← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
6/20/25: MAGA is being ripped to shreds, Tulsi in trouble
01:00:58
-- On the Show: — MAGA is imploding: Trump attacks his own intelligence chief, Elon Musk turns on him, his tax bill collapses, and even Tucker and Cruz are fighting each other on air — Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly breaks with Trump over the...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show. Hope you've got a good weekend ahead. The big news is that MAGA is collapsing under the weight of its own bullshit. This is what happens when you build a political movement on lies and loyalty tests instead of anything you actually believe. Donald Trump never believed most of the stuff he ran on, not in any really meaningful way. He said he was anti war because it polled well and it helped to distinguish him from some of his Republican counterparts in the primary way back in 2016. He said he was religious because evangelicals demanded it, even though we all know he's not religious. He said he was anti abortion because he knew he couldn't win a Republican primary without saying, you're anti abortion, even though we knew he's not really against abortion and he was pro choice his entire life until he decided to enter politics. So none of it was real. It was all branding. And for a while, you got to hand it to the guy, it actually sort of worked as long as Trump wasn't confronted with any of it. He could say whatever sounded good and then move on. But now the contradictions are starting to catch up with him, and it's happening very quickly this week. It's really happening with the Iran war. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's own director of national intelligence, goes public and says US Intelligence doesn't believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon or that they're close. It was a serious, measured assessment that at least seems to comport to the facts as we currently know them. And Trump freaks out. Trump says during an interview, I don't care what Tulsi says. Iran's close to a nuclear weapon. He reportedly froze her out of a Camp David meeting and then is ramping up war talk on truth social media, making it clear he doesn't give a damn what his director of national intelligence said. Iran's close to a nuclear weapon and he's getting the United States involved. He doesn't want the truth, he wants compliance. And then the people he picked won't play along, so he turns on them. And that is one growing rift which we will address more a little bit later. Now we Zoom out magazine. Full civil war mode. Tucker Carlson going after Ted Cruz on air for pushing regime change in Iran. Another spike split in the MAGA movement. Tucker hits him with the basics he knows. Do you even know the population of Iran? Do you know the ethnic breakdown? Not things you have to know to support war in Iran, as Ted Cruz proves, but certainly exposes that Cruz doesn't really know too much about what's going on. It was awkward, it was revealing. You know, you've got one wing of MAGA begging for war, the other one trying to pretend Trump is still the peace president. But the branding holds only until you're faced with a choice. Trump never really had a foreign policy. He had a slogan, I'm the antiwar president. And now that real decisions have to be made, the anti war mask has started to slip. While that's happening, the bromance with Elon Musk has imploded. Musk used to be a MAGA darling, dumped 250 million into Trump's campaign, ran the completely fake, fabricated, do nothing, do nothing good. Department of Government efficiency backed Trump's agenda, at least in theory. But now they've had a blow up. He calls Trump's tax plan a disgusting abomination. He's hinting at launching a new party. He even retweeted something suggesting impeaching Trump, although he since has kind of taken it back and said, I went a little far. I went a little far with some of that stuff. Because what Trump said was he wanted to do with Doge was make government more efficient and all the, you know, get rid of the bureaucracy stuff and all of it. And then all of a sudden, Doge runs up against. Runs up against this Trump tax bill, which is the opposite of Doge in so many ways. Trump reacts like a mob boss, threatens Elon's contracts, floats retaliation, lashes out. Online markets see it, they melt down. Tesla stock drops. Trump's media company takes a hit. Disastrous slap fight between narcissists. They clean it up a little for the sake of their stock prices. And then we get to Trump's big tax bill. He said he would fix everything with this tax bill, and it's falling apart. You've got a group of fiscal conservatives inside Trump's own party saying, we don't like this. Tom Massie and Rand Paul in the Senate, they say, this is not what we signed up for because it increases the debt or it gives away too much to the rich or does nothing for working people. In other words, it's a scam and some Republicans are done covering for it. So we zoom out and we kind of take stock of where we are. Trump is attacking his own intelligence chief. His movement is at war with itself. His billionaire backers are turning on him. They don't like the tariffs, they don't like this, they don't like that Trump's party may not even pass his own bills. And so this is not a master plan falling into place. This is a movement collapsing under its own contradictions, under the weight of its own bullshit. And the thing about it is, when you don't really believe in anything, which is Trump, when every position is a performance, it can work until you're forced to act. When the abortion ban comes to the table or the war drums start beating, or someone goes, this is going to cost trillions of dollars. Who the hell is going to pay for it? The fact that you don't really believe in anything and you'll say whatever it takes to get elected, it starts to implode and everything starts to fall apart. So it's very, very interesting to watch what's going on. This is not necessarily the collapse of maga, as in, oh, they're going to kick Trump out. No, Trump's alive, he's going to make it to the end of his term. But it's that the coalition is completely crumbling and even Marjorie Taylor Greene is now getting in on the action. One of Trump's most loyal foot soldiers has been radical and repugnant reactionary Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She did the near unthinkable, which is call out the idea of war with Iran. This is a now viral excretion on X where Marjorie Taylor Greene posted, quote, americans want cheap gas, groceries, bills and housing. They want affordable insurance, safe communities and good education for their children. They want a government that works on these issues. Considering Americans pay for the entire government and government salaries with their hard earned tax dollars, this is where our focus should be. Not going into another foreign war. So she doesn't name Trump directly. She's not yet ready to, but she, of course doesn't have to. Everyone knows who started this war. Everyone knows who escalated tensions. Everyone knows who promised what and said, we're never going to do this. We're not going to be the ones that take us to war. And it turns out it wasn't true. Now, although Marjorie Taylor Greene is very fringe as, as her political views go, this is not a fringe MAGA influencer whispering doubts on rumble. This is a sitting member of Congress, sort of handpicked by Trump to be part of the MAGA vanguard breaking ranks. And she's not the only one. We saw Tucker attacking Trump's foreign policy from the right. Ted Cruz is awkwardly defending it. Steve Bannon's not happy. Charlie Kirk is kind of not saying too much. The base is splintering in real time and they're caught between, on one hand, Trump's macho posturing and on the other hand, a skepticism of foreign entanglement at least for some of them. And the problem, as we already said, is it's a movement built on performance, not principle. Trump stated principles. I'm anti war. Iraq was a mistake. I'll stop the forever wars. And some people fell for it. They believed it. And now as we are starting to get involved in Iran, Trump's banking on everybody forgetting what he said, or at least coming around and going, well, if Trump wants it now, it must be for a reason. Some of them aren't forgetting. And Marjorie. Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing some of the math here. If Trump lied about the war, what else is a performance? And so I believe that this is a moment that's bigger than Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is just the continued collapse of the movement under its own contradictions. You really can't be America first while you launch airstrikes halfway around the world. You can't pretend to care about inflation, housing and gas prices. And if you're about to start spending who the hell knows how much on a new Middle east military entanglement. So we've got the right eating itself. Pro Trump influencers accusing each other of betrayal. Populist Nationals accusing each other about who the hell knows what, and neocons saying, oh, Trump's back. Everybody's scrambling to rewrite the narrative before the base completely turns on them. And so I don't know that this is the beginning of the end of MAGA in practice, but this is one of the clearest signs that this is an illusion that is breaking. And when Marjorie Taylor Greene starts to sound like Code Pink, you know that the spell is wearing off a little bit. Where we will be two weeks from now, I don't know, but I'd love to get your thoughts on it. This is embarrassing, even for Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz went on CNN and tried to attack the Affordable Care Act Obamacare, and it doesn't go well. Now Dr. Oz is the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In this video, Oz seems confused about Medicare versus Medicaid. He seems confused as to whether everybody on an exchange or marketplace plan is getting a subsidy. They're not, by the way. I'll get back to that. The guy running Medicare and Medicaid doesn't seem to know the first thing about how it works. And we expect Oz to embarrass himself. But this is really bad.
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Jake Tapper
Recent Kaiser Family foundation survey found a larger share of Obamacare enrollees identify as Republican than as Democrat. And there is a concern now, I hear being voiced among Republicans and others that these Changes are going to actually hurt Republicans more than they're going to hurt Democrats. It's being called a self inflicted wound. President Trump is laser focused on aligning what's good for the federal government with what's good for the states. By doing that, we can take care of the American people. We can cherry pick individual statistics. But the bigger story the President has been focused on is do what's right for the American people and we'll all benefit. In this instance, we've got to be serious about the reality that 20% 1 in 5 of the people who are on an Affordable Care act exchanges are inappropriately on that program.
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David Pakman
We're going to dig into that. Oz says one of five people on the exchanges are inappropriately on the program. Listen to the explanation.
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Jake Tapper
One in five. And what do you mean inappropriate? Well, as I give you an example, there's no real adjudication of how much money you're making. So you can.
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David Pakman
That's a lie.
- [10:55]
Jake Tapper
Pick whatever plan you want to be in. The amount of reimbursement you get from the program is based on your income level. We also have about 230,000 people we believe where mistakenly on, for example, Medicaid, multiple states. But there's a much bigger number of people who are on Medicaid and the exchanges in the same state, Jake. We think there's $14 billion in those two categories.
- [11:17]
David Pakman
This guy is so damn confused. He's so damn confused. So it's actually a struggle for me to try to even pick this all apart because there's so much nonsense here. First of all, many people on the Affordable Care act exchanges don't get a subsidy. They pay full price. That's the whole point, right? If you don't get insurance through work, if you're self employed, you can buy a plan on the exchange. When I was on the Massachusetts exchange, the name of it, I forget, the Health Connector, I believe it's called. I was there because I was self employed. I didn't get a subsidy. I made too much money to get a subsidy. But I was just, I was self employed and I was buying a plan at full price. Even though I didn't get a subsidy, I still had to submit tax forms every year to reverify my income just in case I qualified. But that's, I didn't even get a subsidy and I was still providing proof of income in the entire thing. This is the way it works. It's legal. You don't get a subsidy. It's just you're buying a plan that's how it's designed. Now secondly, for those who do get a subsidy, there is absolutely income verification. I know because I was doing the income verification without even getting a subsidy. I know people who are on the subsidized plans every year at least they have to re verify their income and so on, that Oz is either misinformed or he's lying. Now then he seems to confuse Medicare and Medicaid, which is a different conversation. And he also seems to be blending together. Some people are getting Medicaid plus they're on the exchange in many states. What it means to be on Medicaid is you're on the exchange, your income is low enough that the plan is free and therefore you are now nominally on Medicaid. I don't even think he understands that. In other words, in a lot of states it's not, I'm going to go to the exchange and if I don't get a plan, I'll go and get Medicaid. If you go to the exchange and you apply and you submit your income and your income is low enough to qualify you for what is generally called Medicaid, you now get a Medicaid, Medicaid compliant plan through the exchange. You're not on both. You've just obtained Medicaid equivalent benefits through the exchange. He's in charge of this stuff, OK? He wanted to be a U.S. senator. He got within a few points of holding public office. Now he's running Medicaid and Medicare and he's on TV just making stuff up. Failing Health Policy 101. It's sloppy, it's lazy, and it's very revealing because for Republicans like Dr. Oz, the Affordable Care act is still kind of like this boogeyman. They don't understand that. They don't know how it works. They don't really want to know. They know Obama passed, that it must be bad. But voters, especially who are relying on these exchanges for coverage, they've used it, they've navigated it, they've dealt with the paperwork, and a lot of the stuff Dr. Oz says is going on simply is not the way that the program works. So humiliating for any Republican to make these claims. But this is the guy supposedly with expertise in these programs and he doesn't even understand how the hell it works. If you've ever dealt with nausea occasionally, more frequently, you might want to check out one of our sponsors, Relief Band, a wearable wristband designed to relieve and maybe even prevent nausea. Many people use it for nausea related to anxiety or migraines. Or traveling by car, plane or boat. Sort of motion sickness, easy to use, works quickly, lasts as long as you need, completely drug free, no side effects. This was originally developed for use in hospital settings and and it works through a process called transdermal neuromodulation. ACU stimulation, which is a lot of words to basically say it sends a pulse to the part of your nervous system involved in regulating nausea. And there's research indicating this can be helpful for nausea from motion sickness, pregnancy, even from certain drug side effects. And there are studies that suggest that combined with medication, it can be very useful for post surgery nausea Relief. Band's new Premier plus model provides advanced nausea relief and includes a digital clock. Uses smart skin sensing technology to preserve battery life. Relief Ban has earned an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. It has over 10000 satisfied customers online. If nausea is something you deal with, it might be worth seeing you. If Relief Ban can help, visit relief ban.com and use the code PACMAN for 20% off plus free shipping. The info is in the Description. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe, oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News, slash Pacman and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the sources political bias and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use. So you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to Ground News, slash Pacman. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. The David Pakman show is of course an audience supported program. We are an independent progressive media show and I so appreciate everybody who's been grabbing memberships. Join pacman.com this is a time when progressive independent media is under a form of attack that we have never seen in it's algorithmic, it relates to the Trump administration, it relates to the platforms and so I Am flattered by the support of folks who have signed up@join pacman.com Here is a really fascinating video. As many of you know, CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrote a book about what he calls the COVID up of Joe Biden's decline during the presidency of Joe Biden. And there are people who love the book and people who hate the book or people who say, well, this would have been an appropriate book in the time of Biden's presidency, but now it's sort of like picking on an old guy whose political career is over and he has metastatic prostate cancer. Well, Jake Tapper went on C Span and he was confronted by a caller who said, what about Trump's decline? What about the problems Trump is having? Isn't that relevant right now. Very interesting call. Take a listen. But right now, I really don't like you. I think you're doing a disservice to Joe and also to the American people. The. What are you going to examine, you know, what is going on with Trump? Joe Biden conducted himself for four years, years, taking care of the United States. He took meetings, he went overseas, he negotiated with other leaders. This president has been pure chaos, which indicates to me that there is something wrong with him. We will never get a straight answer on his medical examinations, what medication he is on.
- [19:21]
Mike Pence
And yet you have gone on after.
- [19:23]
David Pakman
Joe Biden with a vengeance. That I'm very disappointed in you. I enjoy watching your show, but not anymore. Wow. That, and I think right now you ought to start writing another book examining.
- [19:38]
Mike Pence
Trump and how erratic and what he.
- [19:42]
David Pakman
Is doing, calling out the National Guard, the Marines and everybody. When has a president ever done that? It's pure erratic.
- [19:52]
Jake Tapper
Okay. Okay, Sarah there in Virginia.
- [19:54]
David Pakman
Thanks, Mr. Tapper.
- [19:56]
Jake Tapper
Thanks, Sarah. Sarah, as you know from watching my show on CNN, we cover President Trump every day for two hours, every day from 5 to 7 Eastern. And we cover all the things you talk about in terms of the president, the current presidency behavior. We have covered times that he has confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley. I think some of the questions about President Trump's behavior have more to do with personality than with cognitive decline. But obviously, whatever lessons we've learned from covering President Biden, we would apply to any politician, any future politician or present politician. So. So I'm sorry if I'm disappointing you by covering President Biden, but journalists, we are supposed to cover stories that we think the American people have a right to know.
- [20:48]
David Pakman
Listen, we're, we may be speaking with Jake Tapper soon about the book. And I plan to bring up a lot of these issues. But there is something that Sarah, the caller gets absolutely right here, which is that for years we saw this obsession with every pause or stutter from Joe Biden running segments about whether his feet shuffled, if he tripped, if he coughed weirdly, if his voice sounded hoarse. And meanwhile, Trump's ranting about this, that and the other thing. He's confusing people. He says Obama started World War II. He's rambling in all caps about golden light and Jesus powered sky weapons. And we, we haven't really seen serious coverage of it. And it's dismissed the way Jake Tapper does, where he goes, listen, I think it's about Trump's personality and, and not really about cognitive decline. We have a situation here where we haven't even gotten a genuine medical report about Donald Trump. Every report is a propaganda document about how he's so healthy and his golf game. And so there's two sides to this. I think it's fine for Jake Tapper to write the book that he did. I think that it would have been maybe a more relevant book, given the timing of when he learned some of this information, for it to have been reported while Biden was president. Where now, you know, when you wait and then the book comes out, when it's no longer actionable and Joe Biden's political career is over, it's sort of like, what are we doing right now? Is this just to add insult to injury for no real reason? But the double standard is infuriating. If Biden had posted half of Trump's deranged truth social screeds every Sunday show, every single day would have been about that. And yet because it's Trump being Trump, or it's just stuff he says and doesn't really mean it, or he's doing it at 2 and 6am while sitting, who knows where he's sitting in this kind of non sleeping world fever dream that he's created for him, then I guess it's okay. Or it doesn't warrant coverage. Just a linguistic analysis of Trump shows an extraordinary decline, dramatically more than Biden. We've done the linguistic analysis. Experts have done the linguistic analysis. So good for Sarah for calling this out. I don't think we're going to see what Sarah wants to see and what we want to see in terms of critical coverage of Trump, because the networks are terrified to do it. They're terrified that they'll lose access to everyone in the administration. They're terrified that Trump will go after them legally, even if only to tie them up with lawsuits that have no merit. So Sarah's completely right. We've been demanding it for a while, but I don't think we're going to get it from Jake Tapper. The Donald Trump Tulsi Gabbard situation is rapidly unraveling. And it really exposes why these strange bedfellows that politics makes are often just a tinderbox ready to explode. You might recall that Donald Trump was asked about Tulsi Gabbard's official assessment as Director of National Intelligence that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon or that Iran is not closing close to a nuclear weapon. This is something she said to Congress in March as the dni. Trump's response the other day on Air Force One was, I don't care what she said. I think Iran's close to a nuke. But how close do you personally think.
