The David Pakman Show - When the going gets tough, the weak throw insults

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

-- On the Show -- Pam Bondi erupts during a House hearing, redirects questions about Jeffrey Epstein to stock market numbers, clashes with Ted Lieu, and refuses to engage directly with Democratic members -- Jim Jordan says protesters cannot enter the Capitol and disrupt Congress, unintentionally describing the criminal conduct of January 6 rioters whom Donald Trump later pardons -- Donald Trump delivers rambling remarks about wind turbines in China and Europe, praises tariffs as his favorite word, and abruptly ends an event without taking questions after scrutiny of Pam Bondi intensifies -- Donald Trump accepts a “Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal” trophy amid exaggerated praise, highlighting how flattery and branding around clean coal substitute for substantive energy policy debate -- Six House Republicans including Thomas Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick join Democrats in a 219 to 211 vote to end tariffs on Canadian imports, prompting Donald Trump to threaten primary consequences -- Trump’s central promises on immigration, trade, and the economy are facing broad resistance and failing to deliver the stability he promised -- Speaker Mike Johnson dismisses the Pam Bondi hearing as a circus while projecting midterm confidence, reinforcing party loyalty messaging as scrutiny and internal pressure grow -- Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz criticize the Trump administration’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein narratives, signaling potential erosion within culturally influential podcast audiences -- On the Bonus Show: The House passes new voting rules, free speech lawsuits grow over Charlie Kirk commentary, the US military temporarily closed the El Paso airport, and much more... 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:21) Pam Bondi Deflects Epstein Questions(09:40) Jim Jordan’s January 6 Irony(16:34) Trump Rambles on Tariffs(22:18) Clean Coal Trophy Moment(30:09) GOP Rebels on Canada Tariffs(34:25) Trump Agenda Facing Resistance(40:46) Mike Johnson Downplays Hearing(48:18) Rogan, Schulz Break with Trump Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorney General Pam Bondi had a full-blown meltdown that has gone completely viral, screaming about the stock market while dodging questions about Jeffrey Epstein. Jim Jordan accidentally described January 6th as a crime, but he didn't mean to, and we're going to look at that all while trying to attack Democrats. And meanwhile, Trump had one of the strangest public glitches yet and rambled about windmills and tariffs and ended an event without taking a single question, He also accepted what is yet another completely bogus, imaginary, meaningless prize or award. And it leads really to a bigger conversation about how authoritarian leaders get used to being

surrounded by flattery and fake accolades. And this only reinforces their authoritarianism. Then, and this really is big, Republicans have broken with Trump on tariffs in a real vote, not on a messaging difference, not on a symbolic. disagreement. They broke with Trump and they voted against the tariffs. And later we're going to talk about the 180 that the Manosphere has done and how it could be politically devastating in November. All of it and more today. Well, the disgusting, depraved, diabolical, dilapidated Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi had a complete and total crash out.

showing up supposedly to answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein and other issues of relevance to the Attorney General's office and instead showed up with lists of insults. She was caught holding a piece of paper that contained the search history of a Democratic Congresswoman on the panel. This is not someone constitutionally suited to this position. We're going to go through it. When asked about Jeffrey Epstein, she wants to brag about the stock market, and she weirdly starts to say that the Dow is over $50,000, which doesn't really mean anything. The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear Raskin.

The Dow is over $50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000 and the NASDAQ smashing records, Americans 401K, and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe. We should be talking about, what does a Dow have to do with anything? That's what they just asked.

Are you kidding? Mr. Jordan. Are you kidding? Committee will be in order. Mr. Jordan, am I going to get an extra 45 seconds added to my time? The committee will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Texas. Ms. Bondi, the Attorney General can respond.

Thank you. The Dow has shattered 50,000 for the first time. All right. Anyway, so this has nothing to do, of course, with the Attorney General. And this is the authoritarian classic move of telling others what they should be talking about. Isn't the question you meant to ask me? How has Donald Trump so heroically managed to fix every single problem through sheer mental will?

That's the question they want answered. Here's a little compilation from the recount about some of the various crashes that Bondi suffered. Excuse me. I'm going to answer the question. I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. Don't you ever accuse me of a crime? I believe you just lie under oath. You can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch.

Not on our time. No way. And I told you about that attorney general before you started. You don't tell me anything. Yeah, I did tell you because we saw it. what you did in the Senate. Lawyer, not even a lawyer. The Dow is over $50,000.

I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear Raskin. Wexner's name was added back. Within 40 minutes of me catching you red-handed. Red-hand... This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. We're obsessed with Donald Trump. You have Trump derangement syndrome.

And he's a hypocrite because he voted against the ban that we were talking about on deep fake AI porn, hypocrite. The gentleman's time has expired. I'm talking. Quiet. Don't yell at me. Robert Mueller found no evidence, none of foreign interference in 2016. Have you apologized to President Trump?

Can I finish, please? I'm not being rude. I only have five minutes. No, yeah, and I only have 30 seconds based on your filibuster. She keeps going after Donald Trump. She doesn't say how much money she took from Reid Hoffman, did you? Did you ask Merritt Garland that the last four years? Did you talk about Epstein at all the last-

I'm glad you're asking about Merrick Garland? You don't get a reclaim time. Because this is bigger than water- Anyway, I think you sort of get the picture. One of the most interesting exchanges was, we heard a little snippet of it there in that compilation. It was with Democratic Congressman Ted Lou. Ted Lou triggered Bondi, spiked her cortisol. It's really bad to be spiking your cortisol like this.

