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10/8/25: The week from hell, allies panic, governors revolt - The David Pakman Show | Wave AI Podcast Notes

10/8/25: The week from hell, allies panic, governors revolt

Wed Oct 08 2025

-- On the Show: -- Democrat Mindy O’Neall defeats incumbent Republican Mayor David Pruhs in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Pruhs concedes with grace instead of conspiracy theories -- Illinois Governor JB Pritzker accuses Donald Trump of suffering from...

Summary

Podcast Summary: The David Pakman Show – 10/8/25: The Week from Hell, Allies Panic, Governors Revolt

Episode Overview

In this charged episode, David Pakman delivers incisive commentary on what he dubs “Donald Trump’s week from hell.” The episode unpacks growing cracks in the Trump administration—from high-profile allies distancing themselves, to Republican mayors conceding elections without fraud claims, to explosive Senate hearings with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Tensions escalate as Democratic governors publicly question Trump’s cognitive fitness, and aides slip into authoritarian rhetoric on national television. The show also dives into the response of right-wing podcast figures scrambling to detach from Trump, and the sobering implications for American democracy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Anomalous Republican Concession in Alaska (00:00–05:00)

David Pakman opens by highlighting Democratic candidate Mindy O'Neill's upset victory in Fairbanks, Alaska, over Republican incumbent David Preusz.
Key Insight: Unprecedentedly, Preusz concedes without alleging fraud or blaming external conspiracies.
- “The real shock is a Republican simply accepted defeat… There was almost like a palpable nostalgia… A respectful, measured concession rooted in something that used to be called dignity.” – David Pakman (03:44)
Pakman contrasts this with Trump-era denialism, noting that such straightforward acceptance is “almost rebellious” in today's GOP.

2. Mainstreaming of Trump "Dementia" Allegations (05:01–13:15)

Governors J.B. Pritzker (IL) and Gavin Newsom (CA), along with Sen. Ruben Gallego (AZ), publicly attribute Trump’s erratic behavior to cognitive decline.
- “This is a man who's suffering dementia… He doesn't read, he doesn't know anything that's up to date… And unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding.” – Gov. J.B. Pritzker (06:30)
- “If you are a swing Republican in a swing district in an off year election, why are you falling on this sword for this guy who's clearly checked out and needs to be probably put into some type of treatment program for whatever dementia he has…” – Sen. Ruben Gallego (08:21)
Pakman's Perspective: This marks a departure from partisan rumor-mongering into open, mainstream debate—a potential national security crisis.
Comparisons are drawn to the historical cover-up of Reagan’s Alzheimer’s, but with Trump, “it’s being livestreamed.”

3. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Combative Senate Testimony (16:44–24:55)

At a tumultuous Capitol Hill hearing, Bondi deflects pointed questions about bribery, the Epstein files, and her integrity.
- “You would have to talk to Director Patel about that.” – Pam Bondi, repeatedly dodging questions (16:54)
Senators (Durbin, Blumenthal, Whitehouse, Schiff) grill Bondi, who resorts to counter-attacks rather than direct answers.
- “Don't call me a liar.” – Bondi (16:59)
- “I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.” – Bondi to Blumenthal (21:02)
Pakman’s Analysis: Bondi is performing for Trump and the MAGA base, viewing evasiveness and personal attacks as “strength.”

4. Trump’s Open Embrace of Authoritarian Tactics (26:54–35:00)

In Oval Office remarks, Trump floats the idea of paying only “loyal” furloughed federal workers after a shutdown.
- “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way.” – Donald Trump (27:00)
Crucial Point: This would violate multiple laws and constitutional amendments—Pakman highlights how Trump’s corrupt “spoils system” is out in the open.
Trump, when pressed on airport delays, pivots to insulting nonwhite women lawmakers.
- “I look at people with very low IQs, like a Crockett. This woman Crockett… I never met her, but she’s a low IQ individual.” – Trump (30:17)
Pakman’s Comment: “Why is it that Trump is asked a question about airports and suddenly he’s attacking two nonwhite women... Is there any other explanation at this point in time?” (30:59)
Trump remains confused about Canadian public opinion and trade policy, with Pakman correcting his statements.