- [24:05]
Mike Pence
That they were to getting one?
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David Pakman
Because Tulsi Gabbard.
- [24:07]
Mike Pence
Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't going to. They were very close to.
- [24:16]
David Pakman
I don't care what Tulsi said. I think Iran is very close to building a nuclear weapon. So Trump just blew off his spy chief. Like she's, you know, an intern who brought him Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke. This is the same Tulsi Gabbard, by the way, who used to tweet that Trump was dangerously escalating towards war with Iran. Remember the stuff Tulsi tweeted years ago before she sold out to MAGA during Donald Trump's first term? She tweeted, quote, president Trump seems determined to go to war with Iran even after he campaigned on the platform of ending regime change wars. Tulsi used to be correctly skeptical of Trump as the anti war guy. She continued. Trump's move yesterday to deny sanctions waivers to countries purchasing Iranian oil drives us closer to war with Iran, increasing tensions in the region and putting the US at odds with many of our allies. And she finished this three tweet series way back when by saying his actions, meaning Trump's, make our country less safe, damaging our non proliferation efforts and negotiations to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. This is a dangerous situation. Tulsi Gabbard runs the entire intelligence apparatus, 18 agencies, billions in funding. Her legal duty is to give Trump unbiased, apolitical intelligence. Now, of course, she's a political shill, we know that. But Trump doesn't want unbiased intelligence. He wants loyalty. And Tulsi sold her loyalty pretty cheap. I mean, the fact that she Came over, I'm no longer a Democrat. Not only am I no longer a Democrat, I am now full maga. And so she said, this is what we believe in March about Iran and a nuke. Trump goes, I don't care. She tried to course correct with this weird video about being on the brink of nuclear war. Trump saw it and reportedly Trump flipped out. The reports are that in private, Donald Trump humiliated Tulsi Gabbard, skipped her entirely at the Camp David War Council, reportedly not accidentally, deliberately. And inside sources now say that Trump is thinking not only of getting rid of Tulsi, but just eliminating the role of Director of National Intelligence, folding it into the CIA, erasing the job because Tulsi is annoying him. This is another instinct of Trump, which is when someone in a role does something I don't like, I just put one person, I give him another role. I put someone who's more loyal to me in an additional role and have them run multiple agencies or have multiple jobs at once. Still, Tulsi's sort of trying to pretend everything's fine. She said to reporters that they're on the same page. Doesn't seem to be true. Now, Tulsi, this is not like Tulsi's awesome, okay? Tulsi Gabbard gave up, shredded any last piece of credibility that she ever had with people who actually want to focus on what's real and what's true. She simultaneously seems to now be shredding her credibility with Trump reportedly not even being called on at the Camp David War summit. I don't think Trump ever respected Tulsi Gabbard. If I'm frank with you, I think that there was a point at which Tulsi was useful to Trump. Former Democrat, now supports Trump. The optics are good, but the whole, like, look at how diverse my cabinet is. I've got men and women. I've got one black guy. I've got a four. Two former Democrats, RFK and Tulsi. It was a photo op. But the second that she actually started to do a little bit of her job, which included showing up in March and going, I don't have intelligence to support the claim that Iran's close to a nuclear weapon, all of a sudden, she now gets sidelined. Now, the irony, of course, is she joined the MAGA machine because she thought it would help get her power. It gave her a front row seat to being made irrelevant in a really prominent way. Had she not turned maga, she was going to be irrelevant as. Remember that former congresswoman who failed her presidential run. And that would be it. Now she's becoming irrelevant in a much more prominent way. I don't know what's better. It's going to ultimately be for Tulsi to decide. Things are still expensive in this economy. Americans are feeling it. But one thing that doesn't have to cost a lot anymore is a quality hearing aid. Our sponsor, MD Hearing, makes high quality, easy to use rechargeable hearing aids with exceptional sound quality that are personalized to your hearing profile. And MD Hearing just made their NEO rechargeable digital hearing aids. Only $297 a pair, less than 10% of the prices of typical hearing aids from brick and mortar hearing clinics. The NEO fits inside your ear. No one will even know it's there. Plus, Maryland Hearing just launched the Neo xs, Maryland Hearing's smallest hearing aid ever. I have a family friend who's been using MD Hearing for years. She loves it, loves how she can get expert advice any time from MD Hearing's audiologist, for example, if she needs help adjusting it. Maryland Hearing was founded by an ENT surgeon who saw how many of his patients needed hearing aids and couldn't afford them. Terrible. He made it his mission to develop a quality hearing aid that anybody could afford. Go to Shop MD Hearing Dotcom, use the code Pacman to get a pair of hearing AIDS for just $297. Plus you'll get an extra charging case for free. That's Shop MD Hearing Dotcom, use code Pacman to get a pair for just $297 with a free charging case. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, it has been an extraordinarily bizarre and debilitating week for the Trump administration. And of course, Donald Trump is still the president, but really just in a technical sense at this point. I mean, when you talk about power and influence and gravitas, if he ever had any, it's really disintegrated. And we now have kind of a hollow man growling from a decaying throne while the rest of the world kind of goes, what's this guy doing? We're walking away. Foreign policy expert David Rothkoff said it on the Daily Beast podcast. And I encourage you to listen to this. Trump might be the most impotent president in living memory. Not just weak, but just kind of irrelevant, like a loud drunk at a bar that's closing. Still talking, demanding attention, but nobody's listening. You know, we have the flare up in Iran involving Israel and Trump scrambles to both take credit, but to say no, we're against the war, but I'm also not wanting a cease fire. Trump's