David Pakman (45:37)
It is not typical. It is not typical that you have Fox News acknowledging bad polling for a president that is a Republican and then bringing on commentators who instead of sanitizing it and saying no, it's actually fine and it's going to be fine, acknowledging that the policies that are resulting in the decline in polling are genuinely bad policies for the country, for the economy and for the American people. And this was two people. This was Robert Wolff, former Obama economic adviser, but also right wing Stephen Moore. And they all agree the tariffs are taxes on the American people. You might say that they are taxes that are warranted and correct or not, and maybe they would disagree as far as that goes. But this is not your typical Fox News segment. And Fox News is now in the unenviable but funny position of having to figure out how to bridge the gap between sucking up endlessly to a Republican president you want to continue being on good terms with on the one hand, and on the other hand communicating with an audience that isn't buying that this is all great for them as they see what happens to their 401ks and as they anticipate that their small businesses are going to suffer. And Fox News is, I guess, just figuring it out. How long is this tenable? If things don't turn around with the tariffs and the market instability and all of it, it feels like it's a matter of weeks, if not days. Don't forget that the best way to support the David Pakman show is by becoming a member, which gives you access to the daily bonus show, the regular show with no commercials. You also get access to our entire archive of every episode dating back a really long time and plenty of other awesome membership perks. Go to join pacman.com join pacman.com alright, let's get into Friday Feedback from the week. Friday Feedback will look at responses and comments across all of our platforms, but you can also email info@david pakman.com if you have a specific question, comment or whatever the case may be. Let's start with Isaac Hardy Ken Balls who says, hey David Pakman, let's clean this up before you run off with another half baked headline. Yes, the FSU shooter Phoenix Eichner was a disturbed individual with far right and pro Trump views. He was reportedly kicked out of a student group for white supremacist rhetoric and posted Nazi symbolism online. That's all Documented. But here's where your claim collapses. Law enforcement has not confirmed any political motive behind the shooting. This wasn't some MAGA operation. It was a tragic, complex case involving mental health, personal instability, and access to a gun owned by his deputy stepmom. So it's not accurate or ethical to say pro Trump MAGA lunatic shot up fsu, unless you're trying to spin trauma into content. Well, as is often the response to these emails, criticize me for things I've actually said. Not only did I not weigh in as to the motive for that shooting in the video, I said police are still searching for a motive. What I did was, as you say, stick to the facts. Facts that Isaac acknowledges. The FSU shooter had far right pro Trump views. The FSU shooter was kicked out of a student group for white supremacist rhetoric. The FSU shooter posted Nazi symbolism online. Isaac acknowledges that, and I acknowledge that in the video. The problem with the allegation from Isaac is, is that I don't claim to know the motive in the video, and I specifically say the police are looking for a motive. So Isaac's advice to me is to only say things that are backed up by the facts, which I did in that video. My suggestion to Isaac is when you write into shows to criticize a host for what they said, maybe first figure out if they actually said it. What about that chemical Top wrote on our subreddit? Where does the phrase with tears in my eyes, sir originate? I'm assuming this quote is from a deranged Trump rant. Yeah, so here's the whole tears in my eyes thing. One of Trump's tells that he's almost certainly lying about a story is that he will frame it by saying, you know, people come up to me with tears in their eyes and they say, sir, you've got to get rid of all these Mexicans, or, you know, he'll like, claim to have been told something in that framework. Very often the stories are completely unbelievable. And so it's sort of become a joke that the with tears in my eyes, sir is a verbal shorthand for when Trump is completely fabricating some claim whole cloth, and it has no relation to or connection with reality whatsoever. So those, those are the oranges of that phrase Brie guy wrote. Hey, David, what happened to those crypto projects you used to advertise on your show? So there's kind of like two answers here. First of all, I don't keep track of our sponsors when they're no longer sponsors. I would assume, like many sponsors over the years, some of the crypto projects we advertised have shut down. That, that would be my guess, similar to, you know, we had advertisers on the show five years ago selling a product that have also shut down. I think, you know, the implication here seems to be that there was some kind of, like, scam that I participated in by promoting certain projects as advertisers. You know, as I've said before, doing that would primarily harm me. Like the idea that I would think of making a quick buck by scamming my audience into something I have no incentive to destroy trust with my audience in that way. I try to be very clear with advertisers, especially when there's anything financial that I am giving no financial advice on the show, period. And everybody should be researching. No matter what product you're going to buy or if you're involved in a crypto thing or anything, you should really be doing all due diligence yourself and ensuring that whatever decision you're making is the right decision for you. But beyond that, you know, I've always operated in good faith. Not every sponsor industry is perfect. The idea that I would bring on scams to the audience, it's backwards from how we approach our work. So I don't know if this particular person's implying that, but it certainly, certainly seems to be the case. Okay. Stephie Bob Effie says, as a mother to an autistic child, this is absolutely terrifying. Autism is not destroying families, but a registry would. Stephie is of course referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's recent statements about how he's never seen an adult with, quote, full blown autism in public. And the idea that the Trump administration has of building an autism registry of autistic people. Yeah, you know, we heard from so many parents of autistic people, people and even also autistic people