5. Stephen Miller’s “Plenary Authority” Slip (38:07–43:03)

Trump aide Stephen Miller, on CNN, lets slip that “the President has plenary authority,” meaning unchecked, dictatorial power.
- “Under Title 10… the President has plenary authority.” – Stephen Miller (38:33)
CNN promptly cuts to break, and Miller omits the phrase when they return.
Pakman draws chilling historical parallels: The normalization of this rhetoric is compared to 1933 Germany’s Enabling Act.

6. Escalating Rhetoric Against Democratic Officials (47:37–50:30)

Trump posts on Truth Social that Gov. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson “should be in jail” for not protecting ICE officers.
Pakman’s Warning: This mirrors 20th-century dictators’ strategies—criminalizing opponents to clear the path for repression.

7. Right-Wing Podcast Personalities Backpedal from Trump (50:31–54:30)

Rolling Stone reports MAGA-aligned podcasters (Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Aiden Ross, Andrew Schultz) are distancing from Trump.
Examples: Vaughn objects to his likeness in deportation videos; Rogan calls immigration raids “insane.”
Pakman on the irony: “Trump told you what he was going to do. The only surprise here is that people who built their brands on telling it like it is didn't believe Trump.” (53:22)
Podcasters’ retreat seen as self-preservation, not principle, as audiences turn on them.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Republican Concession: “The real brutal defeat isn’t just losing the race, it’s that they've lost their party that can’t simply say we lost.” – David Pakman (04:27)
On Dementia Concerns: “Dementia is now being regularly blamed for the erratic and lawless behavior of a president. It's not a conspiracy theory... it has gone completely mainstream.” – Pakman (07:00)
On Pam Bondi’s Deflection: “Don’t call me a liar.” – Pam Bondi (16:59)
On Trump’s Threats: “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way.” – Trump, on back pay (27:00)
On Authoritarian Language: “Plenary authority… This is the kind of power a king would have… not a president in a democracy.” – Pakman, on Miller’s language (38:33)
On Mayors/Governors Being Jailed: “This is not policy. Throw a governor in prison isn't policy. It is a groundwork for anti Democratic repression.” – Pakman (47:00)
On Podcast Bros Fleeing Trump: “The Manosphere’s tough guy posture was always vibes over values… They talk about discipline and all of that stuff, but once it’s inconvenient, they abandon it.” – Pakman (53:55)

Key Timestamps

00:00 – Opening: GOP mayor concedes in Alaska, Trump’s week of crises begins
03:44 – Nostalgia for dignified political concessions
05:01 – Governors publicly allege Trump cognitive decline
06:30 – Pritzker: “This is a man who's suffering dementia…”
08:21 – Gallego: “Why are you falling on this sword for this guy who’s… checked out?”
13:00 – Pakman reviews Reagan’s decline vs. Trump’s public slippage
16:44 – Pam Bondi Senate hearing fireworks begin
17:53–22:41 – Senators Durbin, Blumenthal, Whitehouse grill Bondi; Bondi attacks back
26:54 – Trump floats rewarding/firing federal workers based on loyalty
27:00 – Trump: “It depends on who we’re talking about…”
30:17 – Trump attacks nonwhite Congresswomen in response to airport question
38:07 – Stephen Miller asserts “plenary authority” on CNN; network cuts to break
43:03–47:37 – Miller: Judges are committing “legal insurrection”; ICE, military, dehumanizing language
47:37–50:30 – Trump calls for jailing of Pritzker, Johnson
50:31–54:30 – Manosphere podcasters and influencers scramble to distance from Trump

Conclusion

David Pakman weaves a narrative of democratic norms under assault—from Trump’s public threats and aides’ dictatorial language to the MAGA movement’s unraveling media allies. He notes the irony of “revolutionary” decency from losing Republicans, the mainstreaming of dementia concerns, and the alarming normalization of political repression. The episode serves as both a chronicle of recent chaos and a stark warning about authoritarian drift in America.

