← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
6/27/25: Trump approval collapses as people are speaking in tongues
00:56:11
-- On the Show: -- Cory Booker, US Senator from New Jersey, joins David and Jesse Dollemore on Capitol Hill to discuss Democratic resistance to the Trump regime -- Donald Trump's approval rating is in free fall as poll after poll shows a dramatic...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show, everybody. You know, it's very easy to despair in this current political environment. And I don't have any solutions for you today in the sense of saying the long national nightmare is over. I don't have that. We're just not there right now. But one thing that can be nice is seeing public opinion correctly assess what's going on in the world. And to a degree, the strongman act of Donald Trump is falling apart. You can see it in the numbers, you can certainly hear it in his voice. You can feel it in the air. Trump losing altitude, hunched over, dejected at the Naito summit. But what has been going on with polling since the Iran fiasco started and gaffe after gaffe at Naito and all of it, well, poll after poll is showing a collapse. Ipsos Reuters has Trump at a -16 favorability. American Research Group has him at -21 favorability. Morning Consult, which is usually a softer landing for Trump, still has his net favorability at minus 8. And then you even have others where Trump's approval is starting to kind of dip down into the mid-30s to a degree. And this is, it's really not about one bad moment. It's an accumulation. It's the kind of slow motion humiliation that you can't do a rally and fix it. You can't, you know, do another all caps post and erase all of the problems that you've caused for yourself. He bombs Iran, he slurs out a word word salad about peace. He's sort of like a drunk guy yelling no hard feelings after breaking your nose. And everybody's of confused as to what's going on. And then we had the MAGA military parade, this taxpayer funded narcissistic ego trip which didn't really work very well. It ended in pure cringe and poorly attended. Trump's handlers pumping out graphics of him saluting jets, his press secretaries on TV declaring nuclear sites obliterated. When it doesn't actually seem that that's what the reporting and the data say. And the polls aren't reacting like they used to. I mean, the base is still there, but there's a lot of glazed over eyes. Of course I don't support what he's doing at this point in time. Now we've had a lot of people now familiarize themselves with this act and the script really hasn't changed. Polls show that people are sick of the actual. It's of course Democrats, it's a lot of independents and it's even some Republicans. You don't get numbers this crappy without some Republicans saying, I don't like it. The ICE raids in the suburban parking lots, they're not playing well. Elements where even on Fox News, you get little inklings of people saying, I don't really like this. It's not helping him. The truth. Social tantrums about fake pollsters and conspiracy theories against the king, not helping him. And meanwhile, you've got people like Steve Bannon and Tucker who kind of inched away around Iran, although Tucker now says, I did speak to the president, we're cool, everything's good. We've got this building situation for Trump as he unravels on the world stage in humiliating fashion. The mask of competence, if it was ever there, I don't think it was, but some people thought it was. That mask of competence is slipping. And underneath, you've still got a guy bragging about tariffs while inflation's eating people alive as they didn't get the price reductions that Trump promised Trump. You've got Trump bragging about all of the success in Iran, although the assessments say we've maybe set Iran and their nuclear ambitions back just a few months. But the part that is sort of a buzzkill, but is important to mention is that none of this crap matters unless Democrats figure out how to use it to win again and to get power. And so far, I'm not really seeing that Democrats are holding heads above water, but just barely. In some of the same polling that show Trump way down, you see Democrats not polling well either. And Trump's dropping bombs, losing allies, melting down on truth social every single day. And meanwhile, Democrats aren't really polling much better. Now, it's important to understand that oftentimes the out party, especially when they've just lost, isn't going to poll well no matter what they do. So Trump's cratering, but the alternative has to look like a lifeline. The alternative can't be. We're not Trump. It has to be something real. And we spoke about this with members, members of the House and Senate in D.C. this week. We're going to look start looking at some of those interviews today. It's not enough to watch someone fail. Has to be the takeaway. You've got to give people a vision of what's actually better about what you will do. And that part can sting a little bit because even with Trump unraveling, I don't believe at this point that Democrats have figured out how to step in and take the wheel. We're going to talk to Cory Booker next. We'll see what he has to say, but to me the messaging is muddy. The energy, I don't know. And when we always think, oh, this is the last straw. Trump's approvals going down to 18, it never happens. And Democratic polling is really not anything to write home about. So Trump's cratering support. But the question now is, can the Democratic Party figure out a way to take advantage of it? For me, right now the answer is I don't yet know. Caroline Levitt, White House Press Secretary, known to some as Soviet Barbie. I kind of am unsure whether my audience wants me using those nicknames. There's definitely a misogynistic aspect to it, but that's the one that's floating around now, Soviet Barbie. Let me know if that's sort of like unbecoming of a progressive show or what. Whatever you think, I don't know. Whatever we nickname her or not, she does presentations on camera both in the press briefing room and on tv, usually Fox News that would make North Korean and Soviet propaganda anchors blush. This is a lot. Caroline Levitt flipped out on a CNN reporter saying she is merely motivated by her hatred of Donald Trump. And there's a lot underlying this. Take a listen.
- [06:29]
Caroline Levitt
But that reporter is a sheep and she's a mouthpiece for people who don't like Donald Trump. And she only gave the White House an hour to respond. And that's again the same playbook. We've seen the fake news media play time and time again. But this story has now been debunked widely by not just the United States, but also Iran and Israel as well.
