Transcript
David Pakman (0:00)
Today, Democrats are staring down what could be a total wipeout in 2026. Part of it depends on a forthcoming Supreme Court decision about voting rights. But part of it is, can Democrats convince voters they are actually better at governing for the average person? We'll also talk about Trump's federal goons tear gassing not only protesters, but also local PD in Chicago. Trump's lying about prices again. And some awkward theological questions come up. When Eric Trump says God saved Trump from the shooter's bullet but didn't save Charlie Kirk, that sounds kind of weird. Gavin Newsom is also reigniting the Trump has dementia campaign and the explosive I love Hitler leaks from young Republicans. Plus, we will talk to Congressman Jake Auchincloss and much more if you'll allow it all on today's show. All right, Democrats are facing a possible loss of 19 currently held Democratic seats in 2026. That would make it pretty difficult to take back the House. And taking back the House is the most immediate, important and robust bulwark against the MAGA and Trump agenda. The House controls the purse strings. The House controls the money, appropriations. Most, if not all of what Donald Trump wants to do would be curtailed overnight if Democrats can take the House. Now, this has been the big headline for the last 24 hours. Democrats could lose 19 seats. Now, you might say to yourself, wait a second, Trump's a disaster. MAGA's horrible. How could this be? How could Democrats lose? Especially when the out of power party usually gains seats after the opposition wins the White House. Trump won in 24, so Democrats should do well in 2026. Well, the answer, the answers I should say are numerous. Now, I'll give you the technical reasons. First, depending on the outcome of a Supreme Court case, Louisiana v. Calais, a specific type of partizan redistricting, also known as gerrymandering, may or may not be allowed to stand. If it is allowed to stand, that's very bad for Democrats. And so, based on that forthcoming Supreme Court decision, there's a bunch of states which may or may not be allowed to draw districts in particularly politically gerrymandered ways that will impact 2026. Number two, will the authoritarian repression of this administration scare people off from voting in 2026? If they are afraid, rationally or irrationally, about potential repercussions in their personal lives if they vote against maga, There are people who are scared, given what's going on in media, given what went on with a bunch of people losing their jobs, based on social media comments related to the killing of Charlie Kirk. Will people feel confident that they can go and vote their conscience without repercussions and without blowback? And it's like, yeah, ok, that's all true. But there is a much bigger story than this. In a sane world, which we don't have, Maga would get zero votes in 2026. Why? Well, you look at what's happening. The United States is humiliated globally, Trump is barely coherent. Governors and senators say Trump's got dementia. Tariff policy is causing chaos and hurting small businesses and consumers. We were told prices will come down, but they're up. We were promised massive growth, but we don't have it. We've got this disastrous deportation campaign. We're denying people due process. By we, I mean the Trump administration on health care. Supposedly we were going to get people health care, Trump said, but millions are at risk of losing care. So in a world that made sense, MAGA would all lose in 2026. But it's going to be close. They might even be able to keep control of the House. Now, how is this possible? It's easy. The low effort explanation is dumb MAGA voters. Now, are there dumb voters? Of course. We, we've gone out and talked to a lot of them. There are a lot of really dumb, uninformed people there. They vote based on beliefs that don't comport with reality, don't comport with the facts. The country twice failed a national IQ test voting to elect Donald Trump twice. And by the way, almost in 2020 as well. But if you stop the analysis at voters are dumb, while it is often true, it is not nearly enough. And saying voters are dumb isn't going to help you win. In the same way that just insisting the economy's fine when a lot of people said it doesn't feel fine to me, that doesn't win. Just saying these voters are dumb is not going to be enough to win. A lot of voters aren't dumb. And a lot of voters assessed in 2024 that for all of Trump's faults, they just aren't confident that Democrats offered something clear, coherent and better for the average working class person. They said, ok, I don't think what Trump's offering is good for me, but I don't at all believe that Democrats are necessarily better. Now, we might say, well, that's wrong, but that gets to the problem of Democrats in communicating. So as bad as Republicans are right now, you also have to be looking at the people that can't clearly make the case that they're better. And that's the Democratic Party. Imagine if someone comes to you and says, do you want this rotten hamburger? We might