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Transcript

David Pakman (0:00)

Donald Trump's week from hell just got worse. His aides are melting down on live tv, governors are blaming dementia for his troop deployments, and even MAGA podcast bros like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn are suddenly sprinting away from Trump. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi loses it when questioned by senators. Farmers are turning on the administration and Republican mayors are. Get this. Conceding elections without claiming voter fraud. Isn't that refreshing? The cracks are showing everywhere. Let's get into it. Well, I have some sort of nice news to start with for a change. A Republican was brutally kicked to the curb by a Democrat in one of their Alaska strongholds. And that's good news already. But the big shock is that the loser, David Prusz, did not claim voter fraud. He did not blame antifa or antifa. He didn't file a lawsuit. He just conceded the race. Can you imagine? So this takes us to Fairbanks, Alaska, where Democrat Mindy o' Neill defeated the incumbent Republican Mayor David Preuss. And this flips a conservative a seat that Republicans have held for nearly a decade now. O' Neill got 54% of the vote. Cruz got just under 46% of the vote. The Republican didn't pretend it was close, he just conceded. He didn't whine. He didn't start talking about this was the biggest fraud until they did massive dumps. I was winning. And the conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines didn't even come up. Just, the race is over, the voters have spoken. I wish Mindy the best. And that's really the shock here. As shocking as it is to see Democrats take a city that they haven't had for a really long time. The real shock is a Republican simply accepted defeat and said, someone else gets to now hold this office. I lost, plain and simple. And there was almost like a palpable nostalgia where, you know, I still remember John McCain's concession speech in 2008. It was a fine speech where he said, we've had a race. The voters have chosen my opponent, Barack Obama. Hold on, do I have my Obama? They chose Barack Obama. And I want the country to do well, and therefore I want the president to do well. And there were sort of nostalgia is the best way I can say it. A respectful, measured concession rooted in something that used to be called dignity. And I think it's respectable to say, hey, we would be better off if that's still the way that, that it was today. Now, Prez said he was proud to serve for as long as he did. He said low turnout was part of why he lost, he congratulated his opponent, and now he's moving on. Now, you were not going to get yourself a paid contributor gig on Fox News with that attitude. You know, in today's Republican Party of 2025, if you just say, I lost, that's it. The voters selected somebody else. You're not going to be seen as fighting the fight that MAGA wants you to fight, because the modern Republican Party has turned denial into really a requirement and a personality trait in some sense. And so the idea that you can just lose because more people wanted your opponent to win and more people voted for your opponent, it's not compatible with the Republican brand of the 2000 and 20s, because they've built not only a media ecosystem around the premise that they never lose, they also have someone at the top of their party in Donald Trump who never. I mean, Trump still hasn't acknowledged losing the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary, as they call her, Hillary Clinton. Even though he won that race electorally, he still believes that he actually won the popular vote, even though he didn't. So, you know, someone like Pruz concedes, no screaming fraud. It's not just rare, it's almost rebellious in the Republican Party. Meanwhile, o' Neill ran on, you know, boring things, quaint stuff like, I'm going to listen to the voters, I'm going to make housing affordable. I want to build community trust in public safety, including police. And she won. So, on the one hand, you've got, at the national level, Trump calling to, by the way, jail governors and mayors. We'll talk about that. You've got ICE agents ripping through protests in Chicago. You see that a Republican in Alaska is able to model what it means to be an adult. And it turns out that the real brutal defeat isn't just losing the race, it's that they've lost their party. That can't simply say we lost. That's all that happened here. When the bar is so low, basic decency kind of starts to feel revolutionary. And it's weird. But this mayoral race in Fairbanks might be. It's weird to say it. This might be one of the healthiest things that American democracy has seen all year. He lost and he's moving on. Not everybody's reacting this way. We'll get to that a little bit later. Trump dementia has now gone mainstream. Yet another governor and a senator now are pointedly saying Trump is doing things because he is suffering from dementia. First, Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker. He gave an interview to the Chicago Tribune. He is saying it Very clearly. He clearly is in the I don't care anymore, I'm going to say what I really think phase. He said, quote, this is a man who's suffering dementia. This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can't get it out of his head. He doesn't read, he doesn't know anything that's up to date. He, it's just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities. And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that's what he is doing. What J.B. pritzker is arguing here is that like some who suffer from dementia, Trump has become irrationally and singularly fixated on cities and deploying troops there. And that it is dementia that explains why Trump is just sending troops everywhere, no matter what courts say, no matter what judges say, even when states object and mayors, governors, or both say we don't want it. Now, according to the Tribune, troops from Texas are already assembling at a base in Illinois, 300 Illinois National Guard members ordered to serve at least six, 60 days. And we have to take a step back and recognize the unusual circumstances in which we now find ourselves. Dementia is now being regularly blamed for the erratic and lawless behavior of a president. It's not normal. It's not a conspiracy theory. Somewhere in the corners of the Internet, it has gone completely mainstream. Now, remember when J.B. pritzker said the following just last week?