- [06:49]
David Pakman
You might be wondering, what is this about? Why is she so angry? Well, she is following Trump's lead as Caroline Levitt always does. And Donald Trump posted the following to Truth Social before this interview. Quote, natasha Bertrand should be fired from cnn. I watched her for three days doing fake news. She should immediately be reprimanded and then thrown out like a dog. She lied on the laptop from hell story and now she lied on the nuclear site story, attempting to destroy our Patriot pilots by making them look bad, when in fact they did a great job and hit pay dirt. Total obliteration. She should not be allowed to work at fake news cnn. It's people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great network. Her slant was so obviously negative. Besides, she doesn't have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent. Not even close. Fire. Natasha. I assume when Trump says she doesn't have what it takes to be on camera that Trump saying she's not attractive enough physically that seems to be Trump's big currency. And so what we are seeing is that when the dear leader says jump, everybody says, how high? And when Trump attacks a particular reporter, Caroline Levitt goes right into it as well. The likes of which anyone with familiarity with authoritarian regimes should understand the risk of. It's now, they've been doing it for a while. They did it to Jim Acosta in his first term. They sued George Stephanopoulos. We've seen it in inklings. But they are really targeting individual and specific members of the media. They want Natasha Bertrand fired, and we'll see if he succeeds at that. Now, back to Caroline Levitt. She also is claiming that even within the intel, the intelligence community, there are actors who want to make Trump look bad. And therefore, you've got to be really careful about what comes out of the intelligence community to Trump's intelligence community.
- [08:52]
Caroline Levitt
By the way, no other president in history could have ever dreamed of such a success. And that's exactly why the fake news media is now trying to demean and undermine the president. And we've seen this playbook be run before. You have hostile actors within the intelligence community who lick illegally leak bits and pieces of an intelligence assessment to push a fake news narrative. And that's what the CNN story was yesterday. And it's not a coincidence that it was written by the exact same CNN reporter who wrote the original story, falsely alleging that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. The American public are smarter than this and they should know the truth. President Trump completely and totally obliterated the capability of Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. And the world is safer today because of his historic efforts.
- [09:42]
David Pakman
Yelling something doesn't make it true. Repeating a lie doesn't make it true. This is truly both a dangerous and insane lie, because we now know nothing was obliterated. Iranians are going to be able to regroup. They're going to be able to continue where they left off, probably within just a few months, all because the orange leader tells fantastical lies. And people like Caroline Levitt need to go along with the lies. But at a certain point, at a certain point, we have to be able to say they're just not telling you the truth, but they're able to construct their own reality common of authoritarian regimes. And if you don't say that, you buy into it. You are exposed as being outside, you're not on our side. And then they attack you and then they demand that you be fired, like they're demanding with Natasha Bertrand from CNN right now. The Clampdown may come on any of us. And as we see the demands for Natasha Bertrand to be fired, we have to remember it could be us, too. And so I encourage you to get on our substack newsletter, David pakman.substack.com It's the one place we own our data. If the clampdown does come and we don't know if and when that will be, it's the only way I'll be able to get a hold of you and let you know what's going on. You can also email info@david pakman.com and say, hey, David, get me on that newsletter. We've got a great show. We're going to talk to Cory Booker and so many other great things. You know, when Joe Biden was president, I went to a couple of things at the White House at different points in time, and I stood in a very particular spot that people watching see on their screen right now. This is, it's one of the many entrances. I believe this one is sort of like between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. When I was there, no one was speaking in tongues. No one was praying. But this is a very different White House. A group with Donald Trump's faith office was indeed praying and speaking in tongues at the White House in the same spot. I've stood a few times before. If you've not, if you're not familiar with what it means to speak in tongues. It's also known as glossy lalia, glossa, lalia. Not totally sure about the pronunciation. And this is a sort of speaking in a language unknown to you. They go scabbard to be better. You know, stuff like this. And it's often Pentecostal Christians that do it, or in what are called charismatic Christian traditions, charismatic as a specific meaning in this context, it's not like, wow, what a charismatic person. But the idea is that the Holy Spirit is inside of you and it is forcing these utterances in a language scap at the bot, you know, stuff like this. So this is what happened at the White House, and this is, this is the White House under Trump. It does sound like a medical event. It does sound like a stroke of some kind. So you'll hear the two women sort of primarily leading the prayer. And then in the background, you'll hear people who, I guess are not having a medical emergency, they are speaking in tongues.
- [12:55]
Cory Booker
We just thank you right now from the east, the west, the north and the South. You will shake America with your power and your glory.
- [13:01]
David Pakman
Glory.
- [13:01]
Cory Booker
He canceled every assignment of the enemy this nation was.
- [13:05]
David Pakman
You hear that said about it? That's. That's the. I know it might not sound like it if you said about a bad about. About that is the Holy Spirit inside of you forcing out these statements to.
- [13:19]
Cory Booker
Be one nation under God. And we are standing on the soil of the White House and we are declaring your word. Every place that our float will come fraud. You will give it to us. And we are taking the land. We thank you, oh, Lord, you have brought us to the kingdom for a time such as this. And this is the time. And so we declare right now from.