She's got to learn to keep herself under control. the topic of underage girls at parties that Trump attended with Epstein came up. Two parts to this clip, both equally important. Part one, sort of like issue one, is you will notice extremely careful, narrow language used by Pam Bondi in responding to Ted Loo's question, not the sort of language that inspires confidence. And then number two, she flips out and goes, don't you dare accuse me of a cry. Former Prince Andrew, Donald Trump attended various parties with Jeffrey Epstein. I want to know whether any underage girls at that party or at any party that Trump attended

with Jeffrey Epstein. Were there underage girls at that party or at any party that Trump attended with Jeffrey Epstein? It's a very specific question. Now listen to Pam Bondi's answer. This is so ridiculous. and that they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.

Everyone knows that. This has been the most transparent presidency. Now understand that that is not an answer to the question. Were there underage girls at a party that Trump went to with Jeffrey Epstein? The answer is there is no evidence Trump has committed a crime. Whether or not that's true is certainly not an answer to the question that was asked. And then it gets very crazy. He's the one that asked that those files.

I mean, claim my time. I got your answer. You said there's no evidence. Mr. Chairman, please stop the clock. I said the legislation. This is. Time. I belong to the gentleman from California.

Okay. I'm going to put up another document from a witness who called the FBI's National Threat Operation Center because I believe. you just lied under oath. There is ample evidence in the Epstein fight. Don't you ever accuse me of a crime. I believe you just lie under oath. And this is all on videotape. You said there's no evidence of crime. I'm showing you here is a witness statement who called into the FUI's threat operation center. Don't you ever accuse me of a crime. One of the unfortunate realities is that most of the people that are in these situations realize that it's unlikely they would ever be held accountable for lying

under oath. And we've talked before about how it is difficult to a degree to prosecute people for lying under oath because you have to prove not only that they said something that was untrue, but that they said it deliberately that they knew they were lying, like accidentally getting a fact wrong is not going to be usually a worthwhile perjury conviction. But if we had stronger enforcement around the rules about lying under oath, they might be less willing to do it. I think Ted Lou is obviously right. Of course she's lying under oath.

Finally, Pam Bondi, straight up ignoring questions from Democratic members. Because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem. And they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy. Do you agree with this statement? You're taking too long. Madam, Attorney General, but you- A truly deplorable and disgusting person.

And one of the things that is fascinating is that after that abortive performance, even some Republicans have said she's not going to be able to make it. She's going to have to resign or she's got to be fired. Eric Erickson is one of those people. There were some other interesting moments from this. But the big takeaway, Pam Bondi is in over her head as Attorney General. Pam Bondi is not an honest person. Pam Bondi is not a good person. But wait until you see what Jim Jordan did. Jim Jordan, Republican congressman who chaired the committee hearings into, during which

Pam Bondi testified, accidentally described what Pam Bondi is doing as wrong and what January 6th rioters did as wrong without realizing that he did it. I'm going to play a video for you. And it's, I believe that the point here is very clear. Jordan is trying to go after protesters. Jordan is trying to go after people who oppose this administration or oppose ISIS actions, et cetera. But what he describes is the behavior of Pam Bondi during this very hearing and of the Trump rioters that were subsequently pardoned.

Take a listen to this clip. This is unbelievable. not allowed to exercise your constitutional rights in a way that tramples on someone else's, are you? No. No, you can't do that. I mean, you have a right to petition the government under the First Amendment. That doesn't mean you can come into this room and start screaming at Mr. Raskin or me or anybody else and disrupt a congressional hearing. You have a right to protest on the street, but that doesn't give you a right to go into the Capitol and disrupt Congress. Something these guys talk about every day. You can't do that. So when Don Lemon said that he was exercising his First Amendment

at free press rights, freedom of the press rights, that's not really accurate because he was trampling on other individuals right. Is that true? You know what is fascinating about this. I mean, think about what he is saying. Jordan goes, you can't just yell at people in this hearing room. You can't, you just, you can't do it. But it was Pam Bondi who spent the entire hearing yelling at Democratic members. He goes, you can't come in here and yell at Mr. Raskin. talking about protesters, but it was Pam Bondi who was doing that very thing. Jordan then goes on to say, you can't come to the Capitol and disrupt Congress. Jordan's referring to what is happening here in this hearing. But that is exactly what the Trump rioters did. They went to the Capitol on January

6th, 2021, and they disrupted Congress. And Trump pardoned every single one of them. That is exactly what happened on January 6th. Now, let's slow it down a little because the irony here is really almost too perfect. Jim Jordan wants to lecture Democrats and protesters about limits and decorum and behavior. And he wants to present himself as the adult in the room, law and order, rules matter, institutions, all of that stuff. And in the process, he lays out a textbook definition of why January 6th was not a protest that got out of hand. It was a criminal disruption of Congress. You can protest outside. You can't storm the building. You can't interfere with or interrupt the certification of an election. You can't threaten lawmakers. You can't smash windows or beat cops or go

hunting for the vice president. But the part that Jim Jordan skipped is that not only is that what the Trump rioters did, Trump then pardoned a huge number of the people who did that, which suggests guests, you are allowed to do it if you're on our side. And this is the split screen problem that Republicans are creating. On the one hand, you've got Jim Jordan saying, hey, we've got rules. You got to follow them. There are lines. You can't just walk into the Capitol, yell, stop us from doing what we need to do.