David Pakman (8:51)

Yeah. So you've now got. That's from our friends over at Midas Touch, by the way. You've got multiple governors, not fringe commentators, not anonymous insiders, not commenters whose username is a random word and eight numbers on Reddit. You've got governors and a senator attributing Donald Trump's military and legal overreach to dementia. And this is unfortunately eerily familiar. When Ronald Reagan was president, I was like only 55 years old at that point. When Ronald Reagan was president, people started to notice that he was slipping. There were misbriefings, there was confusion, there were strange lapses in memory. And later we learned, oh, yeah, he was suffering from Alzheimer's at the time. And now historians are left to argue about or debate how early did that start with Reagan, how long had it been going on and how long was it being covered up? Now, the difference is, back then it was a different media environment. We didn't have social media, we didn't have, I don't know that we had any 24 hour cable news networks. And so a lot of it could be kept hidden. I mean, think back even further to when FDR was in a wheelchair. And even that was successfully hidden for a long time. With Trump, it's all public. It's all happening in the public eye. We see the slurred words, we see the inability to recognize people, the looping stories, Trump's eyes pointing in different directions the other the other day. And sometimes his eyes are completely swollen shut. His strange stance where he sort of hinges forward at the waist and swings, which is sometimes a sign of frontotemporal dementia. Reagan's decline was pretty successfully covered up, at least as far as the public facing side of it. Trump's decline is being livestreamed. And what's terrifying is, is that the people around Trump must know that something is wrong. They, instead of stopping him, are enabling him. Now, the only thing we can say about the people around Trump is this. Now, now we're hypothesizing. Now we're left to conjecture and speculation. My favorite places to be, of course, no, we're left to conjecture and speculation because of the lack of transparency. Over the last month and a half, really a month, actually, we have had two very long, unexplained absences from the public eye for Donald Trump. Periods of days in One case, I think it was four days. In one case, it was closer to six. Something Trump rarely did during his first term. Never. I would even say unexplained absences during which his only communication is either via text message or social media post. And because of the lack of transparency, because of what we do see in public, we are left to speculate that the one thing the staff around him are doing when they see that he is having an episode of sorts is just keeping him out of the public eye. When governors start invoking dementia to explain federal troop deployments, we can no longer pretend that this is a partizan spin on a niche story. It's a national security issue. It has gone completely mainstream. And I have to say it good for Senator Gallego, good for Governor Newsom and good for Pritzker for being willing to even say this publicly because there are a lot of people that are crushing them for saying this, mostly Republicans. And I believe that we are only starting to get the tip of the story. The tip of the iceberg, the first lines of the story, the tip of the story. I don't know. We're going to have more and broader coverage of this on our audio podcast. It's on Spotify, it's on Apple podcasts, It's completely free. It's an hour or more a day. I would love for you to subscribe to that podcast. We're going to take a quick break and be back right after this. You know, it's not that the system is broken. The system is rigged. 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The link is in the Description. The David Pakman show is of course an audience funded program. We're an independent progressive media program and the the number one funding source for this show is just people like you. People who listen to the podcast, watch a YouTube clip. Check us out on Snapchat. We are on Snapchat. A lot of people don't know that you can read about membership and of course I would love to welcome you as a member@join pacman.com and I want to say a huge thank you to Haley Allen and Brian Sculthorpe are two newest members at join pacman.com acting more like a criminal defendant than the Attorney General, Pam Bondi delivered one of the most sickening and divisive performances that I have ever seen from an Attorney general at a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. We're going to go through a whole bunch of this. First and foremost, Bondi asked directly, is there audio recording, video recording of Trump's deportations? Are Tom Homan taking $50,000 as a bribe? And she goes, oh, you've got to talk to Cash Patel about that. You realize that I do want to go back to Homan. You know there's a tape, right, with Mr. Homan.