- [13:37]
David Pakman
The capital of our nation, not later, mind you, they're declaring it right now.
- [13:42]
Cory Booker
That America will come back to God. We will come back to God. Nothing will stop this nation. And we speak right now by the authority of heaven. You told us to bring heaven to earth. Heaven is being released for your people.
- [13:56]
David Pakman
This is not a parody. I know there are people in my audience who just will say, david, I'm just listening today. I don't believe those people are really at the White House. I believe that this is some kind of SNL skit. This is not a sketch, a skit or a parody. This is the White House under Donald Trump. Now, I don't. You know, the irony is not lost on me, but it seems lost on these people that Iran, which has been in the news so much this week, Iran is run by radical theocrats, religious extremists. It is, but these people would turn the United States into a Christian version of that radical Iranian theocracy. It's just another flavor of it. These are not just visitors, by the way. These are these women. This group that it panned to. This is part of Donald Trump's religious outreach, officially tied to the administration, the faith Office, and. And this is what they're doing in the seat of American government. Now, if you've ever been around charismatic Christian rituals, this. It sounds like these are medical emergencies, a seizure, a stroke, something that warrants a call for help. But this is something being celebrated by Donald Trump's faith Office. And, you know, for. For all of the discussion as to, do we have separation of church and state or don't we? When we criticize Iran for being run by radical theocrats that suppress dissent and enforce religious morality and claim that their power comes from God, then we say, this is okay. When it is just a version of Christianity that wants to enforce religious morality, a civil law, and says that their power and their motivation and all of it also comes from God. What's the difference, okay, but this is a little bit of a different administration in the sense that these people don't just believe the United States is a Christian nation. They believe that God literally put Trump in power, that Trump was quite literally selected out of anyone to be the president. And they want laws on abortion based on their religion. They want laws on LGBT rights. Education should be based on their religion. Immigration should be based on the religion. Let's let Christians come, but not others. All of this is dictated by that belief about civil law. This is why Trump's administration slashed reproductive rights, banned books, erased trans health care protections, declared that church groups should have more political power rather than less. It's not just because of policy, but there are people who believe Trump is doing God's work. So this is absurd, this is ridiculous. But it's also very dangerous because these are not random people in a church basement. This is the faith office at the White House in power. They don't want a democracy, or if they do, they want a democracy where Christians are the ones that get votes, which isn't really a democracy, is it? They want a Christian version of Iran. And that should scare everybody who believes in what the founders actually intended. Hey, it's been a while since I spoke about podcaster and MMA commentator Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan has suddenly discovered that Donald Trump is arresting immigrants inside of Home Depot. And he's shocked. Shocked, I tell you, as if nobody saw this coming. As if Trump and Tom Homan and all of them didn't tell us exactly that this is what they were going to do. Here is Rogan explaining his shock ice.
- [17:38]
Joe Rogan
Raids are fucking nuts, man. Watching this protest on television, it's like doing.
- [17:44]
Jesse Dallimore
The raids are nuts. The pro, the. Yes. I think both sides are taking it a little too hard. Well.
- [17:51]
Joe Rogan
I don't think if they. The Trump administration, if they're running and they said, we're going to go to Home Depot and we're going to arrest all the people at Home Depot. We're going to go to construction sites and we're going to just, like, tackle people at constructions. I don't think anybody was signed up for that. They said, we're going to get rid of the criminals and the gang members first. Right. And now we're. We're seeing, like, Home Depots get raided. Like, that's crazy.
- [18:15]
David Pakman
This is really common. People pretend they didn't see it coming. With authoritarians, it happened specifically. Like, it's this big surprise when authoritarianism shows up in real life instead of just. I don't Know on x. On your YouTube feed. But we told them, and Trump told them. Trump campaigned on this stuff. Trump called for mass deportation. Forces, check. He said he would use local police. He said he would use the military if he needs to. The military, the National Guard if he needs to. He said he was going to do the largest domestic immigration crackdown in American history. He said immigrants were invaders, animals poisoning the blood of our country. It wasn't subtle language. And it's happening. I mean, they're just doing it now. ICE is dragging fathers off job sites, people just working to feed their families, splitting up families in parking lots. And all of a sudden, Rogan's like, bro, this is nuts. But this is the game. These guys, it's. It's such a common thing. They flirt with reactionary politics. When it's abstract, it's memes, it's free speech and vague slogans about freedom and sovereignty. But the second the ideas hit the ground in real life, people start getting hurt. You see the videos of this happening to people they claim, who knew it could have gone this far? Who could have possibly. But it's partially because of Rogan. Rogan helped normalize this stuff. He platformed Trump and Trump's allies. He echoed their rhetoric. He said it's the obvious choice. He endorsed Trump. He downplayed the authoritarianism fears over and over, and now he wants to act like he's a bystander, and he's like, wow, this is really crazy. I had nothing to do with this thing and had no idea this was going to happen. Well, Trump told us it was going to happen, and you helped promote it. Sort of like stomping on the gas pedal. And then all of a sudden, you go, this car is in a ditch. We got to figure out who's responsible, because nobody could have predicted this. Trump hadn't even really, and still hasn't really built the new deportation force. He hasn't yet suspended habeas corpus. Maybe he will. He hasn't started his denaturalization task force. Remember that? We're going to look at people who have been granted citizenship, like me, right? Born in another country. We're going to see about denaturalizing people that hasn't started yet. So if this is Rogan's breaking point, where he goes, this is fucking nuts. He is not only too late, but it's also really early because some of the really crazy stuff hasn't yet happened. So remember, when they go, no. Nobody could have predicted this would have gone so off the rails. We predicted it Trump said he was going to do it, they ignored it, and now they're all pretending to be surprised because the alternative would be, you made this happen. And admitting that is very, very difficult for a lot of people. So this is going to be, you know, I'm not super in the manosphere. I sort of follow it to the degree that I need to, to have a sense of what's going on so I can talk about it on the show. I don't really know right now whether any of the other manosphere hosts have started to express concerns recently about Trump. I know we covered a couple of rumblings some months ago. If they are, let me know because it would be very interesting if the manosphere big picture ended up turning on Trump after being one of the biggest reasons that Trump got elected again in the first place. Let me know what you think. We're going to take a break. We're going to hear some of your feedback and so much more. I was in Washington, D.C. this week and we did a number of really interesting interviews with senators and members of the House. And today we're going to look at my interview with Cory Booker. I sat down for these interviews alongside progressive host Jesse Dallimore. So you'll hear both of us talking to Senator Booker. We talked about a lot of different things. Let's take a look at that right now.