own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, of all people, says, oh, no, we didn't have anything to do with this, or we didn't have anything to do with that. Israel goes, we don't know what Trump's talking about. And he just looks like the guy who's trying to put his name on a check that's already bounced, and yet he's still there. Rothkoff said, quote, he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. And it's an accurate analogy because it's Trump. Trump draped in a sort of attention, but he's lifeless where it really counts. And this is not new. The list of failures is now growing. He gutted the National Security Council. He's been refusing intelligence briefings. He tries to turn diplomacy into cable news. And every time the world asked for a leader, Trump was like, I can do a photo op. That's the best I can do. Still no deals, just broken promises, photo shoots and troth posts. But what's dangerous is what comes next, because a man who can't dominate on the world stage turns inward. And we're seeing it in the last week, deploying the military at home, threatening very big force against protesters at his military parade, having a military parade, sending ice after hotel workers and farmhands, and then saying, I'm not going to do it, or I am or I'm not. He tries to dress up fear. Fear is strength. And the strongman aspects become the whole show because there's no substance underneath. Now, he would love to be Putin. He's not. He is not some cunning, smart, like a fox, brooding tactician behind closed doors. He's the guy kind of complaining and pounding on the table when everybody stopped paying attention and on his phone, trying to tap out messages that hopefully someone will read or listen to. And the world leaders are mocking him and they're laughing and they're cutting deals without the guy. He, much like during his first term, has put the United States in the position of not even really being part of the conversation anymore. And you really get the sense that even Trump knows it. You know, when he sat there with his arms folded, almost asleep at his military parade with Pete Hegseth sitting next to him, looking very worried that he's going to have to bear the brunt of Trump's wrath for the failure, which he did. We talked about that earlier this week. Trump flipping out on Pete Hegseth over the failure. You see a Guy who seems to know it, that he is not hot, as he likes to call it. And that's why he's surrounding himself with the bootlickers who are just going to turn national security briefings into infomercials just to try to hold his attention for a few minutes. It's this slow motion collapse that we're watching in real time. Pence has now fully turned against Trump. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And we have a moment in time where the world is kind of cracking. There are cracks and Trump can't offer anything. There have been American presidents in the past who could offer more than just noise, but Trump just kind of doesn't have it. He's an aging con man still reading a script that stopped working years ago. And there was a time where people feared what Trump might do. And domestically, I believe that that's still the case to a degree. But now the fear is what happens when the president's not really in charge and has completely lost all power that he believed he had. And that might be the most dangerous, dangerous part of it all. Another signal as to how little respect others have is how people like Mike Pence, his own former former vice president, are now talking about the guy and what he's doing. And I think we should look at that. Mike Pence appeared on CNN and he once again went fully scorched earth on Donald Trump, really destroying the core of what Trump stands for. Here is Pence weighing in on Putin's actions and pointing out people are looking elsewhere. People are looking elsewhere. And by the way, by the way, Trump shouldn't be looking to Putin for advice on what to do. That's the worst instinct there is.
- [35:18]
Jake Tapper
And you alluded to this, but President Trump said again last night the had nothing to do with Israel's attack against Iran. He also said that he spoke with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, that the two are agreeing that the conflict between Israel and Iran should end. Is that the right track or should the US Be providing Israel with more weapons, the weapons that it needs to completely eradicate all of Iran's nuclear facilities and capabilities?
- [35:49]
Mike Pence
Well, as Vladimir Putin continues his brutal and unprovoked invasion in Ukraine using drones provided by Iran, I would say respectfully to the administration, we ought to be, we ought to be looking elsewhere than Vladimir Putin for advice on how to deal with this situation. We need to continue to provide Israel with the support they need. I also will see say, though I do welcome the fact that early this morning the president reiterated a statement that harkened back to 2019 in our administration, after we took out Qasem Soleimani. The president and our team made it very clear that there would be overwhelming response by the United States military if American lives were lost in any retaliation by the Iranian military. They fired rockets, as you remember, Dana. They landed at Al Assad. They landed in the Kurdish region. There were injuries, but there were no American casualties or loss of life. And the Iranians stood down after that. But it was, it was in that moment that the president made clear, as he did this morning, that there would be overwhelming force brought to bear on Iran if they put at risk American forces in the region, which, as you know, are in the tens of thousands.
- [37:10]
David Pakman
So, listen, this is Mike Pence in his convoluted aw, shuck sort of way, pointing out that Donald Trump's entire approach to foreign policy is just completely backwards. And this criticism, this isn't the first time that Pence has said things like this. And it also wasn't restricted just to foreign policy. When the topic of the pardons of the January 6th rioters, many of whom, by the way, wanted Pence dead, Pence saying that was the wrong move to.
- [37:39]
Jake Tapper
We're out of time, but I do want to quickly ask you about something the FBI director, Cash Patel, warned to us to L. A protesters, rather, he said, hit a cop, you're going to jail. Doesn't matter where you came from. This is from a director who supported the president pardoning all the rioters, including the ones who beat up police officers who are defending the Capitol, defending you on January6. What did you make of that?