themselves. Everybody saying this sort of idea that either adult autism doesn't exist because RFK doesn't see it, or that it's an affliction with which no one could tolerate to live. The reality, of course, being that many autistic people pay taxes the way, you know, RFK said they don't and go to the bathroom by themselves, hold jobs. And again, not, not joking. Elon Musk has said he's autistic and although he pays very little in taxes, he does pay taxes and have a job. He has like 10 jobs. In fact, part of why everything's collapsing is he has too many jobs. So, yeah, I did get a lot of emails like that. And Also, Zoe Beth wrote in on Blue sky about the same issue and said, david, not to discount the amazing point you made, but I saw a guy in a wheelchair at the gym two weeks ago and also a deaf man who I was attempting to sign with. Rich assholes like RFK Jr don't care to interact with those he seems he deems as defective. He's an effing ghoul. Yeah, that's. It's also, as I was mentioning, it's also important to mention that RFK is sort of general, general view that folks with autism and other conditions that he mentioned in passing of, like, as an aside, they do participate in society. And I might have said, you know, RFK isn't seeing some of these folks at the gym, but Zoe Beth is seeing some of these folks at the gym. So the point is incredibly limited, unempathetic and completely unproductive perspective on this. Red Ash wrote on the subreddit, if it was proven, if it was proven that the Trump assassination was staged, would that tip the tide? And Red Ash goes on to elaborate. Imagine for a second a credible source came out that Trump staged the assassination attempt at the Pennsylvania rally. Indisputable facts come out that the MAGA is that was shot was dying anyway and it would give him honor if he martyred himself to help Trump. Similarly, the shooter being someone who is willing to be a martyr, he was a hardcore MAGA ist after all. Okay, if this revelation came out, this individual says what would happen is denial followed by de emphasis, where the narrative becomes it's not a big deal that Trump pulled this ruse because the ends justify the means that Trump needed to be elected to save the country or some noble purpose. Then it would disappear from the airwaves like nothing happened, similar to the scandal involving Hegseth and the signal fiasco. It saddens me to think that the MAGA base is so delusional they would buy that argument that it wouldn't shed much of his loyal base. I agree with Red Ash. If it came out that the Trump assassination was staged, you would see a few reactions. Some would just deny it. They would go, nope, we can't believe it wasn't really staged. No matter what reporting comes out, they would deny that it was staged. Second, one group would acknowledge it was staged, but they would say Democrats are the ones who either did it or are the bad guys. Trump had to stage it or it was Democrats who staged. What if they would try to spin staged into orchestrated? And then number three, some would say Trump was right to do it. Trump had no choice but to stage it because of something Democrats or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris did. That's my sense of the three reactions you'd get. Now, I do think that some MAGA people might turn on Trump if it was revealed that he staged the assassination, but a large swath would not. And I think you'd hear those three explanations. Bubba Zuckerberg asks, curious, did you cast such a critical eye on Biden's piece? I think they mean Biden's bs. Did you cast such a critical eye on Biden's bs? I mean, seriously, there's ample content available, yet somehow me thinks you didn't. Well, all you need to do is go look at my YouTube channel. All the videos I did when Biden was president are still up. And while I said Biden did many good things and I listed those, I was also critical of Biden for the things he did that I thought were not so good or things I thought he should have done and didn't. I was critical of Biden for not doing more when it came to cannabis, for example. Oh, ask the DEA to reschedule. Ok. I would have liked to have seen more done there. I would have liked to have seen a serious tax proposal. We just kept the same tax plan from Trump's 2017 tax cuts and Jobs Act. I was critical of Biden in other areas as well. I think he was a far better president than Trump. So of course I was less critical of Biden than Trump because I think Biden was a better president. But the idea that, you know, I'm not even it would be funny if people understood I've never been a Democrat and I don't do the whole like, yes sir, I'm here with the party talking points thing for Democrats. I'm not part of a lot of the Democratic little groups and clubs that the overtly Democratic media are. I think a lot of these right wingers don't seem to realize that. Stevie Steve says, can you actually have a politician who will speak against the talking points and speak truly? You, as just the host, only has so much responsibility. But if these politicians actually care, they should be more direct and less indignant that borders indifference. I don't totally know what Stevie is saying, but I still wanted to include this because I want to tell you what I believe my responsibility is when doing interviews with lawmakers, number one, it's are they saying things that are blatantly untrue? And if so, I want to be prepared to rebut that Number Two, are they speaking too generically about issues in a way that doesn't really connect with the salience of these issues for individual households? You know, when we hear generically from politicians, we've got to do something about health care. Okay, well, do you really even understand, Are you speaking to what this really means for the average person? I think Cory Booker during our interview did demonstrate that he knows exactly what it means for the average person. Okay. And then number three, I need to be prepared to address substantively any areas in which they may seek to shut down conversation. That's sort of what I see as my role in a lot of those conversations, and I will continue to try to do that. I don't 100% know exactly what was meant by, by the rejecting of the talking points, but my goal here in these interviews always is let's get beyond the talking points for sure. Info@david pakman.com Remember that you can get on our newsletter for free@david pakman.substack.com critically important as it is the only platform on which we own our data and they cannot shut us down because we own our data, unlike on every other platform. We'll see you on the bonus show and I will be back here Monday as well.
