← The David Pakman Show
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- [00:00]
David Pakman
First, Republicans blocked Arizona's newest Democrat from being sworn in for 50 days. The second she finally took the oath she dumped on him, hit Trump on Epstein, signed the petition to force a vote to release the files and told MAGA things they didn't want to hear. We're going to look at it. We're also going to look at J.D. vance acting like doesn't like Donald Trump doesn't just want yes men, when of course he wants yes men. It is absurd, absurd, but it tells you something bigger, which is that Vance is already kind of campaigning to inherit MAGA when Trump is done. And with Peter Thiel backing him, that is a real problem. Stephen Miller is also back pushing more of an authoritarian agenda. Nuke the filibuster, mass deportations, cruelty. Fox hosts basically panic on air as they accidentally admit blue states are doing better than the red states that they worship. And Trump breaks his own base again by saying the US Needs more high skilled immigrants. When Vivek said it, they didn't like it. We're also going to go deep on the real reason Trump is terrified of 2026 and it has to do with his crypto empire. If Democrats take the House, they get subpoena power and that is Donald Trump's nightmare. And finally, Democrats do have a secret weapon for 2026 that MAGA hasn't noticed. And it is all in the polling right now. Trump's base disappears when he isn't on the ballot. The numbers look like a repeat of 2018. We will also get your messages, emails and comments in Friday Feedback. And remember that every new membership still is being donated to Feeding America, a hunger charity for whom we've raised over $12,000 already. What a program today. Well, they finally swore in Adelita Grijalva as the newest member of the House of Representatives, a Democrat. And we didn't even have time for this yesterday because it was such a packed show. But she really did a number on these Republicans. They blocked her for 50 days and she quickly made him regret it. Here is the moment where she was sworn in.
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Congressional Swearing-in Official
Well, Representative elect Rojalva and members of the Arizona delegation present themselves in the well and all members will rise.
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David Pakman
Someone yelled finally there.
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Congressional Swearing-in Official
And the representative elect will raise her right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that you will well and faithfully Discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter, so help you God?
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Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
I do.
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Congressional Swearing-in Official
Congratulations. You're now a member of the 19th Congress.
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David Pakman
All right, so finally, finally. And when given an opportunity to speak, Congresswoman Grijalva, laying out the absurdity of how long this took and also laying out the stakes here.
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Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona, 7th congressional district elected me to represent them. 50 days that over 800,000 Arizonans have been left without access to the basic services that every constituent deserves. This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons.
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David Pakman
And yet he was able to do it. But now she is in, and she went right in on the Epstein files. I love this.
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Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that Trump knew more about Epstein's abuses than he he previously acknowledged. It's past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we the American people. We need to fight for our immigrant communities and veterans. We need to stand up for our public schools, children and educators. We need to respect tribal sovereignty in our environment. We need to stand up for LGBTQ rights because that's what the American people expect us to do. Fight for them. That is why I will sign the discharge petition right now to release the Epstein files.
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David Pakman
This is not going to go well for Republicans. This is going to backfire on them. And the other thing I liked about Congresswoman Grijalva's initial speech is she also touched on just the basic fundamentals of how the United States is supposed to work and how a lot of those fundamentals are now under threat.
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Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
And while we celebrate this moment today, our American promise is under serious threat. Basic freedoms are under attack. Health care premiums are skyrocketing. Babies are being ripped away from their parents by mass agents. We can and must do better. What is most concerning is not what this administration has done, but what the majority in this body has failed to do. Hold Trump accountable as a co equal branch of government that we are.
- [06:13]
David Pakman
You know, there is no one person that can determine the outcome of so many different things. And so it's not about overstating the importance of the swearing in of Congresswoman Grijalva. But if we step back a little bit, as you see her swearing in, as you see the discharge petition succeed, as you see 100 Republicans seemingly say, I think I'm going to go with, yes, let's do the files rather than, no, let's not do them. As we see all of that stuff come together, there might be a moment here, and I don't think we're going to get Trump out of office. I don't believe that Trump's going to do a single day in jail or prison. I told you that years ago. And so far it's been true. But there's still some time to go. But I don't think that he's going to. There feels like this is. It feels as though this is an opportunity to really put the nail in the coffin of Trump as a president who can do anything. And the Epstein file release, which hopefully will happen, maybe combined with under 12 months from now, Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, maybe all of that together is going to be enough to make Trump truly a lame duck. And I don't mean, you know, he's a lame duck in the sense that he can't run again like any president in their second term, but I mean truly a lame duck in that he cannot get a damn thing done for the last two years, or maybe even three years of his presidency. And the X factor here seems to be that after mostly falling in line with the cult loyalty that Trump has demanded for so long, we finally are seeing Republicans. Some of them say, I'm not with them on this particular issue. And that is a really, really big deal. J.D. vance told the funniest lie about Donald Trump that I can remember. Has anyone ever been more wrong than J.D. vance? When he opened his mouth on stage with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. At the MAHA summit in D.C. that's Make America Healthy Again and said, you know, Trump doesn't want yes men around him. JD Said it with a straight face, and I don't want my cappuccino in the morning. Right. Listen to this one.