- [22:14]
Jesse Dallimore
I think that, like, really one of the hardest things, I was just saying this to my girlfriend. We're not in our 20s anymore. I should just say speak for yourself. But I think one of the secrets of life is the ability to go from utter discouragement to utter discouragement and not lose your energy and enthusiasm. And when I meet people like John Lewis, who in his final months of his life, I went with him on a road trip from Atlanta to Plains, Georgia to hear Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school and people. It was one of. I had never seen anything like it in my life. People were waiting out from the night before, sleeping out like it was some kind of top concert. And it was ecumenical. There were Hindus there, Muslims there, Jews there, Christians there, all coming to hear Jimmy Carter cheap Sunday school in the last months or years of his life. And on that road trip, I asked John Lewis tough questions like, you made all these advancements in voting rights. Now you watch the Supreme Court gut the Voting Rights Act. You made sort of these advancements in ideals of equality that are now being vilified and attacked by Donald Trump. And yet he wasn't fazed. And he just seemed to let me know that this Pathway is not linear towards justice. And so I had this discouraging moment on the floor like a week or so ago where one of these Republicans who I've worked with across the aisle, and I would never characterize him as like, he and I have vast differences, but we have found ways to do things together. And I was teasing him about that. I was saying, you being a friend, if you want me to, if you're going to run for re election, I'll come down and tell people how awful you are. That might help you. And then he looked very sad at me and he said, I'm not running for reelection and the bad thing for you is that when I leave, you're going to get somebody that is, as you said, a different type of Republican. In other words. And he would say not even, he wouldn't even use that word, probably Republican, because of what we're seeing, which is not about a party, it's about a person right now. And that person, right or wrong, you fall in line and that's why it's wrong.
- [24:31]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, well, this is sort of, I mean, it kind of gets us right into where I think we wanted to start, which is like there's sort of two things happening simultaneously right now. On the one hand, we have exactly what you're describing, where these are not disagreements as to like should the top tax rate be 37 or 39.6. These are much bigger sort of disagreements where we've been saying, is there even any, can you, can you even work with some of these folks? On the other hand, there are these little cracks that do seem to be forming. Yes on Iran, yes on he really was the anti war candidate or he wasn't or it's technically not a war or whatever. What do you think is more, are these cracks relevant in terms of your ability to get things done that you want to get done, or is this really just the facade of independence that we're seeing from Republicans? And at the end of the day, it's oppose anything Democrats want to do.
- [25:20]
Jesse Dallimore
So I, I mean, the best answer to that question is I don't know. I mean, you just don't know. And you have to keep whacking away at that implacable wall of resistance no matter what, even if those cracks are real or not, you can't stop hitting the wall. And you know, look, I'm like, my friends tell me I'm like, I'm a prisoner of hope always. I'm so often. But this is a day that I'm really having a hard Time. I'm struggling right now. And I think it was the end of my day yesterday where I watch these incredible working Americans within a union, seiu, who are working hard. I know what they do for their union, I know the money they make. But they're crowding here in the heat of yesterday to stand out and protest this bill with horrible, difficult stories about even though they're working full time jobs, how barely they're holding it together. And then this is what I went home to tell my girlfriend about. And it gets me emotional. This woman who's out here struggling, older woman, still working a full time job, reminded me of a relative of mine, says to me, we're gonna keep fighting, we're gonna keep fighting. And by the way, Cory, I'm a monthly contributor to you. And that's what hit me, that this woman who's struggling has put her faith in me, whatever it is, a reoccurring monthly donation of like what is maybe a dollar or five dollars, because she wants to do everything she can to fight for the health care of other Americans. And so I honestly, the suffering in the world right now, from Ukraine to Gaza to. Nobody's talking about Sudan, the greatest. And I know the Americans that used to be there trying to provide aid and support that are no longer in Sudan. I was standing there on the Chad, Sudan border, seeing the horrors of human suffering that have now been pulled away. And so today is a day where I'm just like keeping it together, keeping fighting, keeping whacking at the wall. But my heart's broken and my spirit is struggling. But I will tell you this. There's too much on the line for us to stop fighting every day to keep trying to win this battle.