But on the other side, you've got Trump calling those people who did that patriots and then wiping away their criminal records. And at the exact same time, Pam Bondi is screaming at members of Congress in hearings, shutting down questions, ignoring questions, saying you should be talking about the Dow at $50,000. Oops, no, I mean, what do I mean? What am I talking about? And the new rules in Trump world are, let me explain what they really mean. You can't disrupt Congress unless you're doing it for Trump. You can't yell and derail proceedings unless you're a defender of Trump like Pam Bondi, and then you can do it. You can't break rules inside a government buildings unless you're doing it to help

Trump stay in power. And then the mask just slips off of these people when they say the quiet part out loud. This is how authoritarian movements talk. When they say you can't do X, they literally mean you. We can, right? It's okay for them to do it. You're the one who can't do it. And rules continue to become increasingly meaningless and pointless if they only apply to their political adversaries or their political opponents. This one might be too obvious even for Trump to spin, but you know that they're going to try. One thing that keeps coming up as AI becomes more mainstream is how casually people are handing over sensitive information. Think about how many private questions and personal struggles and business ideas. People have typed into these AI tools,

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Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. The daily bonus show, the commercial free. audio and video feeds of the show, all of it by signing up at joinpacman.com and get on that substack newsletter as well. It's completely free and you can find it at substack.ddaddaddad com. Donald Trump glitched badly and never recovered during an event yesterday meant to brag about coal. Coal mining. Yes, let's go backwards rather than forwards. Trump was given another one of these completely bogus, fake, meaningless awards, but we'll get to that. But Trump glitched really badly and fascinatingly, Trump, the same color as the drapes behind him at this event. I would call

it like a mustard yellow, maybe like corn or something like that. Take a look at this. Then me and I'm proud to officially name the undisputed, when did this come out, Mr. The undisputish, when did this come out? That's a glitch, folks. Something is happening deep, deep in the brain that even some of the most expert medical professionals have not been able to figure out. Trump glitching really, really badly. And that's Trump's escape hatch.

It's always the same. When he glitches, the shoulder goes. He does it and then he'll just shout out to someone in the crowd. Sometimes he'll go, well, when I was going to Saudi or rape, but look at this woman. extremely attractive in the audience, but you're not allowed to say that anymore. And once again, we are off to the races of Glitchville. Now, there was an attempt at substance, but even the substance is pretty pathetic. Donald Trump either lying or delusional or maybe even both continuing his brutal attack on what he calls windmills. I'm not a big fan of those crazy windmills that are all made in

China. You know, they're made in China, but not used by China. Let's look for a couple of wind farms in China, see if you can find one. They sell us those things for fortunes, but we don't do them anymore. Have we done any this year, Doug? We're not going to do any, hopefully for four years in this country. They're losers. They lose. You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money with energy. And they lose a lot of money. Now, of course, everything Trump is saying here is a lie. true that China doesn't use the wind farms that they develop. There is a massive 800,000 kilowatt wind and solar power generation facility in the Altei prefecture. And it's all moving forward in China. China's crushing us. It doesn't make me happy. I wish, you know, the patriotic thing to do would be to

get away from this dirty carcinogenic burning of fossil fuels and pumping it into the atmosphere. And let's start moving to something cleaner, which we can do. Trump's saying that when he was recently in Europe, the wind farms really disturb the view. He doesn't like the way things look when you see the wind farm. You know, I was recently there, and it's not recognizable what they've done to their beautiful fields and those beautiful, beautiful scenic areas. And they put those wind turbines all over the place and they're jugging, jugging.

chugging, not doing a damn thing except every time it goes around it loses a fortune. It's horrible. They've lost their way, not actually not recognizable. And then I wonder why they don't like me over there, but you know who likes me over there? The people like me over there. I can tell you because I know I'm right. Europeans by and large do not like Donald Trump. And of course, the idea that when you see something that says, hey, we're trying to improve. We're trying to get off of pumping carcinogens into the atmosphere. And instead, you see this thing spinning. You know, when we go to Martha's Vineyard in the summer as you, as you drive towards the ferry, you see these great big wind turbines. And I've never thought to myself, oh, it's everything's ruined because of the wind farm spinning beautifully,

generating electricity. No, I look at it and I go, that's a really great thing. thing Massachusetts is doing. That's phenomenal. Why wouldn't anybody want that? Trump also saying tariffs. Tariffs are one of my favorite words. Another one of my favorite words is the word tariff. You know, tariff is very, I know they want to hear that little story. I used to say it's my favorite word. They said, what about God? What about religion? What about family and your wife, your children? So now I make it my fifth favorite word. Oh, you have no idea. I don't know. suffered. I was, Kayla, I was suffering from the fake news. Trump still insisting that the tariffs are just so good. They're so good. And then finally, just hours after Pam Bondi suffered a complete crash out,

spiking her cortisol in front of the House Judiciary Committee over the Epstein files. Trump ends the event without taking a single question, not exactly a profile in courage. Thank you very much. Good luck. You have a lot of money. Have a good time. Mr. President, I have a speaker. And there goes the president of the United Shesh, Donald Trump. Folks, he can't do it anymore. And the people around him know he can't do it. And this is why they are giving him fake, phony, contrived,

imaginary awards. Let's talk about that. They gave Donald Trump another fake award to try to pacify the toddler. Let's stick a pacifier in his mouth. Trump seems to believe that this is a real award. And this is how they treat dictators. You look at the 20th century and it is the sort of appeasement that you saw with some of the world's worst dictators. Let me explain what this is about. Donald Trump held an event at the White House to brag about coal. We're not doing solar. We're not doing wind. We're not doing geothermal.