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Stephen Miller
He requires honest counsel. In other words, if I have an opinion on something, whether I agree or disagree with the administration position, it's really, really important that I talk to the president about it. He doesn't want yes men. And I think it's one of the reasons why you guys have a great relationship is because you're always thinking about, how can I actually give the President the best counsel?
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David Pakman
Trump doesn't want yes men trying no to Trump and see what happens. He will fire you. He will parade you on truth social, blame you for something you had nothing to do with. And this is really. It's getting to not even be about Trump anymore. What I mean by that is I believe at this point, J.D. vance is really auditioning for the role of heir to the MAGA throne. Trump is term limited. He can't run again. He may be a complete and total lame duck. If the Epstein files are out and they're a disaster, as they increasingly seem to be and Trump loses, Republicans rather lose the House of Representatives next November, Trump will truly be a lame duck. There will be some kind of MAGA succession crisis or reality show or competition. I don't know what it's going to be. And what J.D. vance is slowly positioning himself for is running the most shameless kind of bare knuckle campaign to inherit the base. I'd love it if my wife converted to Christianity or did more, became more of a Christian. Whatever phraseology he used a couple of weeks ago about Usha Vance, who is Hindu and a lot of the MAGA people don't like that. And when J.D. vance says Trump doesn't want yes men, it's funny because of course it's false. But it's kind of terrifying because it shows how aggressively JD Vance is positioning himself as the loyal son of maga. He is doing what aspiring authoritarian successors always do. You rewrite the flaws of the dear leader as strengths. You rewrite the insecurities of the leader as genius. You signal that you are absolutely obedient and, and committed to the dear leader. And most importantly, you have to show the base that you're capable of the same level of delusion as the leader. And J.D. vance to a degree is doing that here. And this is where RFK tells a story. This is RFK Jr. Telling what he believes is one of the funniest moments involving President Trump. Listen to this. And by the way, listen to the pathetic fake laugh, forced laugh from J.D. vance.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
One of the funniest moments in any Cabinet meeting. President Trump had them bring in a full size picture of himself with Putin. And when they were in Hawaii and he's very tall and Putin was very short, Putin came up to about here and he said, you know what I said to him? He said, I've had it up to here with you.
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David Pakman
Okay, I remember that. Isn't that great, guys? Isn't that great? So listen, if J.D. that, that is the laugh of a sycophant. If J.D. wants to be the heir to the MAGA throne, we have to consider the role that Peter Thiel is going to play, the tech billionaire who has been quietly kind of shaping JD Vance for a long time. Peter Thiel bankrolled the political launch of JD Vance, gave him institutional Republican credibility, gave him access to networks that MAGA would not otherwise be able to build on its own. And Thiel sees seems to see Vance as kind of a perfect hybrid. He's anti institutional in his rhetoric, but his economics are very billionaire friendly. And that is really appealing to someone like a Peter Thiel. So this is why I believe Vance is genuinely dangerous. It's not because he's charismatic. He's not charismatic. It's because he is the first MAGA figure who has elite backing. The first MAGA figure other than Trump who has elite backing some level of discipline. Vance isn't going to say the whacked stuff that Trump says unless he really wants to. But Trump seems to say it because he can't control himself. And Vance has a plan beyond just anger the liberals. And so Peter Thiel is making a very simple bet here. MAGA will need a successor. The successor should speak populist. So he sort of sounds like Trump, but govern for the oligarchs. Vance is the prototype, especially with the crafting and guidance of Thiel now for years. And also J.D. vance understands the culture war theatrics which are required in maga. You've got to do it. But he in the sort of teal mold maybe would be able to turn the MAGA movement into something more durable and institutionalized, which should terrify all of us. So we're already watching JD Vance and it is extraordinary how he seems willing to do whatever he needs to do to have a shot at the MAGA throne. Running a small business or creative project can feel like you suddenly have to learn a dozen different jobs at once. And our sponsor Shopify is the platform that helps you handle everything in one place. Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world, including 10% of all E commerce in the US you can build your storefront with hundreds of ready to use templates, so you don't need to know how to code or design to make the site look good. Shopify also has AI tools that'll write product descriptions or generate headlines, even enhance your product photos. Huge timesavers and when you're ready to start selling, Shopify gives you everything you need to reach customers, including email tools, social media tools, analytics, inventory management, payment processing. It's all built in. So maybe you're selling merch or launching a brand or turning a side project into something bigger. Shopify is the tool that will make it manageable. Turn your big business idea into a reality. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 a month trial. Start selling today at shopify.com/pacman that is shopify.com/pacman link is in the description. The David Pakman show is an independent progressive media program funded primarily by you. The most direct ways to support this show Get a membership at Join Pacman Dotcom Get a Substack Premium subscription@substack.david pakman.com All November 1st payments for new memberships donated to Feeding America. We've raised over $12,000 so far and we would love to get that number up even higher. Sign up@join pacman.com Didn't Trump tell us that he would hire the best people? Evil incarnate is not a phrase I would use to liberally to refer to people. But Trump's deputy policy adviser Stephen Miller, if that still the title of his position, you know that people get moved around so quickly. Who knows, he embodies the concept of evil incarnate. Maybe more than anybody, Trump has had work for him at least recently. Larry Kudlow asked Miller, is Trump pushing for this two thousand dollar tariff dividend? And Miller's answer leaves a little bit to be desired here. I'm going to tell you the reality of the dividend in a moment.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
Tariffs, $2,000 tariff dividend. Is that something the President's going to push hard or did he say that off the cuff or what?
