among a comparable democracy.

And I think that that's also absolutely true. And so because of the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling, criminal prosecution of Donald Trump is going to be effectively impossible. I wish it weren't the case. I'm not giving up or throwing in the towel, but it's just kind of the reality. The important thing is that criminal prosecution isn't the only possibility because an ex-president can still face civil liability. And this is not something that is getting enough attention.

Remember that one of the most successful, I guess we would say, consequence-inducing events for Trump was the civil case against him by E. Jean Carroll. And what David From argues is that proceeds from bribery, extortion, insider trading, market manipulation, if an individual engages in those things, those are potentially subject to civil penalties. And that's where this gets really interesting. When you look at other countries, you see that some countries have dealt with this. In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori's government was in this massive corruption scandal. It involved hundreds of millions of dollars that had been hidden overseas.

And after Fujimori fell, Peru created the special prosecutor's office and they worked with foreign governments. And eventually, they did recover $200 million. dollars. Another example in the Philippines, dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family pillaged billions. And after Marcos was removed, the government that came in set up this entire commission, specifically to recover the money. And according to the reporting that David Frum cites, about $5 billion was eventually returned. One more example, Nigeria did something very similar after their dictator, Sani Abaka, allegedly stole about $4 billion.

Nigeria created this anti-corruption unit. They worked with foreign governments. They ultimately recovered about $1.5 billion. Now, obviously, the United States is not Peru. It's not the Philippines. It's not Nigeria. But that's exactly the point. We're dealing now with Trump with something that historically is much more associated with

kleptocratic governments than it is. with American presidents. We're not used to this in the United States. And recovering improperly obtained money is not just about punishing the wrongdoer. Imagine Trump's leave office, leaves office, and everybody says, you know, thank God it's over, let's move on. Except the Trump family walks away vastly wealthier than before. Remember, Trump made like $2 billion last year.

That money does not disappear from politics because it can be used by the people who have it, Trump and his family, to finance other candidates, to fund media operations, to build organizations, to pay for lawyers. It could finance another generation of Trump's, maybe Don Jr. We've seen versions of that overseas because Fujimori's daughter eventually became the president of Peru. And Ferdinand Marcos' son became president of the Philippines decades after his father was removed from power.

And I believe that that is David Frum's most important point in this article. And I encourage you to read the entire thing. If the Trump family gets to just keep all the wealth that they wrongfully accumulated through political power and corruption, that wealth then becomes a tool to keep political power. And when Trump eventually leaves office, there is going to be huge pressure to go, turn the page, stop talking about Trump. It usually works this way when cabinet members quit. suspected of wrongdoing, horrible, you know, and sometimes it could be even criminal, but certainly

morally wrong behavior. They quit and it's like, all right, they're gone. And everybody forgets about them. And I said yesterday, that shouldn't be allowed to happen with people like Pamp Bondi and Christy Nome and others. And I get the impulse to say, we finally have Trump gone. That is it. Let's never speak of him again. But I think there's a huge difference between seeking political revenge and just saying we enforce the law. If the money was obtained legally, that's one thing. But if investigations established that money was obtained illegally by Trump or his family, the United States should be pursuing that through standard legal processes just as aggressively as it would with anybody else. Once we've established an incredible precedent where we don't do that,

meaning you can use the presidency to enrich yourself. If you survive till the end and you get out of office, you get to keep it. If we were to establish that as a precedent. And by the way, you can then potentially use that money to keep your family powerful for another generation. That is so antithetical to everything the United States is supposed to be that it is self-destructive. And we really cannot allow that to happen. So we need to do two things here.

Number one, let's prepare to move on from Trump as far as the politics of the United States. We want nothing more to do with Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Baron Trump, Don Jr. God forbid, you know, they're talking about maybe Don Jr. being the next Republican president or who the hell knows, maybe not the next one, but the one after that. We don't want any of that. We got to move on. But at the same time, we don't want to just turn our heads away and go all that money you grifted and scammed and defrauded people of.

you now get to keep it with absolutely no pushback whatsoever and do whatever what you want with it, even put people in power or try to with the money who won't hold you accountable, who will put your son back in power or whatever. So let's be prepared to do both to say that was an aberration. Let's never let it happen again electorally. But in order to make that a reality, we have to make sure that he just doesn't get away with all of the money. really good piece by David Frum. We'll link to it. I encourage you to read it. We cannot allow the corruption to become permanent. And that has to be a focus once Trump is gone. This must be a

disease of some kind because apparently Republicans cannot comprehend the possibility that Americans might independently dislike something that their own party supports. What could I be talking about? Check this out. Republicans and Democrats are increasingly against the massive data centers being built in their communities. We talked about it a little bit yesterday. There are very good reasons to be against data centers. For example, people are worried about electricity prices. They're worried about water consumption.

They're worried about noise. They're worried about land use. Enormous industrial facilities suddenly appearing near where they live. So naturally, MAGA Republican Congressman Steve Scalise has a different explanation. And he goes, you know what? I think China tricked everybody into being against data centers when they should be for data centers. Take a look at this.