David Pakman (27:19)

That is a threat. That is another attempt to punish people who didn't vote for him. And it is against the law. Trump is openly saying there are more crimes I've identified that I would like to commit. Paying only federal workers deemed loyal to the president would violate the first and Fifth Amendments by punishing. It's the government punishing political beliefs and denying equal treatment. It would violate the Civil Service Reform act and the Hatch act would say you, which say you can't discriminate on a political basis in federal employment. We've got laws on the books about this stuff. And it would likely violate criminal law against use of public funds and abuse of power. We if, if Donald Trump is allowed to get away with what he just said, not only is it criminal, not only does it violate the Constitution, not only does it violate the Civil Service Reform act and the Hatch act, it would bring back this corrupt spoils system which we abolished in the 1800s. It was clearly unconstitutional. It would now be clearly prosecutable. And Trump is not doing this in the dark recesses of some bunker. He's saying this stuff in the Oval Office. He is proudly and defiantly declaring with Mark Carney sitting there next to him looking at him like, what the hell is going on here? That there are criminal things he would like to do. And I hate to say it, I'm afraid he'll get away with it because he's gotten away with so much. And we are going to have to watch that very closely. I have a number of friends currently furloughed, not getting paid. Not a single one of them is a Trump supporting tool. And I. This is now on our radar. He would like to commit some more crimes. More crimes, please. Let's see if he's able to get away with it. Mark Carney, by the way, the Canadian Prime Minister was visibly, visibly stunned during his conversation in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and the press. Donald Trump just answering question after question after question in a disgusting, a disgusting reminder that money doesn't buy class. If Trump embodies anything, the primary value or idea that Trump embodies is that some people, no matter how much money they obtain, you can't buy class. Trump asked, are you concerned about the delays at airports? And he starts talking about a black woman's iq, one of his favorite topics. If you are up against the difficult question, figure out if there is a black woman you can say is stupid. And that's exactly what Trump did. Are you concerned about the delays at airports and how do you see the shutdown?

David Pakman (34:55)

Yeah. You know, the, the only problem with this is that the Chevy Silverado and the Chevy Equinox are made in Canada. The Honda Civic and the Honda CR V are made in Canada. Chrysler Pacifica and the Grand Caravan and the Dodge Charger and the Ford Mustang GTD and a whole bunch of other cars, they're made in Canada. And originally, during Trump's first term, part of that replacement deal to nafta, the USMCA part of it was, let's do joint building of cars, us, Canada, Mexico, and not punish Americans for that. Now Trump's going, we are going to punish those with tariffs. And also, nobody wants these cars anyway. But actually they do. And actually, manufacturers organize themselves in accordance with Donald Trump's stated trade policy goals of his first term under usmca, which said, no, we're going to work with some of the parts will be from these three countries. The assembly will be in these three countries. And that's cool, that's encouraged. Now it's not. He's punishing the very people that did what he wanted them to do. And this is the theme with Trump. You do what he wants you to do, but then the winds change and now he punishes you. And you are always the problem. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason that no probable cause needed. All while Republicans try to twist things so that you think this is all great for America. This should be the biggest story in the US Right now, but it's almost impossible to keep up with the millions of moves that Trump is making every single day. That's why Ground News exists. Ground News is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin. But before it takes control of our opinions, Ground News is the smarter, more reliable way to stay informed. When MAGA is banking on us getting distracted, I'm partnering up with Ground News to give you 40% off the same vantage plan that I use, so you'll pay only five bucks a month for all of their premium features. Just go to Ground News, slash Pacman, or use the code Pacman in the app. When you sign up, the link is in the description or scan the QR code. All right. This should be the biggest news story in the country. This was not a gaffe. This was not a glitch. Stephen Miller, one of Trump's closest aides, calmly declared on national television, cnn, that Donald Trump has plenary authority. And he realized what he had said. He went silent and froze. They went to a break, and when they came back, he gave the answer again with no mention of plenary authority. Now, most people don't necessarily know what this means. What this means is unlimited, unchecked power. This is the kind of power a king would have. This is the kind of power a dictator. Dictator would have, not a president in a democracy. Let's check out the clip, and then we will talk about it.