- [38:09]
Mike Pence
Well, let me say, first off, I welcome the statement. It's a correct statement. We simply cannot allow or stand by while, while people in the midst of protests assault law enforcement officers. One of the reasons I thought the president was wrong to pardon people who assaulted police officers on January 6. But look, this is a time when, you know, we're in the wake of not only those events of four years ago, but we've seen political violence against, against Jewish peaceful protesters. We saw two assassination attempts against President Trump on the campaign trail. We saw the governor of Pennsylvania's home attacked. And then that, that despicable attack that claimed the lives of the Minnesota state led Representative Hortman, her husband, and injured two of her colleagues. Our prayers are with them. But this is a, this is a moment when we need to make it very clear that anyone who would ever use violence, whether it be against law enforcement or political violence of any kind, must be condemned universally.
- [39:19]
David Pakman
So, listen, you might be saying, I'm not really that curious what Mike Pence thinks about anything. I think Mike Pence is a despicable evangelical right winger who seeks to interject his religious beliefs into civil government. And I would agree with you. But it is notable because you never see, you just never see a former vice president break from the president that he previously served in this way. And this doesn't mean that there aren't more of them. I am sure that there are more Republicans who feel the same way. I think they are cowardly in that they are unwilling to come out and just say it. And even to Pence. Pence only started saying this stuff when he was out and he had nothing left to lose and Trump had already abandoned him. But this is not normal. And if you want a real insight into the true operating M.O. of Trump and the way that things work behind the scenes, it's the way that Pence is now treating him. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, apparently not all threats and insults are a problem, depending on who you are and depending on who they are levied against. Congressman Randy Fine was on CNN and was interviewed, and the CNN host says you are part of the problem in escalating the violence and violent rhetoric against others. You call the school board member a whore. You call the congressional colleague a terrorist. Aren't you part of the problem? And Randy Fine's answer is essentially no, because those things I said are true. Mental gymnastics, a mental trapeze artist. Listen to this.
- [40:58]
Jake Tapper
I do want to talk to you about some of the rhetoric, because there's a lot of talk about rhetoric and how this gins people up. A few years ago, you, you were called out for calling a school board member a, in a text. You've called one of your congressional colleagues a terrorist. Are you part of the problem here? Well, look, I think what people write in private text messages to each other is one thing. If I had said that in a public message, I'd understand. But. But I do think there are issues. Look, when we have protests on Saturday.
- [41:26]
David Pakman
Calling something guys, it was private and it was true.
- [41:30]
Jake Tapper
No kings. When Donald Trump isn't a king, he's been elected overwhelmingly by the American people. And it's compared to the revolution. I mean, that is a call for violence. When people are waving signs that say.
- [41:41]
David Pakman
8647, the completely peaceful protests were a call to violence. Oh, boy.
- [41:47]
Jake Tapper
I think we've heard this discussion about taking down the temperature after President Trump was assassinated twice. And I don't think people are getting the message.
- [41:54]
David Pakman
Did you Catch that After Trump was assassinated twice.
- [41:58]
Jake Tapper
I think we've heard this discussion about taking down the temperature after President Trump was assassinated twice. And I don't think people are getting the message. So this is you not getting the message to be fair, is it fair to say that the way that you speak to your colleagues, the what you say about them and the fiery rhetoric that you also use is also an issue that you're thinking, maybe it's a fair point, but I think fiery rhetoric is different than a, for violence, calling evil for what it is, calling danger for what it is acceptable. It's when you cross that line and you say, and that person should be killed. That's never a line that I've crossed, nor do I think it should be done. But we saw that. We saw that kind of rhetoric just on Saturday at these protests, and I think that is a problem. We've seen it repeatedly with President Trump for years, and I do think it's a problem. And the problem is these people are crazy. This guy in Minnesota, Minnesota, he's going to turn out to be crazy. And when crazy people hear, oh, there.
- [42:53]
David Pakman
It is, how predictable, you know. Yet yesterday, no, the day before Tuesday, I mentioned specifically, they are simply going to say, the pro Trump MAGA terrorist who killed the elected officials in Minnesota, he's merely crazy. It's just mental illness. But of course, we know that most, quote, crazy people, most people suffering from mental illness, even moderate to severe mental illness, are not violent. And they don't kill anybody, and they have no interest in killing anybody. And they just don't have that instinct. This was a calculated thing. This was a guy who had a hit list. This was a guy who had a series of political beliefs. This was a guy who supported Trump and hated Democrats and was stochastically predisposed by all of the rhetoric of people like Randy Fine to go out and commit an act of violence. So, you know, Randy Fine calling whoever it was a school board member a whore. That's okay if it's in a private text message. Accusing a colleague of being a terrorist is OK if it's true, as far as he's concerned. But the rules are different for different people. One of the things I've been saying for years I wrote about in the book, I think it's important to remember, is that when they don't even care enough to defend their principles, once the principles become inconvenient, you're not going to convince anyone by saying, I thought you were for or against this thing, but now you appear to have. They don't care and it's the wrong basis on which to even talk to them. That's my takeaway from hearing from Randy Fine. Your personal data is everywhere and you might not even know people. Search sites and data brokers are quietly publishing your name, address, phone number, even things like property records, political views. It is not just creepy, it's dangerous because scammers and fraudsters and shady marketers can use this information every day. Our sponsor Incogni solves the problem for you. Incogni contacts the data broker sites on your behalf and forces them to delete your data. The data brokers are legally obligated to comply and Incogni handles the entire process for you. Incogni is now taking this even further with their custom removals feature included in the unlimited plan. They've got their 250 plus sites where removal is automated. But if you find your information anywhere else you can custom submit that and they will have it removed manually. This is serious protection. Using Incogni can cut way down on the spam calls and the messages that you get. Fewer risks, more control over your