And this has been kind of a bipartisan issue. You've seen Governor Josh Shapiro. He has concerns Texas Governor Greg Abbott, has voice concerns. Your thoughts? Well, ultimately, they're decided at the local level. If you want them in your community, and by the way, there are a lot of communities that do want them, then they're working out really well. If you don't want them, that's your choice.

Look, in Louisiana, we've got, META's got the largest data center in the world being built in little Richland Parish. And do you know what Richland Parish was just able to do because of the data center that Meta built? They were able to give every single school teacher in that parish a $50,000 bonus, bonus, not their salary. That's on top of their salary because of the data center. You know, Loudoun County in Virginia is saying yes to data centers. They were just able to give a 30% property tax cut to every resident in Loudoun County. So if you say yes to it, they're really good benefits that come.

This is a competition with China. Let's be clear about this. And we are investigating whether China is behind a lot of this misinformation, false information, against data centers. You know, who's funding this campaign, I think is a good question to ask, against data centers? because if it's literally a war between America and China, China's the only one that benefits. And so we've been investigating it. We're finding some things.

X just uncovered over 200 bots that are being controlled by China that are spewing out a lot of this stuff. So we're investigating whether China is somehow behind Americans not wanting massive data centers in their communities. And what exactly is the theory here? Well, China wants to trick us into rejecting those sweet, sweet data centers so that China can have them all instead. We'll take those enormous electricity demands and the water consumption and the industrial development that we subsidize. You fools, you're not going to take that away from us. Now, obviously, with these completely hairbrained ideas, there is often some kernel of truth. And the kernel of truth is China would love it strategically if the United States fell behind

in artificial intelligence. It would not surprise me at all if Chinese influence operations were trying to exploit legitimate political disagreements and concerns in the United States. That's what governments do. Russia's known for it. We went over their playbook yesterday. Of course, China would do that. But that is very different from explaining away anyone's opposition to data centers as

people who have been tricked by a Chinese misinformation campaign. You don't need Chinese propaganda to understand and explain why people might be against these projects. Go and talk to these people, and they will tell you the water, the cost, the electricity rates, the pollution, the noise. And I just lost the light. I apologize. There is something about these. They do not want the show to get done today. My lights are back on it. That is my, that is disrespectful to the audience. The interview. Steve Scalise also said in the interview that these decisions are being made at the local level. Now, technically, it may be the case that you can argue that because data centers before they start being built, they go through some local permitting and approval process.

Like, that's true. But that description makes it sound like a democratic and transparent process where community members go and they say here, here's how it would affect rates and here's what you would fund and here's what the noise would be. In a lot of these communities, residents do not meaningfully learn what is being proposed until the project is so far along that it cannot be stopped. And even when there is public discussion, what people usually want to know isn't answered clearly. Who's paying for the new electrical infrastructure? Well, they'll go, oh, the company is paying for it.

except you'll pay it back through higher rates for years. Are some of the costs eventually going to appear on residential utility bills? And they go, your rate for electricity won't be affected. Ah, the rate for electricity. In other words, the usage fee. But what about all the other fees that are on your electrical bill? How much water will this facility consume? What happens if there is a drought?

How much noise does it generate? What happens to the land? How many permanent jobs will it create after the temporary construction jobs are done? Xi Jinping didn't invent those questions. Those are real questions that any normal person would say, I kind of want the answers to that before you start building, before you break ground. And that's where the politics of this gets really interesting. Opposition to data centers isn't fitting into these partisan boxes.

And elected officials are used to, well, if Democrats are against it, then we like it. Or if we're against it, then those other people like it and we've got to attack them. You have environmentalists concerned about the water and the energy consumption. You have homeowners concerned about noise and property values. You have people worried about electricity prices. You've got conservatives that don't want massive industrial developments changing rural communities. You have people who love AI, but they just don't think the average taxpayers should subsidize the infrastructure when And these are some of the wealthiest corporations in human history that want to build this stuff. And what elected officials, especially Republicans are getting wrong is that instead of recognizing,

oh, this is crossing party lines, we should recognize there is a coalition here. We should address the concerns. Steve Scalese's response and Trump and others like, we're investigating China because it could be propaganda. And this is becoming a pattern. If voters don't like the policy, maybe they were misled as opposed to maybe they're are accurately disliking the policy. If Democrats and Republicans both don't like it, apparently we need to investigate whether a foreign adversary somehow infected everybody with the same opinion,

or maybe people looked at what was being proposed in their community and they said, I don't like it. America must think about AI infrastructure. That's a competition. It's a competition with China. That's legitimate. There are national security arguments to say we need the computing capacity and electricity generation to remain competitive. But China can't become this magic word that we throw out there and don't let anybody honestly object to what is being proposed. Now, if these projects are really fantastic for the communities, then demonstrate it.

Show people what happens to their electrical bills, who pays for the infrastructure, water usage, environmental impact, job creation, and give communities an opportunity to say, hey, maybe we want this. I'm sure there are communities that would say, we like the tradeoff. We want to do it. But if your best explanation for why Americans don't like your idea is some foreign government must have tricked them into it, you are avoiding considering that they understand the policy just fine.

It's you that they don't like at the end of the day. It's the policy that they don't like. Trump is screwing up big with this one and it really could backfire.