- [27:36]
Unknown Speaker
Let me pick a big piggyback off of that. I think it's a, it's a great segue because so many people in the party, my audience, I'm certain David's audience, are so disappointed right now, disheartened. You talked about going from disappointment to disappointment and trying to keep your resolve. What do you say to, to my audience that. That want resistance, they want a fight and they want people to be standing up to Donald Trump. What's the plan going forward to stop leaning into allowing Donald Trump even an inch by voting for his legislation and his agenda and his nominees? When are we going to actually be an opposition party and not the minority party?
- [28:17]
Jesse Dallimore
So I want to answer that question in two ways. One, and I'll be as brief as possible. So as the only senator that goes home to a community Black and brown community below the poverty line, where we don't mistake wealth with worth, where there are struggles going on that so many Americans face from all backgrounds, but we don't talk about enough. And so in my community, you see the ravages of gun violence. And by the way, I always tell people this. When I was mayor, all my shootings, except for one, were done by people who illegally acquired guns. And this is a president that is tearing down the ATF to enforce our gun laws in order to have more money to abduct people off more resources to abduct people off the streets who threat. Who no threat to us whatsoever. And I'll never forget my tenant president when I lived in the high rise projects, whose son was murdered in the building in which I would eventually move into, who just always taught me that what real hope is. And I face again, I've been shattered by the children that I knew, all the kids that used to hang out in the lobby, Shinzi, a lot of the boys that used to hang out in the lobby, Hassan, Washington, I can go. Shahad. All are dead right now from gun violence. And yet somehow Ms. Jones and others would say that real hope is just not letting despair have the last word. So the first thing I just want to tell people is do not let him have the last word. Do not let him be the main character of this story. Keep the focus on the fight. Keep the focus on the people you're fighting for. Let them be your motivation. Now, as far as the larger Democratic Party politics, we as a people, all of us, have an obligation to find more creative ways of fighting this battle than the typical stuff. I don't know. You know, as an opposition party, you and I can disagree on tactics, but much of what we're doing here is not breaking through to the larger public. I'm coming from a hearing. Much of what I said there is passionately, as I said this, not breaking through. We've got to find creative ways of helping the folks that are on the sidelines right now get into the game, because King said this, that we have to repent for is not just the vitriolic words, violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. And so the strategies that I always try to tell my team we've got to do is fight them in the courts, fight them procedurally in every way we can. But we've got to find a way to be an ignition point and get more people understanding what's at stake and more of the good people into the game because we outnumber them. I know we do. And so that's what I'm pushing my colleagues and others. This is why we did the 25 hours on the floor. This is why we did the sit in on the steps. This is why we're already plotting what are the next good trouble we're going to do to try to get more people activated?
- [31:08]
Unknown Speaker
And is there or are there specific either policy or action items that you think would be most effective at getting people together? In the context that for all of our criticisms of the way that MAGA has run politics, Donald Trump is able to come up with some ideas that really coalesce people.
- [31:27]
David Pakman
They're bad ideas.
- [31:28]
Unknown Speaker
They're based on often incorrect information. But whether it's trade or immigration or crime, they get people united putting their smaller differences aside and voting together to win elections after the election.
- [31:41]
David Pakman
It's haywire.
- [31:41]
Jesse Dallimore
Right.
- [31:42]
Unknown Speaker
But for the purposes of winning the elections, they've come up with these kernels.
- [31:46]
David Pakman
What. What are they for the Democrats.
- [31:48]
Jesse Dallimore
Well, so I hope you guys will let me come sit down with you before the next election. And a year from this, November, still a long way away. But I'm going to. I'm going to just put a bookmark to tell you that we had better policies as a party. When you pulled them independent of the people, more people agreed with our policies. But he was a better salesman. Yes. He was on the. He was communicating in spaces that we didn't even communicate in. You know, they were on Discord and Twitch. They were doing the kind of communications that we should have been doing. So they had a better. They had a great messenger, whether you like him or not. They were using the mediums and then the messages. And part of that message is, do you trust me enough to know that even I'll do the things I say I'm gonna do?
- [32:37]
Unknown Speaker
Right.