David Pakman (38:52)

We're having a technical issue. But there was no technical issue. That was not a freeze because of a bad connection. He was still blinking. We could hear him. Everybody could hear everybody. The more likely scenario is either Stephen Miller realized by himself or there was someone off camera or somewhere near there going, no, no, no, no, no. You just said the quiet part out loud. This was not a loud, unhinged rant from Stephen Miller. He did those during this interview. We'll get to those later. This was something that he didn't stumble across, that phrase, plenary authority. This is something he believes and he means. And the problem is that that phrase, maybe it's supposed to be rolled out later. Maybe it's for when Trump decides to push some new boundary or wants to deploy regular armed forces against citizens, even beyond the limited capacity in which he's done it so far, or against a court order. And CNN appears to have helped to bury it. Instead of challenging Miller on this wildly unconstitutional claim, they cut to a break, claimed a technical issue, came back with a do over. Miller didn't mention plenary authority. And the host didn't mention, hey, before you said plenary authority. Plenary authority. I don't know if CNN is protecting Stephen Miller outright. I don't know if it was a moment of the host forgot, I don't know. But Stephen Miller really gave the game away because it exposes what this administration really believes. Trump's power should be absolute. We suspected that's what they believed. We know that that's what Donald Trump wants. And the legacy in corporate media has sort of quietly helped to cover it all up. You don't end up with a full fledged authoritarian state with tanks in the streets on day one. Starts with stuff like this. An aide says, oh, the president has plenary power. And everybody just kind of shrugs. And CNN gives him a redo when he doesn't mention it. And that's it. This is the language that authoritarian leaders have used to justify total control. In 1933, Hitler pushed through the so called Enabling act which said, oh, he needs full power to restore order. And what that meant was that any decision, decree or law flows directly from him, unchecked by courts, unchecked by the parliament. And that idea is that one person, usually one man, overrides every other institution. And the parallels are really scary. I mean, there's. We don't talk about Hitler often on this program, but what we are talking about is using existing mechanisms like emergency powers and national security laws to dismantle democracy from the inside out. And that's what makes Stephen Miller's statement so dangerous. When plenary authority comes out of the mouth of someone that works for the President, it is a test balloon. This is an insight into what they're thinking about. And it's the same playbook that we've talked about. You normalize the language of dictatorship, you get the media to kind of shrug, or maybe we don't really know what that means. And by the time people realize what's happening, you've hollowed out the rule of law from the inside out. Please make sure that people see this. Everyone you know should understand what just happened. Make sure you like this video. Make sure to share this video because once you plenary authority becomes accepted language, it is way too late. The shriveled and diminished Trump adviser Stephen Miller said a lot of things yesterday. He said some of them to cnn. He said some of them to the press pool cameras outside of the White House. He was asked about how he called a judge's ruling a legal insurrection when it comes to the deployment of troops. And Stephen Miller goes, that's factually accurate.