We're going to burn the coal and pump carcinogens into the atmosphere because we're American. Sorry. I almost went into a right wing coma there. The coal miners and coal workers that they invited gave Trump an award. And Trump has been named the undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal. And Trump reacts as if this is a real award. Sir, to show our appreciation, the trophy says the undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal.

Thank you, sir. Look at Trump holding this thing like he won a Heisman or something like that. You know, I got to give him credit, though. Have you heard of Egot? people who won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and what's the T, Tony, right? Trump is now the only winner of both the FIFA Peace Prize and the Beautiful Clean Coal Champion Award. How about that, liberals?

Nothing Sleepy Joe could do. Now, let me zoom out from this joke of an award for a second because this is way darker than it looks. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it is meme level absurd. Yes, of course, champion of clean coal sounds like something you'd win at a county fair next to the butter sculpture contest. But this is historically how authoritarian systems work. It's not just propaganda for the public. You've got to flatter the leader. You've got to do constant over-the-top flattery to keep the leader, usually a he, emotionally satisfied. Authoritarians and dictators are not usually challenged. They are appeased. They are managed. They are emotionally regulated by the people around them. That's how you start

getting fake awards, fake honors, fake achievements and titles that mean nothing other than they make the leader feel powerful and validated. Look at North Korea. Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il previously. they get described in state media as military geniuses. They are legendary athletes, brilliant scientists, and cultural visionaries. Kim Jong-un is treated when he goes to these factories as the expert in factory efficiency and managerial systems and all of this stuff. And North Korean propaganda has claimed that their leaders have shot perfect golf games, invented foods, don't defecate, that rainbows come out when they get holes in one at golf courses. It's insane.

We all hear it and we go, that is cuckoo, but it serves a purpose. And it reinforces the idea of the cult leader as superhuman and beyond any criticism. And a lot of the time, the inner circle deep down, they know it's fake. They're not stupid. They're surviving. When you're dealing with someone who can't tolerate criticism and who reacts to ego threats by raging or punishing or even killing people, you don't tell them the. truth. You give them trophies. You give them praise. You give them the plaques that say you're the

undisputed whatever champion of clean coal. And look at what we're seeing now. Trump got the FIFA Peace Prize. That's not a thing. He makes up economic superlatives. He gets trophies that sound like parodies. And he doesn't reject it as a joke. He doesn't realize he's the butt of the joke. He leans into it. Healthy leaders would deflect this stuff or laugh it off or people would never think, oh, we got to put together an award for this guy before he flips out. And so you create a feedback loop. The more fragile the ego and the more willing and interested Trump isn't accepting these bogus prizes, the more extreme the people trying to flatter him have to behave. And this is how you end up in a system where the economic numbers have to be the best ever. If they're not the best

ever, you fire the person who's overseeing putting the numbers together. That rings a bell. It's because it happened a few months ago. Now, is the United States North Korea? No, but the behavioral pattern here, you know, the court politics, it's all very recognizable. People competing to tell the leader what he wants to hear. What is going to appease and please him the most? Now, one other thing, clean coal isn't actually a thing. Clean coal is a marketing term. Clean coal isn't really clean. It's coal is a fossil fuel. When you burn it, it releases all sorts of stuff. And that is linked to climate change, it's linked to smog, acid rain, and major health problems. There's no version of coal you can pull out of the ground that is clean. When the industry and Republicans talk about clean coal, they're talking

about technologies that can capture some of the damaging byproducts of burning coal. Usually it's like, let's capture carbon and store it. And so you can burn coal and a little bit of the CO2 before it gets into the atmosphere, you can capture and you can store it on underground. Now, it might sound like a solution on paper. It's extremely expensive. It's technically very difficult. It doesn't really work at the scale that it would need to work in order to matter. And even when you use the system, it's only capturing a fraction of the emissions. It's still dirty. It doesn't fix problems from coal mining. It doesn't fix problems from coal burning. It doesn't deal with toxic ash and heavy metals or all of it. So it's a phrase that has a political meaning. It doesn't really have a scientific

meaning. When you hear clean coal, it either means theoretical future technology that doesn't exist yet, extremely expensive niche projects or just branding. Like it doesn't mean anything at all and they're just trying to brand. That's really the most important thing. Yes, the prize is bogus, but even the concept doesn't make any sense whatsoever here. Scams and identity theft rarely start with a hacked password. they usually start when your personal information is easy to find online. Your address, phone number, relatives, employment history. That information lives on countless data broker sites on the internet, accessible to almost anyone unless you actively remove it.