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Stephen Miller
No, it is something he's going to push hard as part of his economic plan. With the record revenue that's coming in through tariffs, as we lower corporate taxes, as we lower business taxation, as we lower personal income taxation, we're able to now get more and more revenue through foreign imports to power the treasury and to be to give rebates to the American people.
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David Pakman
The confidence with which he tells lies is really something there is like no moral. There seems to be no moral problem for him. And just lying, of course. How could something that was mentioned for the first time a few days ago be part of Trump's economic plan? Like what are you talking about? He just mentioned it in a truth post a few days ago and now all of his staffers are trying to clean it up. And of course Miller refers to the money coming in from tariffs. It's not coming in. The money's already here. It's paid by American companies, 55% of which so far has been passed along to American consumers. The money's coming in like it's coming in from outer space or some other country or the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The money is from American companies and he is so confident. Now the two thousand dollar tariff quite literally is going to be we charged a bunch of American companies a tariff and then we are going to give you a rebate from that and pretend that it's a gift and that we're really cool and that we're awesome, that that's it and that's if it even happens. Because Scott Bessen has already said, well, a lot of people already got their two thousand dollar dividend because they got lower taxes or something like that. That's continue with the next clip. Here is Stephen Miller saying Trump really wants to nuke that filibuster. Even though the government's open, he still wants to nuke it.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
Is he going to push for an end to the filibuster? Everybody's asking and sort of talking about that. I don't want that to obscure the good economic and stock market news, but I did want to get your take on it.
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Stephen Miller
Yeah, well, yes, he is, of course, because when Democrats take power, if and when that happens, when, when they control, at some point in the future, whenever that is the House, the Senate and the White House, what's the first thing they're going to do? Larry, they've advertised it, they promoted it, they've talked about it and they've booted two people, Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, out of the party for disagreeing with them on it. And that is ending the filibuster. They will end the filibuster. They will pass communist health care. They will abolish private health insurance. They will kick 140 million Americans off of their employer sponsored health care plans. They will give citizenship and amnesty to every single illegal alien in the country and millions more to come. They will pack the Supreme Court with four or five Marxist judges.
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David Pakman
They will make anyway, you get the point, just confidently saying absolute gutter trash. And Miller's got a long history of pushing this stuff. He loves family separations. He loved the Muslim ban. He loved asylum shutdowns. He loved the whole send them to blue cities cruelty. He's obsessed with ideological screenings. And this is really not a policy debate. At the end of the day, this is how authoritarian movements reward the sadistic people with power. Miller is not an exception exception in Trump world. He's, he's an embodiment of Trump world, really. And nuking the filibuster from, you know, the guy who wants minority rule, at the end of the day, nuking the filibuster is extraordinary. From the same guy who wants fewer people voting, wants more gerrymandering, wants presidential power to override Congress Wants states to ignore court rulings, wants mass deportations without hearings. So what ends up happening here is that Stephen Miller wants majority rule when he's in the majority and when he's not, he wants dictatorship. And that, at the end of the day, is why these people want to get rid of the filibuster, so that they can actually have rule by the minority or a majority that isn't actually big enough as required by Congress. They want to get rid of it, let Republicans do whatever the hell they want when they're in power. And what's terrifying is that he actually might get away with it because. Because they are trying to do this and they might be able to. Taking the house back in 26 is going to be a key part of stopping all of this stuff. Sean Hannity almost got it. During another one of these sick, deranged rants, Hannity, in the context, I guess, of going after New York City's mayor elect Zoran Mamdani, said that if the country becomes New York, New Jersey, California, and Illinois, we're screwed. There's a little problem with what he says. Let's listen to it and then discuss. At some point, simple, basic, fundamental common sense has got to prevail or America will be doomed. If we become New York and New Jersey and California and Illinois. Right. You know, I looked at the numbers. New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois together had a GDP last year of over $8.4 trillion. That is almost 29% of the entire national GDP. Just those four states. Those four states have 23% of the population and 29% of the GDP. They are pushing around more than their fair share of gdp. And what that means is someone isn't doing a good job bringing up the rear. If with only 23% of the population, these four states are 29% of GDP. That means that there are states, red states, that aren't even performing at their population level for the gdp. If only the country were like New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois, we would be better off. But there's more to it. You know, GDP is one measure, but there's a lot more to it. 155 of the 500 Fortune 500 companies are in those four states. Those states give way more money to the federal government to subsidize red states than they get back. These are the states that lead in technology, in culture, in film, in music, and in sports. And so Hannity almost gets it, except he's backwards. If only the country were more like California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. Now this reminds me of the analysis I did a few weeks ago. I did a sort of thought experiment. What if New England and New York became a country? Imagine that there was a secession of the northeast, New England plus New York. The total population of New England and New York is about 35 million people. The total GDP is almost 4 trillion. That is a GDP per capita in New England and New York of $106,000. Based on global data, the country of New England and New York would be the fourth or fifth richest country in the world on a per capita basis. Now I know that what Hannity is doing is simply saying Zoran Mandani is a socialist. If socialists took over everything, we would be in real trouble. Well, the voters chose him and now we're going to see what happens in New York City. Important to remember New York City and New York State are two different things. And as the, as the mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani will only deal with New York City. And by the way, a lot of the things that he wants to do, he's not going to be able to do because there's not going to be consensus to do them, but going to be able to see what he does and evaluate. But the takeaway that if states became more like New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois, we'd be worse off. We would be better off. Better education, more access to health care, lower poverty, lower crime, more innovation, better business environment, better schools. We could do a lot worse than New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois, that's for sure. Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump ended up having a discussion about what is essentially H1B visas. But it is about bringing people in from other countries to work in the United States because they're qualified and they're intelligent. This was a very interesting moment because this is actually a controversial and sort of risque thing. You might remember that when Vivek Ramaswamy said, oh no, no, no, we got to bring in people from other countries on H1B visas. A lot of his MAGA street cred evaporated in a puff of whatever. And Trump more or less makes the same argument here, let's listen to it. And Trump even goes, we don't really have enough talented people here in the United States.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
There's never going to be a country like what we have right now. And does that mean Republicans have to talk about it?
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David Pakman
And does that mean the H1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers. You can't flood the country with, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
Also do have to bring in talent.
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David Pakman
When we have plenty of talented people.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
No, you don't.
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David Pakman
We don't have talented people.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
No, you don't have. You don't have certain talents. And you have to. People have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a factory. We're going to make missiles. Or I'm going to put.
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David Pakman
How do we ever do it before?
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
Well, let me.
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David Pakman
When you and I were giving you.
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Interviewer or Laura Ingraham
An example in Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing, and very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You're going to need that, Laura. I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country's coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're going to start making missiles.
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David Pakman
This is fascinating. This is fascinating. So I'm going to bring this back to another area of policy, so, so stick with me on this. Trump says we need people from other countries. If we're going to do a lot of the stuff we want to do, we got to bring in smart, skilled people from other countries. Vivek Ramaswamy said basically the same thing. They went after him. Elon Musk has said we need more H1B V visa in the United States. Immigrants built America's tech sector. We should be importing the smartest people from around the world. MAGA hated it because it breaks the narrative. It sounds like big tech globalism, which they claim to be against. It acknowledges immigrants contribute something even if they have white immigrants in mind. Right. Like, let's be honest. But either way, they have to acknowledge, damn immigrants do contribute here. And so when Trump says we need talent, it breaks the MAGA brain because maga, much of it, wants a total immigration freeze. Trump wants labor that he can pay less. That's part of why Trump has an interest in this. Fox wants a culture war where immigrants are on the short end of the stick. Billionaires want engineers, including from countries where people aren't necessarily white, like India as an example. So there's this massive disconnect the moment a MAGA figure says, you know, immigrants aren't that bad, we kind of need them. There's an immediate tension with the base that we saw with Vivek, we saw with Elon. I don't know that this clip of Trump saying this will get the same attention, but it's essentially the same position. So when Trump goes, no, you don't have the talent you need in the United States, he's doing the same thing that Vivek Ramaswamy did, except when Trump does it, MAGA has to pretend this is some kind of 4D chess. Now, let me bring it back to a different thing. 341 million people in the United States. It's obviously not for lack of population that we lack the skills, education and talent for a lot of these positions. It's because of our educational system and the very system that I guess would satisfy everybody in maga, which is we could build the education and skills we need here. Well, then you've got to support public education, which they hate. And so, as is often the case, victims of the monster they created by consistently underfunding education, trying to get rid of the Department of Education. They have created, to a degree, the circumstances in which, due to higher educational standards in other countries. Now Trump goes, we need the talent from other countries. Please bring them in. Fascinating. Fascinating. I don't think MAGA will turn on Trump for this. He is the golden. Well, the orange Child. Not the Golden Child, the orange child of the cult. They turned on Vivek. They turned on Elon. With Trump, they'll kind of give him the benefit of the doubt. But this is a real problem for maga, especially if they don't want to fix education. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason. 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 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. There's a secret reason that Donald Trump is actually panicking about 2026. And it's sort of a billion dollar secret that Trump is desperate to protect. And I want to explain it today. You know, MAGA Mike Johnson last week said the quiet part out loud, which is if we lose the majority, they will try to end the Trump administration. And everyone focused on the word end. But there is another story about what Trump is terrified of. And it's money. And it's money to the tune of billions. Trump's entire crypto empire and the paper trail that exposes it is something that is terrifying him. Now, Trump's net worth, depending on who you believe was, you know, a few billion in 2020 and supposedly today it's like $7 billion. So Trump has added billions to his net worth. Where did it come from? There's a crypto ecosystem built around World Liberty Financial. World Liberty Financial is run by Eric Trump, Don Jr. And Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, whose father happens to be Trump's envoy to the Middle East. Now, the company launched in late 2024 and they rolled out a stablecoin USD1 in early 2025. And I've told you some of this already. And within weeks, USD 1 exploded in size because the Abu Dhabi backed Firm Mags invested $2 billion using Trump's stablecoin. Now, I already told you, at about 4% interest, that's like $80 million a year for Trump's family business. Now, a reminder about what MAGA Mike Johnson said.