David Pakman (47:37)

It must be put down. The dehumanizing language is not a bug. They see it as a feature. MAGA hears it. See, here's, here's where we lose. We think if we just show them this language, they would be disgusted with it and they would go, oh, we can't support that. But that's where we are wrong. You show them this language, they go, that's great. It sounds strong. It sounds robust. It sounds like we're finally taking control of our country. It's a feature and not a bug. That makes it much harder to fight against. A lot of people think identity theft is something that only happens when someone hacks into your account, but the truth 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. 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We are getting it very, very quickly from this administration. Donald Trump put out a post on Truth Social which says, quote, Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers. Governor Pritzker also Now I know that we have been so desensitized by how this administration has operated that a post from a president suggesting that elected officials be thrown in prison without due process and without having done anything wrong is not that shocking anymore. I understand the hyper normalization and the desensitization that we have all experienced and that hopefully we are fighting against. But this is a red alert moment. We have the President of the United States openly calling for the jailing of elected officials because they won't do what he wants. It's not because they committed crimes. It's not because they participated in a corrupt or unethical act. It is for political disobedience. And if you look back at the 20th century dictators, this is how it starts. It begins with rhetoric that blurs the line between political disagreement and and criminal behavior. Mussolini would call his opponents enemies of the state. Franco labeled mayors and union leaders subversive. Hitler accused local officials of sabotage when they would refuse his orders. And the goal was always the same. You want to Turn your political opponents into criminals so that then you can treat their desire for democracy as lawlessness, and you make yourself the source of order, and you throw all of them in prison so they can't get in your way. That is the direction that Donald Trump is going here. This isn't policy. Throw a governor in prison isn't policy. It is a groundwork for anti Democratic repression. The irony, of course, is that the mayors and governors that Trump is attacking are the ones following the law. ICE is a federal agency. Local officials don't protect ice. That's not even what they're supposed to be doing. They cooperate under federal rules, using their discretion. Now, I don't know if Trump knows that or doesn't know it. You know, for Trump, law and order means law for his enemies and order for himself. Or maybe it's law and order for his friends and total denial of due process for his enemies. I don't know. I'm sort of saying it inarticulately. But this is not what a confident leader posts. This is the post of someone who's completely unraveling and only reinforcing. JB Pritzker, his claim that dementia is at play in motivating Trump's behavior. Just look at this week alone. He's demanded military tribunals for journalists, the death penalty for drug dealers, and now prison for mayors and governors. This is like an authoritarian greatest hits. And as disastrous as the ranting is, this all pushes the Overton window. The more we get accustomed to a president demanding some of his political opponents be jailed. When he says something that stops just short of that next week, it sounds comparatively less outrageous, and we're more likely to look the other way. And so I know I've said it before, these populist sounding, sort of authoritarians often will start with, hey, we've got the people versus the corrupt elites. Now, usually they are the corrupt elites, but they'll still say, I'm on the side of the people. We're together against the corrupt elites. Then they redefine the elite as anybody who disagrees with them politically. And Trump's doing that right now. He's recasting mayors, governors, local police departments that don't want to go out of their way to do immigration work or whatever, which they shouldn't be doing. They are all enemies, and we've got to deal with them. So this is an unhinged post, but it's part of a pattern we've seen many times before. You delegitimize your opponents, you rewrite justice to mean loyalty. And then you say, well, we've got to punish dissent here. We've got to throw these people in prison. It is the playbook of every dictator who ever told himself he's saving the country right before they destroy it. This is the sort of stuff they would say working on getting Governor Pritzker on the show. And of course, I would love to ask him about this. I'm guessing, because he's not a dumb guy and neither is the mayor. I'm guessing that they are coming up with contingency planning for what happens if Trump does try to pursue us in this way. Hey, this is very interesting. The manosphere podcasters who spent years flirting with Maga Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Aiden Ross, Andrew Schultz, they are suddenly trying to pretend they were never really that into Donald Trump. There's a really interesting new piece in Rolling Stone, and what the piece argues is that the guys who helped Trump's campaign in 2024 in terms of bringing it to young men and saying, vote, vote for this guy, they are now kind of tripping over themselves to distance