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harassment, identity theft, incogni's removal process is independently verified by Deloitte, and you can get 60% off when you go to incogni.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. The dam has broken as Republicans have voted to end Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada. This is extraordinarily interesting. This doesn't usually happen in modern Republican politics. Republicans broke with Trump in public on policy in a recorded vote. And this was not something symbolic. This wasn't who gets to be called a woman.

What do the logos need to look like on public restrooms depending on whether it's for man or woman? Six Republicans joined Democrats to move to end Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian imports. The vote was 219 to 211. This was a legislative, we're willing to cross party lines type of vote. The Republicans who broke ranks were Thomas Massey, Don Bacon, Brian Fitzpatrick, Jeff Hurd, Kevin Kylie, and Dan Newhouse. Here is an announcement of the results. 19 and the Naser 211. The joint resolution is passed. Without objection,

the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. There you go. Trump doesn't like this. How do we know? Well, he threatened them already. Donald Trump posted to Truth Social, quote, any Republican in the House or the Senate that votes against tariffs will seriously suffer the consequences come election time. And that includes primaries. Our trade deficit has been reduced by 78%. The Dow Jones has just hit 50,000, the S&P 7,000, all numbers that were considered impossible just one year ago. In addition, tariffs have given us great national security because the mere mention of the word has countries agreeing to our strongest wishes. None of that is true. Tariffs have given us economic and national

security and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege. Something is happening here. When these Republicans decide we need to break from Trump to save ourselves, you know that there is a shift happening here. Now, the tariffs are a huge deal to Trump because they're not just a policy to Trump. They're really identity. He talks about tariffs like they are magic. He said it's his favorite word or his fifth favorite word or whatever. They are like economic cheat codes. If you say the word tariff loudly enough, manufacturing comes back and deficits disappear and America wins everything, except it's not happening because tariffs are taxes on imports. And it means Americans pay more for materials. American companies pay more. The past costs go on to the

consumer. Canada isn't just any country. It's one of the largest trading partners we have. Tariffs on Canada hurt everybody. They hurt. They ripple into American manufacturing. They ripple into agriculture. They ripple into retail pricing. And what is fascinating is that Trump immediately threatened Republicans who go against him. And they still, six of them, excuse me, six of them still decided to go against Trump. Historically, strong man style. Party control works by threatening people and then they get in line. But this time, six of them anyway, are not getting in line. Part of what's happening is there are Republicans.

Massey isn't one of these guys. I think Massey just straight up doesn't give a damn. He doesn't like Trump. He's not helping him. But a lot of these Republicans are realizing we are up for reelection soon. And a lot of us are going to get crushed if we go with this. Now later in the show, we are going to look at confidence. about the forthcoming November elections from Maga Mike Johnson, I got to tell you, I think it's bullshit.

I think Mike Johnson knows that they are about to get absolutely crushed. He's playing the game. He's playing the game mostly for an audience of one. But at least there were six Republicans here who were not willing to play that game. Trump works best when everybody believes that he's unstoppable. And when everyone believes opposing him as political suicide, they'll go with it. Oh my God, if I oppose Trump, I will lose. But now it's shifting to if I go with Trump, I risk losing.

And that is a very dangerous place for Donald Trump to be. I want to do a sort of policy sanity check to see where we are in this country as we approach the midterms. And as I prepared for this segment and researched, where are Americans on this policy, on that policy, let's take a break from the cultural stuff. Let's really just look at the promises and the policy and the results. I was almost stunned to find that Trump is failing at just about everything that he promised he would fix. We looked at the economy.

We looked at immigration, trade, public trust, even his own approval numbers. And if you step back and you look at the full picture, not a single headline, not just one week, not one Pam Bondi meltdown or whatever, you see a governing project that is failing to govern. For years, Trump and his allies were selling a really simple promise, which was that he's so strong, going to fix everything. No one knows better than him. The borders will be strong and the tariffs will be strong and executive power will be big and strong man politics will get us great results. But governing when the rally speeches are over is systems and systems sometimes push back or systems

don't end up being as pliable as maybe you want them to be. Now, we'll start with public opinion. Trump's approval rating is in the high 30s. That is historically low for a president at this stage of a term. And it is not like a generic dislike. Americans are against a lot of the policies Trump is pushing. You look at immigration. The issue that built his political identity is Obama really a natural born citizen or whatever. It's the issue that was going to bring him back to the political heyday in his second term. It's going to go so well. People aren't happy. You look at multiple polls and you see dissatisfaction with the immigration protocol. of Trump. People don't like how it's being carried out. People don't like what ice is up to.

People don't like ice. You look at the economy. You know, populism always promises, I will protect you economically when it comes to trade, et cetera. That's like the pitch that they make. The global markets we're going to protect you. Foreign labor, we're going to protect you. Bad trade deals we're going to protect you. But the long-term budget outlook and economic indicators tied to Trump policy isn't so good. It's looking like trillions will be added to the deficit over the next decade, which Trump said he's against, tax extensions costing enormous amounts, the immigration enforcement expansions that have their own costs of hundreds of billions, and debt is projected to climb to levels that the country has really only seen in extreme moments. Now debt, in a sense,

it's a number in a spreadsheet, but it does limit our ability to respond to future crises, and it raises the cost of borrowing. It makes the next recession or pandemic more difficult to manage. So this is not theoretical stuff. These are structural weaknesses that are resulting from Trump. We then get to trade. The tariffs we were told would be economic nationalism that pays for itself through growth. It's not happening. And Americans know it and a majority of Americans disapprove of the tariff escalation, even when people who like the rhetoric see how how it's working, they go, this isn't working that well for me. Now, if it sounds like this is only about Trump being unpopular, that's way too simple.