identity. Try it risk free for 30 days and get 60% off an annual plan when you go to incogni.com/pacman. That's incogni.com/pacMan for 60% off. The link is in the podcast notes all right, let's get into Friday Feedback for the week. You can always write to me info@david pakman.com if you have a question, a comment, a concern, a criticism. We will also sometimes include YouTube comments, substack comments, tik tok replies. You never know what could show up on Friday Feedback. Let's start with a message from Instagram from Levi Barth, who said very thoughtfully, anyone who voted for Biden in this comment section's opinion is completely biased. Biden was the definition of incompetent. He has dementia and cancer through his presidency and you all still went for it. You can say it was because you didn't want Trump, but you all could have went with an independent to protest it. Syntax aside. Okay, this is not a serious argument. You're venting conspiracy talking points and expecting it to land as truth. Biden has not been diagnosed with dementia and he was not diagnosed with cancer during his presidency. Now there are those who have brought up how likely is it that he had no sign of cancer in the prostate at the end of his presidency, given that it was advanced, but at the same time it's super aggressive and sometimes that happens we're now in a urological debate, but if we zoom out, if you genuinely cared about leadership competence, you would have a harder time excusing the nonstop chaos of Trump, the authoritarian threats, his inability to follow through on even basic policy. So none of this is really about leadership competence. You're not evaluating facts here. And you know, voting for an independent candidate in the two party system once it's already October 15th and you're trying to figure out what to do, it might feel righteous, but politically it would be useful. It would have been a way to make sure that Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States. Not something that I wanted to participate in. So, you know, I don't, I wish that that was. There was a more serious commentary there. It's just hard to take it super seriously given the unhinged nature of it. All right, Bryant Clark said on Instagram, dude, I work with, the Trump support, dude I work with is Trump supporter. Not a bad dude. But we were having a conversation the other day and he flat out admitted it. They don't care about facts. They only want to hear what makes them feel good. The scary part was after we came to that conclusion, he was fine with it. Side note, he's real big on an ancient aliens and shit like that too. Okay, so what you're describing here is something disturbingly common and I write about it in my book. People who no longer care if what they believe is true, as long as it feels good and it signals allegiance to the right team. And when people openly admit that they don't value facts, and when, when Luke Beasley has gone out to the Trump rallies and done interview people, they, they openly admit the facts don't really matter. It's not just apathy at that point. They've surrendered ideologically. And once that happens, politics turns into a cult. It's not democracy. These folks are no longer debating ideas, they're consuming comfort food for the brain and they act proud of it as, as Bryant Clark is describing here. And the real danger is the self awareness combined with the indifference. If you explain to someone, hey, you've got the facts wrong on this, and they go, oh, I didn't realize I had the wrong facts. Now that I have the right facts, I'm going to re reevaluate my position. That's ok, right? You might have been tricked or mistaken. Your co. The coworker here, Brian's coworker wasn't tricked. He knows it's about emotional validation and doesn't care. So he's willfully Rejecting the truth. And when that mindset becomes widespread, it's not good for democracy. Now, meanwhile, you know, mentioning that this guy's into ancient aliens and shit like that, too, it's not a harmless quirk. It's part of a broader pattern of distrusting institutions and looking for the real truth underlying what you've been told or, you know, whatever the case may be. And all of that fits this kind of general package of ideas and beliefs that, that we've. We've come become very used to, unfortunately. All right, a user whose username is just numbers and letters Starting with X F1 said, Mr. Pacman, sir, Dumpy checked out midway through second term campaign. You could tell at the rallies, low energy every time. He had no reason to care what presidential. He has no reason to care what presidential legacy or complete Armageddon he leaves behind. It's extremely obvious. Yeah, I think you're right. Trump's energy has collapsed, and it shows. The rallies used to be bombastic, terrifying, and effective. Now, I mean, he's doing them less frequently, but they're just kind of sad. He seems checked out. He doesn't really need to do anything. His base seems completely locked in no matter what. And that is a form of rot. It's not strength. And it's why everything is crumbling into chaos. It's why his military parade failed completely miserably. And XF1 really hits the nail on the head here. Trump doesn't seem to care what he leaves behind. It's a smash and grab. What can I get for myself and my family? Legacy, policy, democracy, it's all just kind of background noise. Trump's running on fumes, motivated by ego and revenge. And when the President stops even pretending to care, we all really do start to pay a price. And we are seeing it. We are seeing it every single day. I think the analysis there is spot on. All right, someone who goes by ex journalist on Substack said, quote, in a disgusting moment, in an amazing moment, in a scary moment, and says, wtf is up with all these low IQ liberal clickbait accounts all using the same language in their videos. So, you know, I want to be thoughtful and substantive here. Ex journalist isn't wrong that repetitive phrasing can feel grating and creators feeds can start to blur together. But reducing this sort of language to low IQ liberal clickbait Mrs. What I believe is the real issue here, which is people use phrases that are rewarded by platforms. I'm actually starting to write about this for my next book. And if you're Frustrated with the sameness? Aim your criticism at the algorithm rather than the creators, because to a certain degree, I have no control over the algorithm and we're all trying to get our content set seen and do what works. However. However, it's also important not to confuse repetitive packaging with substantively repetitive things that are going on. We have endless, disgusting, amazing, scary, terrifying, shocking, unusual moments multiple times a day right now. Ok, Just because you hear in a disgusting moment, Stephen Miller did X, it doesn't mean it's not disgusting and it doesn't mean that the analysis lacks depth, because there are no shortage of those things taking place now. There are some creators that are garbage. Maybe I'm one of them. Right? That's for you to judge. You are the ultimate judge of what I'm doing. But just someone saying, in a disgusting moment, the following happened. And then spending 20 minutes doing analysis, that is valuable. Listen, we can all be mad about the homogenization, but attacking the entire left ecosystem as stupid because you don't like some of the phraseology, I think is a little bit low