- [32:37]
Jesse Dallimore
And I think that both parties have lost the trust game. How do I make a statement like that is because you basically had two people. One got 49.7%, the other one got 49.3%. Most of America reject. The majority of Americans voted against both candidates. There wasn't this, like, wave election where I believe that leader has captured my moral imagination. Makes me feel in my heart that their vision of America includes me and my family. And so if we're going to be a Democratic Party, it's not just the policies. But, yeah, I want to be able to say to people, this is a shitty country to raise a child in. We don't give maternal care. We don't give paid family leave. We push women out back into the workplace a week or two after they've had their kid. It's more expensive in most states to have childcare than it is to go to state tuition college. That we are the worst on things like giving tax breaks to working class people. We give them all to the policies we need to have the messages. But we're losing our faith as a society in the very idea of the American dream. And the next leaders need to be able to redeem the dream and restore the trust that we can do something. Now that's electoral politics. My fear right now is how many thousands of Americans will die before the next election because they don't have health care? How many thousands of Americans will die because their emphysema or their asthma is going to get so much worse because of the particulate matter that Donald Trump has allowed polluted to pay? How many public lands that we from Idaho to New Jersey are they going to give away to oil companies and others that we can never get back together? I'm worried that between now and that election the harms that they're going to do are going to become irreparable. They're going to cost people's lives, they're going to cost people's livelihoods. There's already an extinction level event going on for small businesses in this country because folks don't realize that as tariffs have made the baby carriage in the back seat hundreds of dollars more expensive and that have hurt those businesses that can't pass along those charges. So that's why I get this question all the time and it pisses me off. But I have to answer it to people when I'm sitting with a reporter, usually more mainstream media than folks like you all and they say to me what are you going to do to save the Democratic Party? It polls lower than colonoscopies and cockroaches. And I say to folks, I'm not interested in saving the Democratic Party right now. I'm interested in serving the American people, not a frickin party. And I think actually in that answer is the secret for the Democratic Party. Because if we're all concerned about Democrats, screw that Americans out there, most of us are barely affiliating with either one of the two parties now. They're just trying to make a way for their family. And we've got to get back to having leaders that are more concerned with people than parties.
- [35:32]
David Pakman
Senator, thank you so much.
- [35:34]
Unknown Speaker
One more, one more. I love all of that. Yeah, but when, listen, we exist in a new political order. The old way of my good friend across the aisle, it doesn't exist anymore. So when is a bridge too far for elected officials to stop advancing the agenda of Donald Trump?
- [35:54]
Jesse Dallimore
So look, because we want a good.
- [35:58]
Unknown Speaker
Partner in governance and you don't have that now. Yeah, we're not governing if you're bending the knee to. Not you.
- [36:07]
Jesse Dallimore
Right.
- [36:07]
Unknown Speaker
Specifically.
- [36:08]
Jesse Dallimore
Right, right. But, but I want to address that because it has visited upon me like. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to anonymize this, but there was something really bad happening to Americans working for government abroad. And I was able to reach out to somebody in the Trump administration that's name's not a necessarily household name, but I had that relationship. I can't, I'm not stopping him from doing a lot of this stuff. But the fact that this person knows me to be an honorable person and somebody I supported, even though I don't support the president, I was able to get that reversed. And so I hear people oftentimes saying we need moral absolutism. People want that right now. And I am willing, I just need to tell folks that what we need is the best strategies to deliver results for people. And we may disagree on tactics, but if we start within our party creating this sense of moral absolutism, it's going to hurt our coalition. Because if everybody in your coalition agrees on everything, your coalition is not big enough. And so I've shown in my career, from my early days as a city councilman doing 10 day hunger strikes and fighting, living in a mobile home, I will go to great extremes in my service, but I'm not always going to agree on everything. Right now, I don't want to become Donald Trump just to beat Donald Trump. I was running for a town hall stage in Iowa back when I ran for president in 2019, 2020. And I'm about to jump up on the stage and some a big guy. I'm a former tight end for Stanford. This guy looked like he was a former linebacker for Iowa State. And he goes, dude, I want you to punch Donald Trump in the face. And I look at him and I go, dude, that's a felony, man. And so I asked him if I could tease him. I jump up on the stage and I say this to a huge crowd of people. I said, this guy said to me I should punt. And everybody roared in applause. And I was like, this is going to be a short run for President, but that's not how we win. Now. This is a big fight. People like, oh, when they go low, you go high. Da, da, da. I'm sorry. I have an Oscar nominated documentary about me called Street Fight, about fighting in urban politics and winning, but not sacrificing my soul. And what I know from the people that I most herald in my life as heroes, from Harvey Milk to Alice Paul, these are incredible Americans in the suffrage movement and the LGBTQ movement that found ways to fight by not sacrificing their truth. And the best example is we didn't beat Bull Connor by bringing bigger dogs and bigger fire hoses. What they were able to do, which is what we need to do in this moral moment, is they were able to say, as bad as they are, George Wallace, Bull Connor, we are not going to become them. The challenge is to ignite the people who are bystanders to history. And by them standing in front of them, they were able to call to the conscience of this country and thousands of people joined their fight. The reason why this bill, literally, I have to motivate myself in the morning to come back for another day to fighting because this bill is so close to passing on the Senate. And the reason why it is is because right now, too many people's voices are not being heard. You know what Jefferson said? Jefferson said, when people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears its people, there is liberty. Well, there are a whole bunch of senators here. How do I know it? Because they whisper it to me in the elevator that disagree with what Donald Trump is doing. But you know who they fear? They fear the president and his reprisals more than they fear the American people. And you know what that means? That the equation to shift this lies on us, the American people, that telling those folks, if you vote against my health care, if you vote against my food stamps or my meals on wheels, if you vote against my disabled child, if you vote against the veteran in my state who just got fired by Doge, if you vote against them, I'm coming after your job. You better fear me more than you fear him, because your days are numbered. And until we shift that equation, you, these guys are going to follow that man to their detriment. Right now we have a Republican party that is laying down when they know that what hegseth tweeting out plans on signal to reporters, they know that he's unqualified for that position. I can go through from the beginning of his administration to now how many things I know that they know is not right, but they're following it because they're afraid of him more than they're concerned about the American people. And so, look, I will not agree with everybody on everything. But the big challenge right now. The things that make me get up in the morning or go to bed at night feeling so shattered is because I am not worried about the next election days. Now, we are from days of passing a bill out of this Senate that the majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents think is horrible. And it will have real effects on the kind of people I was with outside last night who are doing everything they can standing in the heat for hours, giving dollars to elected leaders like me, who they believe in. These are the people we've got to fight for right now. This is the test of our character. This is the moral moment. And in the way they responded in the civil rights movement, in the suffrage movement, in the environmental movement, and so many things that have altered our labor movement, altered our country. This is another crossroads for our country. And I'm praying people, your audience will think to themselves, what more can I do in this fight to make those Republicans listen to me? And if they fail, I'm going to stay involved and I'll make them answer for it in the next election.