The real story is the core pillars of Trump's agenda, immigration enforcement, tariff-driven economics, crisis governance as an issue as a permanent status, deficit-fueled tax cuts. They're all running into resistance at the same time. The public doesn't like it. The economy doesn't like it and institutions don't like it. And historically, When three things like that collide, institutions go, this isn't so good, the economy reacts in a way that signals it's not so good and the people just go, this isn't so good. You see a couple of paths forward. Democracies and Democrats who care about the will of the people, and by that I mean small D, those who believe in democracy, will say maybe I need to reconsider. But authoritarian's double down, find scapegoats, blame enemies, and manufacture more emergent.

to justify even more power. That's Trump. And so I believe that this is a dangerous moment. If the policies were working, things would be more stable. Approval wouldn't be in the 30s and you would see public buy-in. What you're seeing are early signs of something much bigger, which is the public is losing confidence that the system under Trump will deliver results. Republicans, as we already talked about are worried.

They're going to get crushed if they support this crap. And once that process starts, history tells us it's very true. difficult to reverse. Now, the real stakes here are not whether Trump is popular this month. The question is, is this a governing model that is failing? I believe the answer is yes. And what happens next if the people running it decide the only way out, the only way to save ourselves is to completely and finally break the system that we believe is not serving us? Notice that missing from this is, oh, is what we're doing serving the public? They don't give a crap about that. The only question is, is it serving our political ambitions? Is it serving Trump's obsession with

legacy? Is it serving Trump's desire to be the kingmaker to decide who the Republican-era parent is going to be? If the answer is, it's not serving that. There are people around Trump and Trump himself who are very willing to break all of it to try to reclaim control. And that should terrify every single one of us. We're going to have extensive coverage of this on our substack, which you can find at substack.david.com. The David Pakman 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. We are going to have a real clinic here in what the faces look like when they know that they're in trouble. There is now a panic in the Republican Party and in the right wing, right wing media ecosystem to clean up Trump's mess. They are realizing we've got to please Trump, but we've also got to try to clean up the

mess after mess after mess that this Epstein files fiasco is causing for us. And we're going to look at a few clips here where you were really going to see how the messaging starts to change when things start to go wrong. This is not politics in the sense of relating to policy. It's it. It has nothing to do with policy. This is damage control. Speaker Mike Johnson is now out there saying that the Bondi hearing was a circus not because Pam Bondi crashed out, spiked her cortisol and insulted everybody while refusing to answer questions. No, that's not why it was a circus.

It was a circus because the Democrats asking questions aren't serious and it was all theatrics. The questioning was merely theatrics. So try to ground yourself to reality as Maga Mike Johnson and Sean Hannity try relentlessly to pull you into a fantasy world. Obviously, Pam Bondi said it well. They turned it into a circus. These are unserious people and they demonstrate that with their. Antics in the committee hearings now, which have really turned into theatrics, as she said,

and with their votes. And that's what we got tonight, Sean. House Republicans have been working so hard to ensure the integrity of American elections. We had a big win tonight because we passed the Save America Act. And only one Democrat out of all of them joined us in that very common sense piece of legislation. Now notice that he doesn't mention six of our own Republicans feel that the Trump tariff policy on Canada is so toxic that they left us and joined the Democrats. Like that, that is an incredibly relevant and salient detail about what happened yesterday.

But it's not here. This is all for an audience of one. John, all it does is it ensures that if you're going to register to vote, you have to have proof of citizenship. And when you show up to vote, you have to show a photo ID. These are 90% issues in public polling and 70% of Democrats agree that it should be the law, only one House Democrat voted for it tonight. All right. And apology that the video went a little bit wonky there. So think about what Maga Mike Johnson is saying. We saw with our own eyes, Pam Bondi

yelled at people, spiked her cortisol, flipped out, talked about the Dow being at $50,000. But the people asking the questions are the unsurious people. This was all a performance for an audience of one and that one guy is orange. I think you know who I'm talking. about. The meltdown that Pam Bondi had on camera, the refusal to engage with specific allegations, the redirection to irrelevant and unrelated topics, and the takeaway from the Republican leader of the House is the people asking the questions weren't serious. So this is not about persuading voters. I believe that the hearing was such a disaster, such a quagmire that voters know Pam Bondi's got to go. This is just about we got to keep Trump happy. And this is a pattern that

we've seen over and over again in Trump era Republican politics. The goal is never to win the factual argument. The goal is to show loyalty. The goal is to show that you are defending him aggressively enough because in this ecosystem that they've built tone almost matters more than substance. Aggression, you got to stay aggressive, stay on the offensive, even if you've got none of the facts with you. Loyalty. You, You've got to stay loyal and be ultimately loyal to Donald Trump. And then they go to a second line of questioning, which is even though we all see, Pam Bondi's, I don't know, it sort of seems like she's going to have to be fired or forced to resign.