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Congressional Swearing-in Official
The President is on the ballot in 2026. The President Trump is on the ballot next fall because if we lose the majority of the Republicans, the common sense people here who are doing the job for the American people, if we lose the majority in the House and this radical element of the Democratic Party were able to take over, we've already seen that movie. They will try to end the Trump administration. He won't have four years, he'll have only two. And they will try to systematically unwind all the important reforms that we've done for the American people, the president.
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David Pakman
So bear that in mind. And then remember, there's the meme coin. That's the crypto token with Donald Trump's face that added potentially billions. One token reportedly generated around $5 billion in total new wealth for the entire operation, some fraction of which goes to Trump. And you've got foreign governments and foreign billionaires investing very heavily in these Trump limped, Trump linked crypto projects while getting favorable treatment from the administration. Now, this is sort of taking. Remember when Trump had that D.C. hotel which failed, and dignitaries would stay in that hotel when they would come to D.C. to meet with Trump. And then it's like, hey, I'm staying at your hotel. A way to ingratiate themselves with Trump. This is that on steroids. And the pattern is MGX invest billions. Trump approves a massive chip shipment to the uae. Weeks later, Binance facilitates the MGX deal. Trump pardons the Binance founder. Czech Republic, despite having pleaded guilty to money laundering. Justin sun pours money into the Trump ecosystem. The SEC drops fraud charges. Bitmex founders are convicted. Trump pardons them. So this is a system. These are not random, unrelated events. It's a presidency that's been turned into like a crypto rewards program. And the part that is terrifying to Trump is that it's all documented. Blockchain transactions, for better or for worse, are public. And permanent pardons are public. Government approvals are documented. Money in and favors going out over and over and over again. And so there is no doubt that if Democrats win the House in 2026, they get subpoena power. And so that means income. The full financial records from World Liberty Financial. Testimony from Trump's sons from Steve Witkoff and his son from the foreign investors. The documents about the UAE chip deal, records related to the Binance pardon. An analysis of whether Trump violated the emoluments clause, whether federal policy was rewritten to enrich Trump personally. And unlike prosecutors that Trump can pressure, Congress can't be fired. Congress can't be overruled. Congress can't be pardoned. Jamie Raskin could reopen every corruption thread. And committees could subpoena attorneys and advisers and agency heads. The blockchain analysts could trace every single dollar and Trump can't do a damn thing about it. The evidence doesn't disappear because crypto is permanent. And this is why Trump is desperate for Republicans to hold the House of Representatives. Not to pass bills and get stuff done. Forget about that. He needs them to block investigations. Now, Senator Elizabeth Warren says that Trump's crypto dealings have created an unprecedented conflict where people can buy influence by directly enriching the sitting president. Yeah, that's exactly it. And Senator Jeff Merkley said it's profoundly corrupt. Maxine Waters says it's the normalization of corruption and this is the way it will go because Trump cannot control Congress if Democrats win it. He can't stop the subpoenas. He can't pardon his sons if they lie to Congress. He can't hide documents because the blockchain already recorded half the story. And that's what Mike Johnson meant in this viral video when he said, if we lose the House, it's the end of the Trump administration. It's not the end through politics. It's the end through exposure and hearings and documents and testimony and, and simple math. If a fraction of the corruption that we currently suspect is proven in televised hearings, it's not just the end of Trump's presidency in terms of the ability to get anything done. It's not just corruption being proven. It is not just embarrassment. It is again, another potential cycle of criminal referrals, state charges against people which pardons don't help. Civil financial investigations, courts tracing every single dollar. Now, I am not naive. I don't believe any of this ends with Trump spending a single day in jail or prison. But it can completely disable the administration from doing anything, humiliate Trump, who is increasingly concerned with legacy. And that is what Trump fears the most. Consequences. And so the stakes for 26 are really high. The there's a reason Trump's terrified. There's a reason MAGA Mike Johnson is sounding the alarm. Let's keep going on the 2026 concept. Republicans really have no idea what is about to hit them in 2026 if Democrats do the right things, which is never a foregone conclusion. I'm not talking about, excuse me, a complex strategy. I'm not talking about rebuilding a massive financial machine or anything like that to fundraise. I'm talking about something that I believe Republicans are missing, which is in the numbers. Democrats currently hold a 12 point advantage among voters who are very or extremely motivated to vote next year. That is 72% of Democrats who are highly motivated versus 60% of Republicans. Republicans. Trump's approval is 37% in a number of recent polls, including CNN. This is the worst of his second term. Approval ratings for presidents tend to only go down, not up. And this is identical to where Trump was in 2018, right before Republicans were wiped out. Now, if you look at a generic ballot, this is when pollsters just say, generically, would you vote for a Democrat or a Republican in your district? Democrats are up 8 in the latest NBC poll. That is the biggest lead either party has had since 2018, when Democrats flipped 41 House seats. Now, I know some of you are probably worried, David, you're getting ahead of your skis. You got to slow it down. We don't know I'm going to get to that, but I'm just giving you the numbers where we are right now. It gets even worse for Republicans because 47% of voters say that their vote this year will be a message opposing Trump. Only 21% say they would be voting to support Trump. Now, there's a lot of. Wait a second, David, hold on. One is. Hey, David, Democrats are already unpopular. How can they win? Midterms aren't really about the opposition party. Midterms are about the president. And Trump is very, very unpopular. 