say, you've got to be an idiot to take the rotten hamburger. Well, if what's alternative to that is a nice, beautiful ripe banana or a beautiful meatball Parmesan, it would be easy to convince anybody, don't go with a rotten burger. Look what I have. I've got this meatball parmesan. But if you see people choosing the rotten burger, a sensible person would say, wait a second, wait a second. If I am struggling to talk people out of a rotten burger, I've got to look at what I'm offering. Why isn't everybody saying, we like what you have? Do we have a great sandwich and we don't know how to sell it? Well, maybe, or maybe our sandwich is rotten, too, and that's why people are struggling to pick between the rotten burger and. And our rotten sandwich. The consequences of this could get very ugly. I believe, and I, I was thinking back midterm by midterm. I believe that this is the most consequential midterm that we are coming up against here in decades, by far the most consequential that I have covered. Because Democrats should win based on historical precedent, Republicans should lose, even not considering the disaster of maga. If we have a situation where having won with Republicans Having won in 2024, Democrats are sort of up for winning based on historical precedent. Plus, Trump is destroying the country. If Democrats were still to lose, we've got to take a look and say, what the hell is going on here? So I'm extraordinarily concerned. I know that many of you are as well. What do you believe Democrats need to do in order to convince voters that they do actually have something that's better? If you believe that they do, and maybe some in our audience don't, I want to hear from you. Info@david pakman.com There is helicopter footage out of Chicago that shows Trump's federal goons using tear gas on protesters. But they're also hitting local police officers with it before they peel out of the neighborhood in their vehicles, like a paramilitary drive by. We've got video here that we will look at as I sort of explain what's going on. Now, all of this started when Border Patrol agents, not local police, Border Patrol agents chased an SUV through a residential street in the city, southeast side of Chicago. They rammed the car using what's called the PIT maneuver. This is a move that a lot of police departments, it's considered so dangerous that many police departments ban it people have died from the pit maneuver. If you watched, you know, police chases, 20 years ago, it was relatively common, much less so now. The crash sent the suspects flying out of the car. They were caught. But what happened next really is where things started to fall apart. Residents started to gather after federal agents reportedly chased and crashed into an SUV in the neighborhood. Neighbors came outside. Parents, kids, seniors, they watched agents with assault rifles surround the area. And then you see the smoke grenades, you see the pepper balls, you see the tear gas. Chicago police say a bunch of their own officers were disabled by the gas. They were there trying to calm things down. Think about that. Trump's federal agents, tear gas, Chicago cops. The mayor of Chicago doesn't want the federal agents there. The governor of Illinois, J.B. pritzker, doesn't want the federal agents there. You look at the individual witness stories. A teenage girl hit, hit in the head with a canister. A 15 year old boy, not that it matters, but happens to be an American citizen. Detained, handcuffed, held for five hours without even being allowed to call mommy. His lawyers say he was kept in a garage by masked agents. A 15 year old. Now, this is not an isolated incident. The Chicago Tribune, Tribune reports that this was the third time in just weeks that federal agents have deployed tear gas in Chicago neighborhoods. This includes near a school. According to NBC Chicago, this entire operation may have been illegal, violating a federal court order from just last week which bans officers from using tear gas or chemical weapons. Except if it's a life and death situation. I don't think you can look at that and honestly say that it's a life and death situation. And to recap here, federal agents under Trump chasing immigrants through city streets, crashing into a car, tear gassing a neighborhood, injuring kids and cops, and violating a federal court order in the process. This is what authoritarian drift looks like. They talk about law and order. We will law, let's get the lawless Biden administration out and we will finally restore law and order. And then not only do you deny people due process and all of these other things that we've been covering for the last nine months, you then send federal agents into cities to restore calm. Except that's not what they're doing. They're escalating the conflict. Authoritarian propaganda has as a hallmark, as a typical characteristic that you create chaos. You blame the chaos you created on your enemies and you justify the chaos you created to do even more. Cracking down. So Trump's DHS shows up, they provoke residents, they gas the crowd and cops and then they Go, look at how