Republicans are looking like they are going to get just brutally clubbed in November. They might lose 30, 40, 50, 60 seats in the House of Representatives. The Senate is now in play. They have to go with their confidence projection. And here Mago, Mike Johnson goes, we are going to grow our House majority in the midterms. That is not a bet I would take. I don't bet on much. But if I were Mike Johnson, I would not be betting that they gain seats in the House. Listen to this. They really do. And that's one of the reasons we're so confident about this midterm election coming up. We are going to make history. We're going to grow the majority for the Republican Party because we have an extraordinary. to run on and they have an outrageous record that they have produced with their votes. And we're going to continue to put them on record, Sean, and make sure the people know exactly what they stand for. This is an insurgent left party. This is not your father's Democrat party anymore. They're not serious people. They have an absolute Marxist, far left socialist ideology and that is what you will get if you elect Democrats to Congress. You've just seen

it on display tonight. So this is an important election for all the reasons we know all the marvels and I believe Republicans are going to overperform in this election and we're going to keep the majority and keep the Trump agenda, the American First agenda going for four. You know, I would bookmark this one. I would bookmark this one to come back to on November 4th after the November 3rd elections. There are a range of outcomes that are possible in these forthcoming elections and those are Democrats just barely take the House and Republicans keep the Senate. Democrats take the House by a bunch, but Republicans keep the Senate. Democrats take the House by a a crazy amount and Republicans keep the Senate. Democrats take the House by some amount and take

the Senate. But Republicans grow their majority in the House. Unless they have some real plan to steal this thing, I don't see that as particularly possible. Now, maybe, you know, elections are unpredictable. It doesn't sound to me like a party that has policy wins on which they can race race to an election victory. Now, historically, this is another pattern you see when a political coalition starts getting a little bit nervous. You get very confident statements in public and panic privately, total panic privately and publicly everything's amazing. No one's been better than Trump. The economy's the best. Everybody loves Trump. Europe loves Trump, top approval rating, all of that stuff. And then privately, you see the frantic message coordination, aggressive loyalty performances and

leaders trying to shut down damaging storylines as quickly as possible. The risk to them is that if the narrative shifts from Trump is big and strong and unstoppable to this guy is chaotic and he's a liability devastating politically, just devastating politically. Trump's whole thing is I'm perceived as strong. And if voters and donors and party members think this guy's creating more problems than he's solving for us, the coalition gets shaky. So it doesn't look like Mike Johnson's under control. I don't believe the disciplined approach is real. I don't believe the confident perspective is real. He looks defensive and defensiveness gets very, very contagious.

So he can call it a circus and it was, but the circus was Pambandi. He can say that there was a lack of seriousness, but that was Pambandi and the projection of confidence, I think it is going to fall totally and completely flat. We've been talking about the waning, diminishing, evaporating cultural influence of MAGA. Now, some of you wrote to me when I did a story about this on Monday and said, did they really ever have cultural influence? And I think the answer is to a degree they did. But the ways in which MAGA is losing cultural influence cannot be missed.

And the point here as we are going to look at Joe Rogan continuing to turn on the Trump agenda, Andrew Schultz continuing to turn on the Trump agenda. The point here isn't Rogan and Schultz are the most informed voices. The point is actually the opposite. These are not policy experts. These are cultural figures, pop culture figures. They translate the vibe of what they're feeling or whatever. Their entry point into political identity is similar to that as for millions of people who

don't watch cable news and don't read policy analysis. And that is an environment that has been very friendly to Donald Trump for years. That is changing now. And I think it's highly relevant. Here is Joe Rogan on the Trump administration claiming Epstein did not run a sex trafficking ring, calling it gaslighting. There was nothing going on. Oh, FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn't running a sex trafficking ring for powerful men file show.

So there you go. Oh, there you go. Who says that? What's that source? Yeah, it's going around the, I just found the place that was showing the headline. It was going around the internet today. Oh, today? Yeah, the AP is the AP reporting it. Yeah. Today.

Oh, I thought that was far. I thought that was from two. By the way, the guest is Cheryl Hines, the wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 2005. This is like the FBI stating it today. That's the gaslightiest gaslight and shit I've ever heard in my life. Whoa. What do they think is going on?

Just a bunch of fun, bunch guys hanging out. That is. Being fellas having cocktails talking about science. This is not like a soft criticism as it comes from Rogan. This is like, we are. rejecting this at its core. The administration is lying to me about something incredibly, incredibly serious and something on which a lot of them staked their support of Trump, not Rogan, but there were a lot of people out there who staked their support of on their support of Trump on the idea

that we would finally get transparency and the full truth about the Epstein files. And they're not getting it. That's for sure. We then hear from Andrew Schultz. Andrew Schultz raises the simplest possible question about the Jelaine Maxwell clemency angle, which is if Trump is totally clean, why would she expect to get clemency if there is nothing to protect Trump from? Like it just doesn't really add up that she would demand that, which she did recently take a listen. Galane speaks with Trump's former lawyer and then all of a sudden now she's in a nice, cushy place, and all of a sudden she's pleading the fifth. And she's saying

I'll... I'll laugh if you let me out. No, she says if he gives me immunity. Immunity? Immunity, or clemency? Is that the word? What's the difference between clemency and immunity? I thought clemency, you take away the charges. Immunity is just like...