- [42:02]
Unknown Speaker
You're good at this.
- [42:02]
David Pakman
Thank you.
- [42:03]
Unknown Speaker
You should run for office.
- [42:05]
Jesse Dallimore
I appreciate it. Right now, I just want to run some days, but we're going to all stay in the fight.
- [42:10]
Unknown Speaker
Absolutely.
- [42:11]
Jesse Dallimore
Thank you.
- [42:11]
David Pakman
Thank you.
- [42:12]
Jesse Dallimore
Thank you very much.
- [42:13]
David Pakman
All right, let's get into Friday feedback. Your opportunity to send in questions, comments, criticisms, and occasionally trolling. And I will respond to some of it. You can email, you can post on Tik Tok. You can post to YouTube. We'll sometimes look at Spotify comments. It's all fair game, is the point. All right, on YouTube, Secret Society of Goths said Pacman's letting the beard grow and wearing goth tees. Shit's getting serious. Well, I don't know that I have any goth tees, to be honest, but there is really no grand esthetic plan here. I know that there is a small sliver of the audience that is very carefully analyzing everything I do. Is my hair weirdly pointy on one side, or am I sending some kind of message with the shirt I'm wearing? It's more like, what amount of time does my toddler provide me with to get myself ready? If I have time to shave, I do it, and if I don't, the beard grows. There's no, like, look that I'm going for. Here it's really not a branding shift of any kind. It's just like, what? What can I do? But it is funny how people pick up on these visual changes and they're often interpreted as signals. And we're leaving and really leaving behind what I think is the most important thing, which is, where am I on authoritarianism? Where am I on anyway? And it's all the personal is getting very political and everything has meaning, but in my case, it really doesn't have meaning. I'm just trying to, you know, keep. Keep the hygiene going to the extent that I can. All right, next is from the subreddit. It's Red Ash who said, is there any chance Elon is faking his divorce with Trump? In the sense that this bickering between them is just a ruse to distract from other failings of the administration, such as the disastrous bills, the failures in foreign policy, and to hide the crypto scandals. So, you know, I understand why people look for meaning and signal in the noise and the chaos. Is this a distraction from that? Was that coordinated in order to make people not pay attention to this other thing? I just think it all gives this administration way too much credit. The idea that they have a long game where they carefully use strategic distractions. We've seen zero evidence of that whatsoever. When I see what appears to be dysfunction, I have every reason to believe that it is dysfunction and not design. And so the Trump Musk fallout was certainly predictable. And we'll get to that in a moment. It's sort of like what happens when egos collide and everybody wants the spotlight. I believe that. That it is genuine. The administration's failures don't really. I mean, listen, it's all out in plain view. I don't think sleight of hand is responsible for what we see. And so when we see a fight or a contradiction, I mean, just look at over the weekend. The Iran stuff is not regime change to course we would want regime change. Why not? Trump gets in on it and Caroline Levitt gets in on it. I just think this is. This is the policy. It's total chaos, fights on social media, a and then the next day, who would ever want a. That. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So, no, I don't attribute malice where stupidity and incompetence are enough. Now, relatedly, Tim Ubrin wrote on the subreddit, how did David from the beginning predict that the Trump Musk romance will fail in the end? I remember tuning into the show all the way back in the early months of the second term and could hear David say again and again that this relationship won't last. And lo and behold, now took him less than a year. You know, I love the praise, right? Because there's so much negativity in the email. I don't believe that it was a particularly insightful or prescient prediction that the Trump Musk romance was going to implode. Trump doesn't want to share power. Elon Musk doesn't want to take orders. Elon Musk is used to his money getting him absolutely whatever he wants. When you look at two egomaniacs come together in that way, it's very obviously an arrangement with a shelf life, and not a particularly long one, because once the Photoshop, the photo ops, rather, are over and Trump starts to get annoyed with Elon kind of hanging around, Elon starts getting annoyed with the fact that Trump does whatever the last person who he talks to suggests he should do, it all boils over. And it was transactional from the beginning, not ideological. And it stopped. The transaction stopped working, if that makes sense. What's wild is how much people projected onto the Trump Musk relationship. There were people who said, oh, Musk is the libertarian tech savior. He's going to temper Trump's worst impulses. And it turns out that if you put two guys who think that they're the smartest in the room in the same room, it's a matter of time before it implodes. So I would love to take more credit for it, but unfortunately, I think that it was a relatively obvious prediction. All right, Norin Rad on Facebook says, I'm all for peaceful protests. We need to keep the protests peaceful. But, David, how long do the people keep it peaceful? It seems like the taco regime keeps escalating things. I've talked about this in a number of different contexts. I think the instinct to stay peaceful is correct and powerful, and history shows that it works. Civil rights movements, mass labor actions, even some revolutions have made real change without violence. There's also a pattern that we sometimes see, which is when governments escalate with repression, people naturally start to say, can we do this peacefully? If they just repress, can. Can we really accomplish the change we want peacefully? And some people are bringing that up right now. So I'm going to go to history, right? I'm not going to be here