61% say Trump's gone too far in using presidential power. 72% say the economy is in bad shape. 61% say Trump's policies are making it worse. And so the real secret weapon is turnout collapse among Trump's supporters. Right now, those who are likely to vote for Democrats are significantly more motivated to vote than those who would be likely to vote for Republicans. In the midterms, the president's base often stays home, especially when he's not on the ballot. You put all of this together and the picture looks a lot like 2018. Republican House votes fell by 12 million from 2016 to 2018. That's insane. Trump supporters just didn't show up. Democratic voters barely moved. It wasn't like there was this big increase in Democratic voters. It was just flat. Trump's voters were down 12 million. That's a real problem. And Republicans keep telling themselves, our base loves the President, they love Trump. And the right, they love Trump. They don't necessarily love the party. They don't necessarily love their elected official or their Senate candidates or their House candidates. And Trump's not on the ballot in 2026. And so it's both things are true. Trump is on the ballot. That motivation for Republicans will be greatly dictated by the job they think Trump is or isn't doing. But Trump specifically not being on the ballot defeats the enthusiasm that the cult like supporters of Trump have. Now, let's get to the Democratic part for now. For now, Democrats seem fired up, furious about the shutdown, the snap cuts, the corruption scandals, the crypto mess, the hiding of the Epstein files, all of it. Democratic voters don't need Trump to be on the ballot to want to show up. They are motivated because Trump's in power. That's enough. They weren't voting for him anyway, so being on the ballot isn't really relevant. And so this is the ballgame Enthusiasm plus presidential unpopularity. Now, in last week's elections, we saw enthusiasm from Democrats. At the same time, approval overall for the Democratic Party, Congressional, Republican, Congressional Democrats, etcetera, Is relatively low. So there's a lot of work to do here. But the historical argument is an important one, which is no modern president with an approval below 50 avoids losing seats in the House. Trump's at 37, so that almost certainly means Republicans lose seats in the House. Do they lose enough for Democrats to take control? That remains to be seen. The Senate map is a lot tougher. The margin in the House is small enough that losing even just a few seats could well mean Democrats take it. Senate map is tougher. Democrats need to flip a few seats. But the House is really in play. And the House is enough to start the investigations. It's enough to say Trump's not getting any, anything, anything done in the last two years of his presidency. And that is before we even get into investigations, potential state charges, criminal charges, all sorts of stuff. So that's why in this infamous video, MAGA Mike Johnson said, if we lose the majority, they will try to end the Trump administration. Yes, indeed we will. Mike Johnson knows what they've been hiding, and he knows Democrats are motivated and are angry and maybe will be organized enough to pull something off in 2026. What are Republicans running on? It's not Trump's popularity because he's not popular. It's not the economy. Most voters say it's worse, and it's because of Trump. The shutdown, well, the way it's ending, I don't know where the shutdown is ultimately going to land, but they don't really have anything Democrats are running on. We want accountability, we want to protect social programs, we want to investigate corruption, we want to restore Democratic norms, and we definitely want to stop Trump from getting anything else done the remainder of his presidency. So this is 2026 we're talking about. 2018 might tell us a little something about how it might go. 2010 might tell us a little something. But we've got a historically unpopular precedent, furious opposition, and a huge turnout gap that I don't know how Republicans are going to fix. So hopefully, by the time they notice, it'll be too late. The question isn't, can Democrats win the House in 26? Democrats absolutely can win it. The question is, are Democrats going to do what needs to be done over the next 360, 358 days, something like that, in order to make it happen? That's the question. I don't yet know the answer. Many of us know all too well about the sticking, rubbing and chafing that you can get with traditional underwear. 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All right, it is time for Friday Feedback where we look at feedback from people in the audience, the most important people. If it weren't for you, I'd be a guy in a room with a microphone talking to nobody, probably this room with this microphone and that would be a very, very sad thing. But fortunately there are people out there. You can email info@david pakman.com or leave a comment on any of our various platforms, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchats, etc. Substack. All of them. Spotify. Let's go first to Nancy. Nancy very powerfully defends Donald Trump by saying gas is down. The stock market is surging. Thank you, President Trump. Well, couple problems. Gas isn't down. When Trump took over, gas was about 305 a gallon and gas is at 304 a gallon. It was just at 3:10 a gallon recently. So gas isn't down. And anyway, gas has very little do, very little to do with presidents. As I've said, no matter what the president's party is, the stock market is surging. The stock market has been doing well, which I love. I am glad to admit that although it is increasingly shaky lately, it's