You still have the charges, but anything I say can't be used against me. Got it. Okay, so she wants clemency to talk to clear Trump's name. And it's like, well, if his name was clear, why do you need clemency? Before clemency's after. That's what they're saying. Got it.

Okay, but like to me, like, if she's shrewd enough to indict him that way? Like, is she smart enough to go, yeah, I'll clear Trump if you give me clemency. Well, if he's clear, why are you even putting that on the table? That's. Right?

She might be shrewd enough, but she doesn't have to be because her attorneys are meeting with her being like, hey, just say this. You know what I mean? Like, you have enough smart people. People working on her behest. Yeah. Okay, here's what you're going to- So this other guy goes, now you can't read too much into

that Andrew because he's, she's just saying what, what her attorneys are saying. But Andrew Schultz is really getting at a core aspect of the mythology around Donald Trump here. And actually, mythology is an interesting word to apply to this as we look at the last clip, which is that there's this myth around Trump that a lot of these guys in the mannosphere fell for that Trump heroically kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club in order. to protect women and he's going to expose the pedophiles and the rapists and all of it. And of course, we find we have since found out that a lot of that stuff isn't true.

Epstein was never a guest. So he was never actually, he was never revoked as a member. He was, sorry, I misspoke. Epstein was never a member. He was merely Trump's guest. And so Trump's longtime claim, we revoked his membership. Apparently Epstein didn't even have a membership. So that's not true.

And we're obviously not getting transparency and we're not getting the full. full files or any of it. And Schultz basically points out, none of this stuff is really making any sense. The falling out is even, you would hope that that was the falling out. Oh, it was like they wanted the same property or something like that and he stole the property from him. So I think the illusion with a lot of like the Trump like loyalists is like he saw that Epstein was trying to take girls from Mar-a-Lago and he kicked him out. He said, no, no more. And that would be really great if there was somebody with that type of moral compass in the office. Yeah. But the fact that he said that, I do

think there's a little truth to it. It's like, I think he just took one of his girls out of the place, and he was upset about that. Fair, but apparently they were beefing over a piece of real estate, and that was the final straw. It's like, you can take the teenagers out of here, but if you go after that fucking property... It's hypocrisy.

You know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You hate it. It's just... Okay, so the timeline being, like, they stopped being friends after that real estate thing. Do you believe that? Do you think that they maintain? No, I think they maintain. Because I think if like for Epstein to be such a big player, especially in Florida, because he's right there, the island's right there. So I'm like, you can't really just be like, fuck you. It's like, I'm not fucking with you. But you know, we still

share a lot of friends. We can be cordial. I just. All right. So I think you get it. Now, the reason that this is so important, a lot of my audience, I don't know how much of my audience watches Andrew Schultz or Joe Rogan. I'm sure some of you, but I don't know how many. But one of the critical things about Trump's coalition is. is that there's the political side to the coalition and then there's the cultural side. The political side is, you know, Maga Mike Johnson is lined up behind Trump and you've got members of the house and Lauren Bobert and, you know, all these different people. So there's the political side of the coalition. But then there's the cultural side. You know, it's the the milk boys and

the Andrew and Tristan Taint and all of these different sorts of people. And the cultural side runs through podcasts and comedy shows, Tony Hunchcloth, for example, and fitness culture, entrepreneur culture, gaming adjacent spaces and male self-improvement and all this sort of stuff. And historically, when you lose cultural intermediaries, it is really difficult to get them back. Political intermediaries really kind of go by what's good for them for their next election. Who can help me raise money? Who can keep me in office? And so you can lose and then get them back very quickly.

The audiences of the cultural intermediaries don't really respond to press releases and party talking points, they respond to a vibe shift. And when the vibe shifts and it's happening right now, it can happen very quickly. These audiences also importantly often see themselves as anti-establishment and anti-media, anti-elite, they don't want to feel like they were tricked. So once they start feeling, we were sold a narrative that doesn't hold up. The backlash can be very, very sharp and very quick. And the brutal political reality is that you don't need all of these audiences to turn. You just need them to be a little less enthusiastic, especially when you're coming up against the midterm. Midterm see lower turnout in general.

Trump's not on the ballot. There may be Trump fans who are like, I don't give a damn about these people. I'm not going out there and voting in November of 2026. And so if you've got a constituency that's a little less motivated to vote, a little less motivated to defend what Trump and the party are doing, a little less motivated to share pro-Trump crap on social media. And if they start to feel like the movement has conned them in some way, that can have dramatically disastrous political implications. Once the safe critics start speaking, it'll give permission for more

people to speak out. And these are people who they don't care what happens on MS now. They don't care what the New York Times writes, but they do care what Joe Rogan says. And they do care what Andrew Schultz says. And they find people like Rogan and Schultz culturally authentic. And when the cultural figures start shifting, the politics can follow from that. So it's not instant, but it's very Very bad for Trump. And we have to see now whether losing the cultural establishment will still be survivable for Republicans. We have to make sure that it's not.

That's our duty just under nine months from now, if you can believe it. On the bonus show today, we will talk about the El Paso, Texas airspace fiasco. We will talk about free speech lawsuits mounting after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And we will also talk about the passage of the save of. America Act, which a maga Mike Johnson did mention to Sean Hannity, all of that and more. You know where on today's bonus show. Monday, I have a genuinely very special announcement that I'm going to be making. Genuinely very special announcement.

But more about that on Monday.