energy. Ok, Melanie Brennan says when. When he. She means Trump here. When he says, they say, he's saying, I made this up to make me look great. Yeah. This is absolutely correct. This is one of Trump's magic phrases. They came to me with tears in their eyes and they said, sir, that's another one. Right? When Trump goes, you know, they say, they say, this was the most important election victory ever. This is Trump's magic phrase. When he wants to say something outrageous, untrue, totally not based in fact, but he wants to dodge responsibility for it. It's a shield and it's a bluff. He gets the benefit of the claim without having to back it up. When he uses that, it's dishonest, it's manipulative, it's very effective because only some people stop to say, who is they? I sometimes wrongly do this. I really try to. When I go, you know, they've been saying, I will say, hold on a second. Trump's inner circle, Republican senators, the Freedom Caucus. I try to catch myself because I know that it's weak, this rhetoric, Trump using it. It's not random. It's really part of a broader con where Trump positions himself as the truth teller and he avoids the burden of proof. It's the language of grifters rather than leaders. And when you decode that phrase for what it is, I made this up two minutes ago because I'm committed to saying it. You can be more prepared to sort of Defeat it. That. That's what I would propose and suggest here. All right, next, we heard on the subreddit from Combo Nickel who says, stop viewing politics as entertainment like Elon versus Trump. Stop supporting commentators who do, adding, this isn't entertaining or funny or awesome. These corrupt cretins are a global embarrassment and their spectacle only further diminishes our already tarnished reputation. This isn't Jerry Springer. Viewing and treating politics like entertainment is a lot of how we got into this mess in the first place. Policy, policy, policy. So let me give you two thoughts on this. Number one, I wish everybody wanted less spectacle and more substance and more policy. Politics shouldn't be a Netflix show. A lot of bad actors want you to treat it that way. Because if it's all just drama, no one asks about policy. I argue it helps Republicans. But we also need to be real. The average person's not going to sit down and read a white paper. The average person is going to watch content that feels urgent, emotional and real. And so the challenge, and my goal is to elevate the conversation from where it would otherwise be. It doesn't mean you turn everything into a white paper analysis because then you lose your whole audience. OK, if someone's turning the Elon vs Trump saga into cheap drama with no context about the role of billionaire tech bros and influence on our economy or whatever, then it's a fair criticism. If drama is being used to expose deeper truths about power and influence, that's not Jerry Springer. I think that's political education formatted to TikTok, YouTube or whatever. So I don't think we fix this problem by scolding people into if you're not reading policy PDFs, then you're not really doing anything of value. I think we fix this by meeting people where they are and then saying, can we elevate from here? Even if it's just 5%, even if it's just 10%. That's my view. OK, you, you tell me if you disagree. The squeat wrote on YouTube. I think Stephen Miller is the most dangerous man in the administration. I agree that. I mean, listen, he's absolutely one of the most dangerous figures in the Trump orbit. Not because he's loud, but because he is methodical, he's strategic and he's unrelenting and has all of the worst instincts, all of the worst things. The cruelty of family separations, the Muslim ban, the push for mass deportations. All of this stuff traces back to Stephen Miller. Trump performs the outrage, but Miller is behind him drafting the plans. And the plans, you know, they turn the cruelest instincts into the law. And so it's easy to focus only on Trump. But Miller is the engine here, a coal, a coal fired engine behind some of the darkest policy shifts of the last decade. It's, he's not chaotic, he's very calculated. And that kind of makes him scary to a degree. He knows how to bend the legal system to the authoritarian ends that he and Trump want. And so I think it's really good to keep the spotlight on Stephen Miller. Miller doesn't go away when the cameras are off. Miller gets to work when the cameras are off. All right. Tim McClure said about recent reporting speculating about Donald Trump wearing leg braces or a urinary catheter. I don't give a damn about braces or a catheter. President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. What matters is his rapidly falling mental state and his commitment to being a dictator. Yeah, I mean, listen, people keep throwing around Trump's age and health to either attack him or to say, for his age, he's doing great. I don't think any of this is really about that. This is about fitness. No one cared that Roosevelt used the wheelchair. Well, I mean, it wasn't even known for a lot of Roosevelt's presidency, but Roosevelt had vision and he had discipline. Trump's problems aren't primarily physical. They're mental, emotional and moral. He's completely unmoored and erratic and obsessed with personal power and authoritarianism. However, however, the relevance of what is going on with Trump physically is also that while claiming that they are going to be the most transparent administration about everything and having attacked Joe Biden a million different ways for his health while releasing completely unbelievable health reports about Trump being the healthiest this and the most fit that they are clearly lying and hiding, they did it when Trump had Covid. So the relevance isn't, oh, if a president has leg braces, he can't be president. Of course he can. It's the dishonesty and how it all is used to fuel this authoritarian cult of personality. That's why we care about it. Send in your thoughts info@david pakman.com we will soon be relaunching the Substack. This is going to be great. I hope that you are on the Substack newsletter. You can find it on my website or@david pakman.substack.com I will see you on the bonus show. I'll see you back here Monday. Hi, I'm Chris Gethard and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to radio random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call. Talk to one of them. They stay anonymous. I can't hang up. That's all the rules. I never know what's gonna happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings. Crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose laugh. Somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's gonna happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous I am Rob Word, the.
- [61:29]
Mike Pence
Host and film historian of A Word.
- [61:32]
David Pakman
On Westerns and I'm RJ Word. None of my credentials make the most sense for this podcast, so I'm going to leave them out.
- [61:37]
Jake Tapper
Our award winning YouTube series award on Westerns is now a podcast.
- [61:42]
David Pakman
If you're even the slightest bit curious about the genre that shaped American film history, you've come to the right place.
- [61:48]
Mike Pence
Because we're going to be speaking with.
- [61:50]
Jake Tapper
Actors, filmmakers and creators about some of.
- [61:52]
Mike Pence
Your all time favorite Westerns every Monday on A Word on Westerns.