advocating for violence, because I don't. I advocate for peaceful protest. I also am a student of history. And what we see is that the longer administrations or regimes ignore legitimate grievances. Respond with crackdowns, etc. The more it pushes people to the age, to the edge. So while I am not advocating violence, because I never do, I'm against it. I think it's also necessary to acknowledge that the states have power that when abused, can radicalize the very people they want to silence. And so without advocating violence, I'm acknowledging that that is something we have seen historically and I hope that it doesn't come to that. Terminal willness on Reddit said David's argument against socialism can someone elaborate on the reason David doesn't outright endorse socialism? I've heard him explain his rationale before, but he seemed strangely unwilling to really go into it. My take is he opposes socialism because he doesn't want something he believes is coercive to become prominent. Is that right? Can someone flush it out? Well, I can flesh it out, since it's my view. First of all, the reason I don't outright endorse socialism is I am not a socialism, a socialist. I just. Why would I endorse something I don't believe in? I believe in markets for many things because I'm a small l libertarian. I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party. What I mean is on a spectrum between authoritarianism or libertarianism from the government, I default to libertarianism unless there's a good reason to involve the government. Health care, there's a good reason to involve the government. Education, housing, these are basic human needs. If we leave them to market forces, we get suffering, we get inequality, we get people with a lower standard of living than anyone needs to have in a rich country. So that's why I identify as a social Democrat for other things, you know, basketball sneakers or tablet computers or whatever. I think markets are fine at allocating resources. So I don't oppose socialism because I think equality is bad. If we're talking about equality of opportunity. I oppose socialism because to impose it on all industries is authoritarian if it's done by the government. Now, if individual companies say we're going to be a co op, I love that. That is the libertarian, small l libertarian way. Let companies that want to be co ops be co ops. So I believe in using democratic means through taxation the way Northern European countries do to fund universal, universal programs and strong public goods, strong public schools, regulate anywhere that is necessary. But I don't want to impose that ideology from above. So that's why I am not a socialist. OK. Edward Richardson wrote on YouTube about last week's protests and Trump's military parade. 12 million protesters, 8,600 at Trump's parade. You know, sometimes the numbers don't tell you everything you need to know. These numbers tell you a lot. Not just about turnout, but also about momentum. When millions mobilize and protest while a sitting president struggles to fill a parade route, that is more than a messaging problem. That's a legitimacy crisis. People don't take to the streets in these numbers, and I wish they were bigger, but people don't take to the streets in these numbers unless they feel unheard, betrayed, afraid. Mass protests aren't just about optics. They really are barometers of public trust. When trust collapses, it becomes difficult to govern by fear, spectacle, or nostalgia. And so Trump can hold as many of these parades as he wants if people don't show up. And by the way, some of the people showing up were protesting the parade. It's just a performance. It's really not leadership. And that terrifies Trump because to a great degree, above all else, Trump really wants to be liked, and a lot of people do not like him. Dog boy says, I'm having a good laugh listening to the MAGA faithful trying to put a positive spin on Trump's military parade debacle. Yeah, it's actually more than just spin. We saw desperation when an event so clearly flops and the response is pretend it was a success. Stephen Chung, I believe his name is, was talking about how awesome and successful it was. These are cult dynamics. The goal becomes protect the image of the dear leader at all costs. Even if it's completely unbelievable. Even if anybody who wanted could have tuned in and seen a silent parade route with a squeaky tank rolling by, you've got to say that it was awesome. And it's important to remember that optics were one part of Trump's military parade, but also asserting power was part of it. And when the assertion of power is met with empty bleachers and squeaky tanks, it does send a message. This guy may not really have the strength and testicular fortitude that he Claims to have. MG with an exhausting message on YouTube. Says he's only been in office for 147 days. Let that sink in. Yeah, I mean, we've gone from inauguration to burnout. It was a lot quicker than 147 days. But this is about the exhausting nature of the volume of the insane headlines, the content of the headlines, the scandals, the policy failures, the firings, the authoritarianism. This is not like a normal political situation. And people are exhausted, but also the content creators are exhausted. Everybody I talk to comes to me on the verge of tears and they say, you know, I took an hour to go play basketball with my friends as we often hear people talk about Trump that way. I took an hour to play basketball. I came back, we had bombed Iran or whatever, right? Insert the appropriate story. There is a sheer pace of chaos that makes it hard to cover this stuff. It also makes people numb. It makes them tune out. It makes people say, oh, is my resistance futile because what can I really do about all this? But I think the important thing to remember is when we tune out, then they get to do whatever they want unopposed and that we definitely don't want. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube.com/the David Pakman Show. Make sure you're getting my substack@david pakman.substack.com we will see you on the bonus show. And I will be back next week, of course.