chaotic this is. We need to do even more. We need more troops here. We have more justification to keep doing it. Now, if this sounds familiar, it's because it's a classic from Republicans. We don't like Social Security, let's screw up Social Security and then go, look, this is terrible. We've got to privatize it. We've got to get rid of it. They don't like the post office. So they go, hey, let's screw up the post office. Put in place a Postmaster General who doesn't like the post office, make it function poorly, and then we go, look, FedEx and UPS would do a much better job. Let's get rid of usps and let's privatize it. Or with Obamacare, they don't like Obamacare, they go, ok, we can't get rid of Obamacare, let's defund Obamacare, let's get rid of the individual mandate, which makes it mathematically insolvent. And then we can go, look, it's not working so well. We got to get rid of it. Well, it's not working so well because of what you did. This is a classic of authoritarian propaganda. It is bringing violence and chaos to our streets. And even governors seem unable to keep these folks out. So where will we be three months from now? Will this be over? Or will we have San Francisco and Baltimore and all of the other cities that Trump's been threatening to go to overrun with federal agents. Masked federal agents, often not identifying themselves, running rampant and terrorizing communities. I don't know where we're going to be, but we've got to make sure everybody sees what's going on. So please make sure to share this video. If you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment. I want to hear your thoughts. We'll take a quick break and be right back. A lot of people think identity theft is something that only happens when someone hacks into your account. But the truth is that it usually starts with your personal information being posted online by data brokers where anybody can find it. Our sponsor, Incogni, is a service that helps protect your privacy by forcing the data brokers to delete your information. This includes your name, address, phone number, even sensitive things like property records or your political affiliation. And now, with their custom removals feature included in the unlimited plan, you're not limited to just the list of 250 plus brokers they work with by default. And if you find any site exposing any of your private information, even one they've never seen before, you can send a link and Incogni's team will work to get that removed. This is serious protection for you and your family against identity theft, against fraud, doxing, harassment and Incogni's data removal process is the only one independently verified by Deloitte. Get 60% off an annual plan when you visit incogni.com/pacman and use the code pacman. The link is in the description Having the right estate planning done, a will, maybe a trust is super important. I recently took care of it myself. It's not the most fun thing to do, but it is very important and our sponsor Trust and Will makes it really easy and you can get 10% off at trust and will.com/pacman it's a straightforward process. They walk you through it. All of the documents are state specific. They are legally valid. They are customized to your needs, your care, wishes or nomination, guardians, final arrangements, power of attorney. You're just making sure your family and loved ones avoid a lengthy and expensive proceeding or that the state ends up deciding what happens to your assets. Trust and Will's simple step by step processes guide you from start to finish with one question at a time. Save your loved ones time and stress by having your documents in one place with bank level encryption with live customer support available through phone, chat and email. Trust and Will is trusted by hundreds of thousands of families and counting. Protect what matters most in just minutes at trust and will.com/pacman and get 10% off the link is in the description The David Pakman show is, at the end of the day, an audience supported program. We have two primary means for you to support this program. The first is a membership on our website. Join pacman.com the second is a substack premium membership@substack.David pakman.com you can do both. If you like audio, visual stuff, the website membership may be your thing. If you prefer written content, the Substack Premium membership may be your thing. Or you can do both. Join pacman.com Read about it. Substack.david pakman.com Check it out. All right, we have a situation where Donald Trump held a meeting with the president of my birth country of Argentina. It was so unhinged and so deranged. Yes, Trump shot out another tonsil stone. This is not primarily a show about dentistry and oral health, but why not, right? When life gives you lemons, you do something with them. Let's take a look at some of the things that were said. And of course Donald Trump furious, furious that George Stephanopoulos had the audacity to Follow up When J.D. vance refused to answer questions. Trump attacking George Stephanopoulos. Remember, they don't want real journalism, they want fluff journalism.