themselves from what Donald Trump is actually doing. We almost nine months into this term, and they're realizing that the guy who promised to do all of that authoritarian stuff meant it, and he's doing the authoritarian stuff. So you've got people like Aiden Ross, who gave Trump a cybertruck and a Rolex during that Love fest interview that they did. Now he says he really, really wishes he'd never gotten into politics. You've got Theo Vaughn, who offered Trump one of the softest interviews he's ever had. He blew up after the Department of Homeland Security included him in a deportation video. And he said, I didn't sign up for this stuff. I've got immigrant family. That is not at all what I meant. And I don't like that my content was used by Trump in this way. Rogan has been calling the immigration raids insane. Andrew Schultz said that he voted for none of this. But this is what happens when you treat politics like another viral guest spot. My friend, the comedian Angelo Collina, said when talking about Hispanic voters, he does comedy in Spanish to mostly Hispanic audiences. He said, why are we. I'm paraphrasing. Why are we shocked that the guy who said he hates us actually hates us and is now doing all of this stuff to us? Who could have seen that coming? Trump told you what he was going to do. The only surprise here is that people who built their brands on telling it like it is didn't believe Trump. You know, Rogan's all about I tell it like it is, Theo Vaughn's about I tell it like it is, etc. But Trump told it like it is and he's doing this stuff and now they go, oh, we didn't guess that. He was just telling it like it is. This is the same Pat. Oh, by the way, I want to mention one other show. I don't know how many of you watch or listen to the all in podcast. I don't really, but I follow it enough to sort of see what happens and I have friends who listen to it. It is basically morphed into a Trump propaganda outlet with, like, the veneer of being a show about venture capital and capital deployment. And for a while, the all in audience kind of went with it. But if you look at the subreddit now for the all in podcast, it is brutal. The audience has completely turned against them. Sort of like Dave Rubin's audience turned against him. If you look at the Rogan subreddit, there's a lot of that as well. And the all in hosts are just being crushed for parroting right wing talking points, selling out to power when even your fan base, that made you what you are to begin with. As far as podcast success, when they start roasting you as a shill, you start looking for an off ramp and quickly. And it is now spreading beyond the manosphere. Look at what happened to Nikki, Jamie. He went on stage with Trump. Trump misgendered him and said, nikki's super hot. Bring her up here. Turns out it was a guy with a teardrop tattoo under his eye. And Nikki Jam went up there thinking, oh, this is cool. You know, I'm with Trump. It's all great. Nicky Jam got so destroyed on social media that he ended up saying, I'm done with politics. I'm not going to say any more political stuff. And even apolitical influencers are learning that the Trump orbit can burn you if you get a little bit too close. This was never, I don't think when these podcasters got involved on the Trump train, I don't know that it was that ideological. I think it was the idea that we're going to be edgy, we're going to be unfiltered, we're going to be rebellious in that a lot of what they perceived as their cohorts were antagonistic to Trump. And we're going to. We're going to hear him out and maybe even say, we like the guy. But the thing is, Trump now is the establishment. Like, when you support Trump, you're really just supporting the establishment. He's the system. And so they are now backpedaling. And I don't think they're doing it out of principle. I think they're doing it out of self preservation. They sense this is my speculation. The Manosphere bros sense that the next phase of the online right is not about worshiping Trump. It's going to be about tearing down those who look weak, hypocritical or corporate. And nothing screams weakness more than backing the strong man right up until he starts losing the crowd. And so the Manosphere's tough guy posture, I think, was always vibes over values. They talk about discipline and all of that stuff, but once it's inconvenient, they abandon it. And so Trump doesn't need them anymore. Trump got what he wanted. He got reelected. He doesn't need them anymore. The audiences are kind of mutating and moving around and starting to eat creators alive. So the podcast bros are starting to step away from Trump, not because they grew a conscience. I think they see what's coming and they don't want to drown in this wave that is on its way. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment or email me about the Manosphere info@david pakman.com all right, Maga Mike Johnson is warning that furloughed government employees may never get back pay. We're going to talk about it on the bonus show. We'll talk about the White House using saying it will use tariff revenue to fund food aid for mothers and young children. And the treasury is defending the lawfulness of a $1 Trump coin, even though in principle you're not allowed to mint coins or bills with living people on them. So what's their justification? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Get instant access by signing up@join pacman.com it is the best David Pakman show bonus show in the world and the only. You can sign up at Join pacman. Com. I'll see you then.