just important to remember that the stock market as an indicator of how the economy is doing is not super accurate. Most people own no or relatively few shares of stock and that is an indicator that is heavily, heavily weighted towards the rich. So I don't know what point Nancy was trying to make. I guess that the economy is awesome, but I don't know that gas prices being flat and stocks being slightly up really make that case. Mamo Pamela says, what other word would you use for the food you buy in a store? Yeah, Trump does this thing where he acts like groceries is some kind of, you know, sophisticated and rarely used word. He says often things like groceries. Whoever even heard that word? That's what people say. It's food that you buy unprepared, usually in a store is called groceries. And what Trump often means by that's a really, really beautiful and interesting word. Often what he means is this is a word I, I only recently learned. And you can't fault the guy, right? I mean, he didn't exactly grow up in a situation where he has to worry about obtaining groceries, AKA unprepared food that you buy in a grocery store. So it's not a surprise to me that it's not a word he was familiar with. Over on the subreddit, the user yes for me to wrote, the Democrats in the House of Representatives should call for an impeachment vote every day. Since Democrats lack majorities in any branch of government and cannot invoke the 25th Amendment, why not call for impeachment daily? Each call could detail constitutional violations, credible allegations of sexual misconduct with minors, unauthorized alterations to White House property, sending troops to Democrat cities, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and tariff policies that have devastated soybean exports to China and harmed American farmers. At least it will show a willingness from the Democrats to fight for the USA instead of just agreeing to whatever lesser, lesser evil the Republicans want to pass. Yeah, I kind of think this would be sort of pointless. First of all, not all of these are impeachable offenses. You know, credible allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. Those allegations are not from when Donald Trump was president. I know that's like, that doesn't make him any better of a person, but those aren't from when he was president. Unauthorized alterations to White House property. I just don't know that that's impeachable. It's not a high crime or misdemeanor. Sending troops to Democrat cities. Ok. That actually may be a constitutional violation. I think that's the strongest one here. Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement or tariff policies, I just don't think think are impeachable offenses. And I think Trump's done a lot of impeachable stuff. So I think that if Democrats every day just started trying to impeach Trump I don't know. Obviously it wouldn't work. And I know that the person saying that, that it wouldn't work. I don't even know that the optics or the PR benefit would be that useful. I just, I don't know that I need Democrats doing that. But I'm more than glad to hear from people in the audience if that's something you would like them to do. Jessica Quill commented on Facebook, I have a theory that this. Now, Jessica is referring to how 60 Minutes edited the interview with Trump. Jessica says, I have a theory that this was part of the settlement between CBS and Trump. An interview of Trump that is favorable to Trump edited to make him look better. You know, knowing everything that we know about Trump, that would not shock me morally or ethically, but we don't have any evidence that that's what it was. I believe that the simplest explanation is probably the right one in this case, which is CBS is now self censoring because they don't want more legal problems. And so they cut stuff out that Trump wanted cut out and that they realized would make him look better to remove. I think it's that simple. I don't think the whole point of sense self censorship in authoritarian environments is they don't have to be told to do it, and that's what makes it so insidious and also powerful. Jitka Kucharova says Trump's right eye. What about his right ear? Yeah, you know, I am, I have, I'm going to admit I haven't looked deeply into the claims about Trump's right ear. Now, if you haven't heard the claims, what this is about is that there are those who say if Trump really had been grazed by a bullet, his right ear wouldn't look the way it looks. You would still be able to see evidence of when Trump was hit by that, grazed by that bullet. And this has led some to say he wasn't really hit by a bullet. Others to raise other kind of conspiratorial ideas. I've seen pictures of Trump's right ear where it does look completely healed in a way that I guess is weird for a guy his age. And, you know, given what it looked like supposedly. I've also seen pictures where I think I can kind of see an area that looks discolored as a result of it. I don't, I just don't know. You know, I think that there's a lot of other hijinks and mishigos going on with Donald Trump that is related to his lies Excuse me. And also related to his health that I have not deeply looked into the claims about Trump's right ear. But maybe, maybe some of you have and you want to weigh in. Amy Hesselson Lowe says about Cash Patel's country music singing girlfriend. If she's a country music sensation, why didn't she fly him yet? I like this comment because in his defense of flying her around on government jets, Cash Patel referred to his girlfriend as a country music sensation. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert on country music. I'm Jewish, after all. That's one of those like half jokes. I don't pretend to be an expert on country music. But it is true that the sensations in the music world, they usually have their private plane travel. So why would she need to be flown around by Cash? It's a fair question. It's a completely fair question and one that I appreciate. Ok, Life Caterpillar on the subreddit weighed in on the passing of Dick Cheney and said Cheney and Trump are both horrible. It's not a contest. Watch out. Watch for anybody insisting Cheney was worse. The motivation behind doing that is unhelpful and even suspicious at best. The most charitable motivation for doing so would be that it's an attempt to establish some political commentary bona fides on social media. Like I've been paying to politics, paying attention to politics since before Trump. Simply knowing who Cheney was and that he was bad is not impressive or important. A less charitable motivating factor explanation is that it whitewashes the unique horribleness that is Trump. Don't buy in to any of it. You know, people can be horrible in different ways and for different reasons. Dick Cheney was part of an administration that went into Iraq on faulty intelligence and it led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians, depending on what information you except subsequently participated in one of the greatest expansions of the security state and the surveillance state that we have seen on the basis of we need to do it because of 911 and shot his friend in the face. Although it was an accident, I'm only jokingly kind of including that element of it. And he was right there as George W. Bush did these things. Now, vice presidents don't make policy, but they can advise. Ultimately, I believe the buck stops with George W. Bush. And then later in his life Dick Cheney did recognize that partizanship aside, Donald Trump doesn't even meet the most basic requirements for what should be a president of the United States. And so he said Trump is no good. And for that I agree that he was right about that. Trump's different in a completely different way. So for me it's not about, oh, you know, the gamesmanship about Cheney was worse than Trump or not as bad, and the point is to whitewash Trump or make him look worse. People can be good or bad in terms of the policies they support, independent of any other comparisons and different from how others are and they work. Cheney was bad for a certain set of reasons, Trump is bad for other reasons. And I don't really know that we have to equate different ways of failing with decades between them. The world is a different place. Trump is a different political beast, and that's the way I would leave it dry hold said on the subreddit about Pacman's milquetoast Mom Donnie interview I'm a longtime listener and paying member of the David Pakman show, and as a Democratic socialist, I can deal with my disagreements with Pacman's adherence to capitalism as a viable economic structure for solving problems and distributing resources. Pacman keeps his economic worldview tethered to the empirical, which is certainly understandable, but it's also quite limiting and resistant to alternatives. His interview with Zoran Mamdani was a moment Pacman could have learned something about what it means and looks like to be a leftist outside of a capitalist economic system. As any leftist knows, capitalism is a never ending contradiction, for as much wealth as it creates, it manifests extreme poverty and income inequality. Capitalism's endless drive for profit and growth is contradicted by the lived time of our bodies, minds, our environment. The earth cannot metabolize the pace of capitalism's endless drive for material extraction. What I'm getting at is Pacman chose to spend his time asking questions that virtually every other skeptical pundit or journalists have asked him already. There was no tell me why my capitalist progressive position is wrong or short sighted. There was no tell me, tell about why your universal politics are needed in this historical moment. Disappointing all around. Yeah, you know, listen. There were people who disliked my Mamdani interview because I was too critical. There were people who disliked my Mamdani interview because I was not critical enough. There were people who disliked it because I did it too late in the game. Even though we asked him to be on a while ago and we heard back on the Sunday night before the election and we got him on within 12 hours. I couldn't control it. We tried to get him on. We weren't able to until last Monday. The reality here is, first of all, this person is wrong on the facts and says that capitalism manifests extreme poverty and income inequality. Countries with the highest standard of living, lower income inequality than the United States and significantly lower poverty are capitalist countries. Now they are a certain type of capitalism. It's called social democracy. This is a well regulated form of capitalism that uses taxation in a capitalist system to ensure people's standards of living don't go too low by taxing the very rich. In studying the economic systems that we have seen over the last several hundred years, the conclusion I've come to on an empirical basis is that the best outcomes are happening in social democracies. Social democracy is capitalism. So I think this person is wrong on the facts as far as what I should have asked about the interview. During the interview, a lot of people are unhappy with me for different reasons and they directly conflict with each other. I always do the interview I want to do and I ask what I want to ask. I'm not super interested when interviewing someone who's going to be the administrator of a city. I'm not that interested in spending the time getting his philosophical views about a system he will never be able to implement. I'm more interested in figuring out here's specific policies you want to put in place, how are those going to work. And so that's what I decided to focus on. There are other interviews that have been done with him, I'm sure, and they focused in other areas. And there's probably a little something for everyone out there if you're looking for a specific type of interview with Zoran Mamdani, we continue donating the first payment for every new membership at join pacman.com and on my substack to the charity Feeding America. There is hunger in the country. It's embarrassing and terrifying and humiliating that as a rich country we still have people who are hungry. But we do, we're doing what we can. We are into the five figures fundraised and you can get any kind of membership monthly or yearly, website or substack. Your first payment in November will be donated to the charity Feeding America. We'll see you on the bonus show.